New feature: configurable web service rate limiting

At Assertible, we've taken a unique approach with a web-serviced based architecture that closely models real-world APIs and web apps. This has several advantages in how you can represent your tests, endpoints and more. We're excited to release a new feature made possible by this unique approach: configurable rate limiting for web services.

The rate limit setting lets you control how many requests per second will hit your web service. Many APIs and web apps have built-in request throttling to prevent rogue users from pounding the servers. When your setting up automated API tests and monitoring, it's convenient to be able to model this effectively, which is now supported through the rate limit setting.

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How Rate Limit works

The Rate Limit setting represents the maximum number of requests per second that will hit your server. When your tests are run, like via a Schedule or Deployment, this rate limit will be used to throttle how fast the HTTP requests are sent to your service.

The default Rate Limit is 15 requests/s. This is generally a good starting point for most services, but you can configure this setting to your specific use-case.

Requests are throttled per run ID. In other words, if two schedules run at the same time, they will be throttled independently since they are in two separate run IDs.

The Rate Limit will be applied to any dynamic requests as well - for example, setup steps and link checker assertions will be throttled within a test run. One great side-effect of configuring a Rate Limit is that it reduces flaky API tests and 429 - Too many requests errors many HTTP services return.

Configuring Rate Limit for your web service

Rate Limit can be configured on the Settings tab of any web service, in the Service settings area:

The setting can be a number from 1 to 1000 and will control the number of requests that will hit your web service. The default value is 15 requests/s, which is a good middle-ground for most web services.

Set your Rate Limit to a number that works with your API and run your tests! You should notice with lower numbers, test runs take longer, and with higher numbers they're faster.

Learn more about the Rate limit setting in the docs.

Future development

We're excited to continue building more API testing and monitoring features, and with our service-based architecture there are many cool improvements on the horizon. This new feature is available today for all accounts. To get started, check out the documentation for web services.

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If you have any ideas for new features or improvements I'd love to hear it! Hit me up on Twitter or contact us any time and let's chat!

:: Cody Reichert