Every online service faces the challenge of handling unpredictable surges in traffic. When too many requests hit your system at once—whether from legitimate users or malicious actors—critical resources can become overwhelmed. This can result in slower response times, degraded performance, or even complete outages.

Rate limiting and throttling are two essential strategies you use to prevent these problems. By controlling how many requests each user or client can make within a given time frame, you protect your infrastructure from being overloaded. This not only keeps your system stable during high-traffic events but also ensures that all users have fair access to resources.

In real-world scenarios, you rely on rate limiting to block abusive behaviors, such as bots attempting to brute-force passwords or scrape your data. Throttling helps you smooth out traffic spikes, allowing your system to handle bursts gracefully without sacrificing performance for everyone. By implementing these techniques, you maintain service availability, protect critical operations, and deliver a consistent experience—even when faced with unexpected demand.