System Design – Rate Limiter Design
Practice system design interview questions on designing a rate limiter. Cover algorithms, storage, and distributed considerations. Answer questions and receive feedback on trade-offs. Ideal for software engineer system design prep. First 2 questions are free with full feedback.
- Level Intermediate
- Questions 12
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System Design – Rate Limiter Design interview questions
All 12 questions on this track, in the order you answer them. In the quiz you answer one at a time — type or speak — then get a score and feedback.
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How would you design a rate limiter?
What a strong answer includes
Defines limits, algorithm, and storage.
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Where would you store rate limit counters?
What a strong answer includes
Redis or in-memory.
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How do you handle distributed rate limiting?
What a strong answer includes
Shared store.
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What algorithm would you choose and why?
What a strong answer includes
Token bucket or sliding window.
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How do you return rate limit errors?
What a strong answer includes
429 with retry headers.
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How do you rate limit by user vs IP?
What a strong answer includes
Different keys.
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How do you avoid race conditions?
What a strong answer includes
Atomic increments.
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How do you set different limits per endpoint?
What a strong answer includes
Configurable rules.
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What happens when Redis is down?
What a strong answer includes
Fail open or fail closed decision.
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How do you test a rate limiter?
What a strong answer includes
Simulate traffic and check limits.
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How do you communicate limits to clients?
What a strong answer includes
Headers like X-RateLimit-Remaining.
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Describe rate limiting for a public API.
What a strong answer includes
Per-key limits and clear errors.