UserRateThrottle in Django Rest FrameWork

Moreover, this allows you to ensure that your API server can handle traffic without overloading or crashing. Additionally, UserRateThrottle helps prevent users from abusing your API resources, leading to a better user experience. Furthermore, DRF also provides other built-in throttling classes such as AnonRateThrottle and ScopedRateThrottle to limit anonymous user requests and limit requests by specific scopes respectively. These throttling classes can help prevent abuse of your API and ensure that it remains performant for all users.

The UserRateThrottle class determines the rate at which requests can be made using the user ID. By default, it restricts the number of requests to one per second. Hence, if a user makes additional requests within a second, the server will throttle them, resulting in a 429 “Too Many Requests” response.

To use UserRateThrottle, you need to add it to the list of throttling classes in your DRF settings. Here’s an example:

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_THROTTLE_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.throttling.UserRateThrottle',
    ],
    'DEFAULT_THROTTLE_RATES': {
        'user': '10/minute'
    }
}

This code adds UserRateThrottle to the list of default throttling classes, and sets the rate limit for individual users to 10 requests per minute. You can adjust the rate limit as needed for your specific use case.

It’s worth noting that UserRateThrottle only limits the rate at which individual users can make requests.

Other built-in DRF throttling classes, such as the AnonRateThrottle or the ScopedRateThrottle, allow you to limit the rate at which all requests to your API can be made.

Additionally, you can use these classes to regulate the amount of traffic your API receives.Alternatively, you can create your own custom throttling class.

A simple project on UserRateThrottle in Django

To limit the number of requests made by each user, we’ll create a simple API that enables users to retrieve a list of books from a database.

Here are the steps to create this project:

1. Create a new Django project and app:

django-admin startproject throttle_project
cd throttle_project
python manage.py startapp books

2. Install Django Rest Framework:

pip install djangorestframework

3. Add ‘rest_framework’ to the INSTALLED_APPS list in settings.py.
4. Define a Book model in models.py:

from django.db import models

class Book(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    author = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    description = models.TextField()
    published_date = models.DateField()

5. Define a Book serializer in serializers.py:

from rest_framework import serializers
from books.models import Book

class BookSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ('id', 'title', 'author', 'description', 'published_date')

6. Define a Book view in views.py:

from rest_framework import generics
from rest_framework.throttling import UserRateThrottle
from books.models import Book
from books.serializers import BookSerializer

class BookList(generics.ListAPIView):
    queryset = Book.objects.all()
    serializer_class = BookSerializer
    throttle_classes = [UserRateThrottle]

7. Define a URL pattern in urls.py:

from django.urls import path
from books.views import BookList

urlpatterns = [
    path('books/', BookList.as_view(), name='book_list'),
]

8. Set the default rate for UserRateThrottle in settings.py:

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_THROTTLE_RATES': {
        'user': '10/minute'
    }
}

9. Run the server:

python manage.py runserver

he /books/ endpoint now allows you to make requests, but each user has a limit of 10 requests per minute.If a user exceeds this limit, the server will return a 429 “Too Many Requests” response.

That’s it! This is a simple example of how to use UserRateThrottle in Django to limit the rate of requests made by individual users to your API. Of course, you can customize the rate limit and other settings to suit your specific needs.