# youtube/doorman

Doorman: Global Distributed Client Side Rate Limiting.

Repository: https://github.com/youtube/doorman
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/doorman
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Archived: true
Last push: 2023-09-26T14:11:32+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3862, "days_push": 1072, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1950, forks 109 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:58.170011+00:00)

## What it is
Doorman is a Go-based gRPC service for global distributed client-side rate limiting, letting clients voluntarily limit their use of shared resources like databases or APIs. It apportions capacity fairly via configurable algorithms, granting time-limited leases and using etcd as a distributed lock manager for high availability.

## Use cases
- rate limit clients accessing a shared database across the globe
- distribute API quota fairly among many client applications
- prevent a gRPC service from being overwhelmed by its callers
- coordinate client-side throttling with leases and refresh intervals
- apportion capacity of a shared resource based on fairness algorithms

## When to choose
- you need cooperative, globally coordinated client-side rate limiting
- your clients can honour capacity grants and refresh leases
- you already run etcd or a distributed lock manager
- you want configurable fairness algorithms for capacity apportionment

## When to avoid
- you need to enforce limits against misbehaving clients (Doorman is cooperative only)
- you want simple per-instance rate limiting without a distributed setup
- you need a actively developed project with recent releases
- you cannot operate a gRPC service and distributed lock manager

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: maintenance
- function: rate-limiting, rpc, middleware
- domain: microservices, backend, infrastructure-as-code
- platform: go, self-hosted
- tags: grpc, client-side-rate-limiting, distributed-lock-manager, etcd, fairness-algorithms, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- youtube/doorman (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:58.170011+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:06:53.356244+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/youtube/doorman (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:58.170011+00:00, sha f58f003af8be)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.