Fail Whales Galore: Twitter Lowers API Limit

Posted 06/29/2010 at 6:19pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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Twitter has been having more than its fair share of stability issues this last month. The web service has previously pointed to the World Cup as the cause, but many consider that passing the buck. Twitter has been working on a server upgrade plan during this period of high traffic, and the results are causing more downtime than users have seen in over a year. In order to deal with the network issues, Twitter today cut their API limit dramatically, from 350 per hour to 175.

The API limit puts a cap on how many queries an application can make via the Twitter API in a one hour period. This change effectively reduces the traffic Twitter is likely to see. About 75% of Twitter's total traffic comes in from the API. Even Twitter's branded mobile apps are being forced to deal with the caps.

The decreased rate of 175 is a relief to some; the API cap was slashed to only 75 for a few hours earlier in the day. Twitter's Matt Harris warns that it is entirely possible the limit will have to be lowered again for periods of time in the next few weeks. Are you a heavy Twitter user? Have you run into the API limit just like in the old days?