PyPI · Rate Limits

Pypi Rate Limits

PyPI does not publish a hard per-second rate limit. The JSON, Index, and RSS APIs are heavily cached and CDN-fronted via Fastly, so PyPI states there is "currently no rate limiting of PyPI APIs at the edge." The legacy XML-RPC API may be rate-limited if usage degrades service. PyPI reserves the right to ban irresponsible consumers.

Pypi Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for PyPI on the APIs.io network, in the API Commons Rate Limits shape.

It captures 2 rate-limit definitions, measuring varies.

Limit state is signalled in the cache, cacheHits, and etag response headers, and an exhausted limit returns HTTP 429.

This profile was written by API Evangelist and has not been verified against a page the provider published; treat every limit as unconfirmed until a dated transcription replaces it.

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

Tagged areas include Package Registry, Python, Open Source, and Rate Limiting.

2 Limits Exhausted: HTTP 429 cachecacheHitsetag
Method: generated, dated 2026-05-05.
Written by API Evangelist on 2026-05-05 and not verified against a page the provider published. Treat every limit as unconfirmed until a dated transcription replaces it.
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Package RegistryPythonOpen SourceRate Limiting

Limits

JSON / Index / RSS APIs IP
varies
no edge rate limit (heavily cached via Fastly CDN)
PyPI states "currently no rate limiting of PyPI APIs at the edge"; consumers should still avoid thousands of requests per minute and should prefer ETag-conditional requests.
XML-RPC API (legacy) IP
varies
rate-limited at PyPI's discretion if usage degrades service
PyPI may temporarily or permanently throttle XML-RPC consumers whose usage causes service degradation.

Policies

User-Agent Identification
Set a descriptive User-Agent that uniquely identifies your requests and ideally includes contact information; opaque or default agents may be rate-limited or blocked.
ETag and Conditional Requests
The JSON, RSS, and Index APIs return ETag headers — use If-None-Match conditional requests to avoid hammering uncached origins.
Caching Awareness
Inspect X-Cache and X-Cache-Hits to understand whether your requests are being served from CDN cache; design crawlers around the CDN rather than the origin.
Discretionary Bans
PyPI reserves the right to temporarily or permanently prohibit a consumer based on irresponsible activity; sustained high-volume crawling without identification or backoff risks a block.
Pacing Guidance
PyPI advises against thousands of requests in a short window (minutes); prefer serial requests over longer periods when feasible.

Sources

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