AWS CloudWatch · Rate Limits

Cloudwatch Rate Limits

AWS CloudWatch enforces per-account, per-region transactions-per-second (TPS) throttling on every API action. Default quotas are integrated with AWS Service Quotas; most are adjustable via a quota-increase request. Throttled requests return HTTP 400 with a Throttling or ThrottlingException error code. Limits vary per service (CloudWatch core, Logs, Application Insights, Application Signals, RUM, Internet Monitor, Network Flow Monitor, Synthetics, OAM). Consult Service Quotas (`--service-code monitoring` etc.) for the live values for your account.

Cloudwatch Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for AWS CloudWatch on the APIs.io network, conforming to the API Commons Rate Limits specification.

It captures 10 rate-limit definitions, measuring requests_per_second.

The profile also includes 5 backoff/retry policies defined and response codes documented for throttled, quotaExceeded, and serviceUnavailable.

Tagged areas include Aws, Monitoring, Observability, Logs, and Metrics.

10 Limits Throttle: 400 Quota: 400
AwsMonitoringObservabilityLogsMetricsRate Limiting

Limits

CloudWatch core API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Default TPS varies by API action (PutMetricData, GetMetricData, ListMetrics, PutMetricAlarm, etc.). Look up live values via `aws service-quotas list-service-quotas --service-code monitoring`.
CloudWatch Application Insights API throttling account/region
requests_per_second · second
5
All Application Insights API actions are throttled to 5 TPS; this quota is not adjustable.
CloudWatch Logs API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `aws service-quotas list-service-quotas --service-code logs` for the live values.
CloudWatch Application Signals API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `--service-code application-signals`.
CloudWatch RUM API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `--service-code rum`.
CloudWatch Internet Monitor API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `--service-code internetmonitor`.
CloudWatch Network Monitor API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `--service-code networkmonitor`.
CloudWatch Observability Access Manager API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `--service-code oam`.
AI Operations API throttling account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
Use `--service-code aiops`.
PutMetricData payload size account/region
requests_per_second
see service-specific quotas page
PutMetricData accepts up to 1,000 metric data points per request and is rate-limited per account.

Policies

AWS SigV4 throttling
All CloudWatch API requests are AWS SigV4 signed and throttled at the account/region level. A 400 response with code Throttling or ThrottlingException indicates the request was rate-limited.
Exponential backoff
AWS SDKs implement exponential backoff with jitter by default. Custom clients should match this behavior on Throttling errors.
Service Quotas integration
All CloudWatch quotas are visible in the AWS Service Quotas console (`monitoring`, `logs`, `application-signals`, `internetmonitor`, `networkmonitor`, `oam`, `rum`, `aiops` service codes) and most can be raised via a quota-increase request.
Per-region scoping
Quotas are per AWS account per region; running in multiple regions effectively multiplies the available TPS budget.
PutMetricData batching
Batch up to 1,000 metric data points per PutMetricData call to maximize throughput against the per-account TPS quota.

Sources