Express Custom Rate Limiter

A customizable rate limiter middleware for Express applications that allows you to define rate limits based on a configurable time window and maximum number of requests. This package helps you control the traffic to your API endpoints, prevent abuse, and improve overall server performance.

Features

• 🕒 Set custom time windows (in minutes) for rate limiting.
• 🚦 Define maximum requests allowed per time window.
• 🛑 Custom error messages for rate-limited responses.
• 🔄 Apply rate limiting globally or to specific routes, including nested routes.

Installation

To use this package in your Express application, you need to install it via npm.

Install via npm

npm i api-rate-limiter-middleware

Usage

Basic Usage

Here's a simple example of how to use the api-rate-limiter-middleware package in an Express application.

const express = require('express');
const createRateLimiter = require('api-rate-limiter-middleware');

const app = express();

// Apply the rate limiter globally with a 5-minute window and a maximum of 10 requests
const limiter = createRateLimiter({ minutes: 5, maxRequests: 10 });
app.use(limiter);

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Welcome to the home page!');
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server running on http://localhost:3000');
});

Applying Rate Limiter to Specific Routes

To apply the rate limiter to specific routes only, you can create multiple instances of the limiter and use them where needed.

const express = require('express');
const createRateLimiter = require('api-rate-limiter-middleware');

const app = express();

// Create different rate limiters for different routes
const globalLimiter = createRateLimiter({ minutes: 5, maxRequests: 100 });
const productLimiter = createRateLimiter({ minutes: 2, maxRequests: 20 });

// Apply the global limiter for all requests
app.use(globalLimiter);

// Apply the product limiter to /products and its nested routes
app.use('/products', productLimiter);

app.get('/products', (req, res) => {
  res.send('All products');
});

app.get('/products/:id', (req, res) => {
  res.send(`Product details for ID: ${req.params.id}`);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server running on http://localhost:3000');
});

Advanced Usage: Applying to Nested Routes

If you have nested routes, you can also apply the limiter to specific child routes.

const express = require('express');
const createRateLimiter = require('api-rate-limiter-middleware');

const app = express();

// Rate limiter for all requests to /products routes and its nested paths
const productLimiter = createRateLimiter({ minutes: 1, maxRequests: 5 });

app.use('/products', productLimiter);

app.get('/products', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Product list');
});

app.get('/products/:id', (req, res) => {
  res.send(`Product details for ID: ${req.params.id}`);
});

app.get('/products/:id/reviews', (req, res) => {
  res.send(`Reviews for product ID: ${req.params.id}`);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server running on http://localhost:3000');
});