# brandur/redis-cell

A Redis module that provides rate limiting in Redis as a single command.

Repository: https://github.com/brandur/redis-cell
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/redis-cell
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-02-14T08:31:37+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 53/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 67, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3595, "days_push": 200, "days_rel": 727, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1258, forks 75 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:09.574404+00:00)

## What it is
A Redis module written in Rust that adds a single CL.THROTTLE command implementing the generic cell rate algorithm (GCRA) for distributed rate limiting. It provides a language-agnostic, rolling-window rate limiter that plugs into any Redis deployment without background drip processes.

## Use cases
- rate limit API requests per user or IP in Redis
- replace hand-rolled Lua rate limiting scripts
- implement distributed throttling across microservices
- throttle actions globally across an entire system
- add rolling-window rate limiting with a single Redis command

## When to choose
- you already run Redis and want a fast, battle-tested rate limiter as a module
- you need GCRA semantics with a rolling window and no background jobs
- you want language-agnostic rate limiting shared across services

## When to avoid
- you cannot load custom modules into your Redis instance (e.g. some managed services)
- you need a standalone rate limiter outside Redis
- you need actively developed features - the project is in best-effort maintenance mode

## Facets
- artifact type: plugin
- maturity: maintenance
- function: rate-limiting, caching, database
- domain: databases, backend, apis, developer-tools
- platform: self-hosted
- tags: redis-module, gcra, rate-limiter, rust, throttling, linux, macos, web-server

## Member repositories
- brandur/redis-cell (main) score 53

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:09.574404+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 2026-08-30T05:05:34.522952+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/brandur/redis-cell (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:09.574404+00:00, sha 3c40efe6d6f1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.