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Rate limits

  • Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
  • Offering: GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

For GitLab.com, see GitLab.com-specific rate limits.

For GitLab Dedicated, see Authenticated user rate limits.

Rate limiting is a common technique used to improve the security and durability of a web application.

For example, a simple script can make thousands of web requests per second. The requests could be:

  • Malicious.
  • Apathetic.
  • Just a bug.

Your application and infrastructure may not be able to cope with the load. For more details, see Denial-of-service attack. Most cases can be mitigated by limiting the rate of requests from a single IP address.

Most brute-force attacks are similarly mitigated by a rate limit.

The rate limits for API requests do not affect requests made by the frontend, because these requests are always counted as web traffic.

Configuration options

You can set most rate limits in the Admin area, and a few only through the API or the Rails console.

Admin area

You can set these rate limits in the Admin area of your instance:

API and Rails console

You can set these rate limits with the application settings API:

You can set this rate limit with the plan limits API or the Rails console:

Non-configurable limits

Some rate limits cannot be configured. For a list of these limits, see non-configurable rate limits.

Bans and blocks

Some protections block a client for a period of time instead of slowing requests down. For more information, see abuse and failed authentication bans.