mata-sh/rate-limiter

Robust rate limiting library for PHP with support for (Redis | APCu | filesystem).

v0.1.0 2026-01-05 22:21 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.0
• psr/log: ^3.0

Requires (Dev)

• friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer: ^3.92
• phpstan/phpstan: ^2.1

MIT

• Mata

• redis
• php
• file
• rate limit
• shared hosting
• apcu
• rate limiter
• minimal dependencies

README

Robust rate limiting library for PHP supporting filesystem storage backend for constrained environments.

Part of 🐢 mata-sh.

Features

• Supports Redis, APCu, Filesystem, and Session storage backends
• Zero configuration - works out of the box
• Flexible identifiers - IP-based, user-based, or custom
• PSR-3 logging support
• Sliding window rate limiting algorithm
• Proxy-aware IP detection (Cloudflare, X-Forwarded-For, etc.)

Installation

composer require mata-sh/rate-limiter

Requires PHP 8.1+. Redis or APCu recommended for production.

Usage

use MataSh\RateLimiter\RateLimiter;
use MataSh\RateLimiter\RateLimitIdentifier;

// Initialize with explicit storage backend
$limiter = new RateLimiter('apcu');

// Simple identifier
if ($limiter->allow('api_user_123', 10, 60)) {
    // Process request (10 requests per 60 seconds)
}

// IP-based limiting
$identifier = RateLimitIdentifier::fromIp();
if (!$limiter->allow($identifier, 100, 3600)) {
    http_response_code(429);
    exit('Rate limit exceeded');
}

// IP + username combined
$identifier = RateLimitIdentifier::fromIpUser($username);
$limiter->allow($identifier, 20, 60);

// Check without consuming
$status = $limiter->check($identifier, 100, 3600);
header('X-RateLimit-Remaining: ' . $status['remaining']);

Identifiers

RateLimitIdentifier::fromIp();              // Auto-detect IP
RateLimitIdentifier::fromIpUser($username); // IP + username
RateLimitIdentifier::getClientIp();         // Get IP directly

// Or create custom identifiers
'user_' . $userId
'api_key_' . hash('sha256', $apiKey)

Configuration

// Disable rate limiting (allows all requests)
$limiter = new RateLimiter('apcu');
$limiter->setRateLimitingEnabled(false);

// Set default limits
$limiter->setRateLimitingConfig(100, 3600);

Storage Backends

Explicitly configure the storage backend on initialization:

APCu (Recommended)

$limiter = new RateLimiter('apcu');

Fast in-memory cache. Install: pecl install apcu

Redis

use MataSh\RateLimiter\RateLimiter;

$redis = new Redis();
$redis->connect('127.0.0.1', 6379);
$redis->auth('password');

$limiter = new RateLimiter('redis', null, $redis);

Best for distributed systems.

Filesystem

$limiter = new RateLimiter('file', '/var/app/cache/rate_limit');

JSON files with auto-cleanup. Default path: sys_get_temp_dir() . '/cache/rate_limit'

Session

$limiter = new RateLimiter('session');

Per-user limits only (not suitable for global IP-based limiting).

License

MIT

Related

Used by mata-dashboard and mata-node.