Control the chaos: Why legacy rate limiting isn’t enough anymore

We've all heard the story. You launch something scrappy. It takes off overnight. Suddenly, users are signing up from all over the world. Growth felt like magic, until it didn’t. The problems didn’t come from scaling databases, or adding more servers. They came from everywhere else.

Suddenly, you’re staring at 50,000 login attempts. It’s one attacker with 50,000 IP addresses. Every request perfectly spaced out, hitting different regions, all just slow enough to seem normal. Each edge server sees only a trickle. But together? It’s a flood. And your protection never even notices. This is what modern abuse looks like. And it’s where traditional rate limiting breaks.

We’ve seen this story unfold again and again. As services scale, so do the threats, but your rate-limiting rules stay siloed, local, and blind to the bigger picture. That’s the chaos we set out to fix.

Distributed threats, distributed protection

Before we built Bunny Shield, we asked ourselves: What happens when "normal" user behavior isn't so normal anymore?

The real challenge, the one that quietly breaks things before you even notice, isn’t a single server getting hit with 50,000 requests per second. It starts slower, quieter. 50,000 IP addresses, each sending just one request per second, from every corner of the globe. Nothing looks unusual at first. Beneath the surface, brute-force attempts are slipping under the radar. Scrapers move methodically, weighing down your infrastructure and chipping away at your users’ experience, one silent request at a time.

That’s the kind of chaos global rate limiting was built for.

Instead of limiting traffic based on what your server can see, we designed a system that thinks like the internet behaves. Globally.

It lets you:

• Define global thresholds by IP, header, or path, and apply them across every edge location.
• Stop abuse patterns that are distributed, persistent, and invisible to isolated systems.
• Protect your backend and budget while keeping good users flowing smoothly through.

And the best part? You don’t need a degree in distributed systems or an enterprise-grade budget to use it. Like everything we build, it’s fast, simple, and built to scale with you.

None of this works without something smarter quietly orchestrating it all. It takes a new kind of engine.

The engine behind global rate limiting

Traditional rate limiting doesn’t fail because it’s broken. It fails because it’s blind. One server sees a request and makes a decision in isolation. Another sees a similar request, maybe from the same user, maybe not, and makes a completely different call.

What’s missing? Context. Collective awareness. A brain behind the chaos. A system that can see the full picture.

So, we built one.

The global counter system (GCS) is the engine that powers our global awareness.

It continuously synchronizes rate limit counters across all bunny.net edge locations in near real-time, allowing Bunny Shield to track and react to abusive behavior no matter where it originates. Whether a request hits Frankfurt, Tokyo, or São Paulo, GCS keeps all edges in sync, enforcing your limits consistently and globally.

You get real-time protection that works everywhere, all at once. Your limits are enforced with precision and consistency. No matter which edge your users hit, updates take effect almost instantly.

With GCS, Bunny Shield can:

• Track requests globally: Every edge location is aware of request patterns seen elsewhere in the network.
• React instantly: When a limit is hit, it’s enforced across all edges in real time, no matter where the request came from.
• Block the slow burn: Catch long-running, slow brute-force attempts and low-volume scraping activities that would normally go unnoticed.

This isn’t just a technical achievement. It’s a new way for you to enforce rate limits across the globe, without lag, complexity, or compromise.

What’s next for global rate limiting?

This is just the beginning. As threats evolve, so will Bunny Shield. Bringing you even smarter, stronger ways to stay ahead.

• Extended traffic analysis: We’re working on expanding our rule creation to let you track requests and users over longer periods of time, up to 28 days. This makes it possible to block bandwidth-burning attacks or low-and-slow content scrapers.
• Shared intelligence: Imagine rate limits that don’t just look at one IP but correlate patterns across IP ranges, ASNs, or device fingerprints.
• Behavior-aware rules: Adaptive rate limits that learn what’s “normal” for your traffic and automatically adjust to flag anomalies.
• Flexible mitigation paths: Block, delay, challenge, or log. Soon, you’ll be able to choose how to respond to specific threshold violations, dynamically.

We’re evolving rate limiting to meet the needs of a faster, more distributed internet, one where real protection needs to think globally, not locally.

And we’re doing it in a way that’s accessible, elegant, and built for real builders. Just like you.

Bringing calm to the chaos: Fast, simple, global security

With global rate limiting, setting up protection is quicker than brewing your morning coffee.

Just hop into your bunny.net dashboard, select Shield within a Pull Zone, and:

• Navigate to rate limiting: Create your first rate limit rule.
• Choose what to limit upon: User-Agent, IP address, country code, ASN, and so much more!
• Set your thresholds: Decide how many requests within a timeframe are reasonable, and how quickly you want the hammer to drop.
• Apply it globally: Across the entire bunny.net edge, instantly and automatically.

Global rate limiting is deeply integrated into Bunny Shield’s real-time request pipeline. That means every rule is enforced at the edge, before a single bad request ever gets close to your origin.

The result?

• Legitimate users get smooth, uninterrupted access.
• Abusers get cut off quietly before they can do any damage.
• You stay focused on growing, not firefighting.

Scaling your service should be exciting, not terrifying.

No matter how fast you grow, Bunny Shield keeps you in control, protects you from chaos, frees you from complex setups, and lifts the burden of high costs. Global rate limiting gives you the confidence to scale. Securely and effortlessly!

Ready to take back control?

Hop into the dashboard and create your first global rate limit today.

Build fearlessly. Scale confidently. Let us keep the chaos in check.

Hop into a safer, smarter internet with Bunny Shield.

Start your 14-day FREE trial today. No credit card required.