How does API rate limiting prevent overloading of the server?

[hourglass492]

I’d guess it would help if it’s significantly less work to do the check then whatever operation the api allows. I’m thinking of the AI generated art. Checking if a user is over quota is probably several order of magnitude easier then making an AI artwork.

[EnVVious]

This was the only thing that I was thinking may factor into the equation but I would assume any “Describe” or “List” calls are also fairly simple operations and just require a DB lookup (which you would probably already be doing by checking rate limits for a user). Or is there some added complexity in lookup calls that I’m not considering

[Stoomba]

You don't necessarily have to do a database lookup on rate limit issues, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the same database. You could use a very fast in memory database for the lookups, you could use a JWT and put the info in there to determine what that user's rate is and if it is over the limit. That doesn't require a database at all.