Rate Limits

Understand the API rate limits enforced by CometChat to ensure fair usage and service quality.

CometChat enforces rate limits to ensure fair usage and maintain service quality across all applications. These limits apply to API requests made to CometChat servers.

Global Rate Limits

Operation Type	Rate Limit	Examples
Core operations	10,000 requests/min	User connection, create/delete user, create/join/leave group
Standard operations	20,000 requests/min	All operations not classified as core operations (e.g., sending messages, fetching conversations, updating profiles)
Build plan (free)	500 requests/min	Applies to both core and standard operations

Per-User Rate Limits

Operation	Rate Limit	Notes
Send message	30 messages/min	Per user limit for sending messages
Mark as unread	5 requests/min	Per user limit for marking messages as unread

Data Import Rate Limits

Operation	Rate Limit	Notes
Data import	60 requests/min	Rate limit for bulk data import operations

Handling Rate Limits

When you exceed a rate limit, the API will return the following error:

Error Code	Description
ERR_TOO_MANY_REQUESTS	Too many requests. You have exceeded the rate limit. Please retry after the specified time.

To handle rate limits gracefully:

1. Implement exponential backoff when retrying failed requests
2. Monitor your API usage to stay within limits
3. Contact support if you need higher limits for your use case

Rate Limit Response Headers

When rate limited, the API returns HTTP 429 with these headers:

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Maximum requests allowed in the current window
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Requests remaining in the current window
X-RateLimit-Reset	Unix timestamp when the rate limit window resets
Retry-After	Seconds to wait before retrying

Retry Strategy

if response.status == 429:
    wait = response.headers['Retry-After'] or 60
    sleep(wait)
    retry()

Use exponential backoff with jitter for production implementations. Start with the Retry-After value, then double the wait on each subsequent 429 response, up to a maximum of 5 minutes.