Note: for PM2 apps read about RateLimitCluster here

RateLimiterCluster performs limiting using IPC. Each request is sent to master process, which handles all the limits, then master send results back to worker. See all options here

Note: maximum duration for Cluster limiter is 2147483 seconds or about 24 days because of setTimeout limitation.

const cluster = require('cluster');
const numCPUs = require('os').cpus().length;
const { RateLimiterClusterMaster, RateLimiterCluster } = require('rate-limiter-flexible');

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  // Doesn't require any options, it is only storage and messages handler
  new RateLimiterClusterMaster();

  for (let i = 0; i < numCPUs; i++) {
    cluster.fork();
  }
} else {
  const rateLimiter = new RateLimiterCluster({
    keyPrefix: 'myclusterlimiter', // Must be unique for each limiter
    points: 100,
    duration: 1,
    timeoutMs: 3000 // Promise is rejected, if master doesn't answer for 3 secs
  });
  
  rateLimiter.consume(remoteAddress, 2) // consume 2 points
    .then((rateLimiterRes) => {
      // 2 points consumed
    })
    .catch((rateLimiterRes) => {
      // Not enough points to consume
    });
}  
    

  const rateLimiter1 = new RateLimiterCluster({
    keyPrefix: 'limiter1',
    points: 100,
    duration: 1,
  });

  const rateLimiter2 = new RateLimiterCluster({
    keyPrefix: 'limiter2',
    points: 10,
    duration: 1,
    execEvenly: true
  });

keyPrefix must be unique, if different options required

RateLimiterClusterMaster must be created in master process. It receives messages from workers by IPC. It creates necessary message handler, which process messages only from specific channel rate_limiter_flexible. So if you use IPC for something else, it doesn't break anything.

const { RateLimiterClusterMaster } = require('rate-limiter-flexible');

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  new RateLimiterClusterMaster();
  cluster.fork();
} else {
  // ... your app ...
}

RateLimiterClusterMaster is Singleton. It creates only one instance which process messages from all RateLimiterCluster created in workers.

RateLimiterCluster must be created with unique keyPrefix. Every time RateLimiterCluster is created, it sends options to master. Master instance creates specific rate limiter by keyPrefix and sends init command to worker

So there is a time when worker can't process requests until master sends init to worker. It takes several milliseconds.

Worker is protected from loosing requests while it is instantiated. It sets timer for 30 ms and waits init from master before processing requests

Endpoint is pure NodeJS endpoint launched in node:10.5.0-jessie Docker containers with 4 workers

Endpoint is limited by RateLimiterCluster with config:

new RateLimiterCluster({
    points: 1000,
    duration: 1,
  });

By bombardier -c 1000 -l -d 30s -r 2000 -t 5s http://127.0.0.1:8000

Test with 1000 concurrent requests with maximum 2000 requests per sec during 30 seconds

Statistics        Avg      Stdev        Max
  Reqs/sec      2024.57     234.52    2976.20
  Latency      704.58us   165.65us     7.05ms
  Latency Distribution
     50%   669.00us
     75%   843.00us
     90%     1.02ms
     95%     1.18ms
     99%     1.60ms
  HTTP codes:
    1xx - 0, 2xx - 53458, 3xx - 0, 4xx - 6560, 5xx - 0

Cluster limiter at least twice faster than RateLimiterRedis.

Snapshots done during high rate of 5000 req/s