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Thomas Neidhart edited this page Jan 15, 2026 · 5 revisions

Rate Limits and Usage Tiers

To ensure the stability and performance of the Open VSX Registry, API usage is organized into defined tiers. These limits are implemented to protect infrastructure from high-frequency automated traffic and to provide consistent service quality for all users.

Community Tier

The Community Tier is the standard access level for individual developers and open source contributors.

  • Standard Limit: 75 requests per second.
  • Scope: This limit applies to standard community requests, including extension searches, metadata retrievals, and downloads via IDEs or CLI tools.
  • Behavior: When the limit for your current tier is reached, the API returns an HTTP 429 Too Many Requests response.

Professional and Platform Tiers

For organizations, platforms, or users requiring higher throughput (such as high-frequency automated polling or large-scale internal deployments), Open VSX offers professional usage tiers.

  • Elevated Limits: These tiers provide increased request thresholds beyond the standard community limit.
  • Subscription: Professional tiers are accessible via a subscription model.
  • Provisioning: Access to these tiers is managed through authenticated tokens or specific network configurations.

Error Response Structure

The registry follows the RFC 9457 standard for error reporting. In the event of a rate limit being reached, the server will provide a JSON response with the following fields:

{
  "type": "https://open-vsx.org/probs/rate-limit-exceeded",
  "title": "Too Many Requests",
  "status": 429,
  "detail": "A request rate limit has been exceeded for your current usage tier. Open VSX enforces tier-based limits to ensure reliable service. If this is unexpected for your use case, please contact us.",
  "documentation": "https://github.com/EclipseFdn/open-vsx.org/wiki/rate-limiting",
  "contact": "infrastructure@eclipse-foundation.org"
}
  • type: A URI identifying the problem type.
  • title: A short, human-readable summary of the problem.
  • status: The HTTP status code generated by the origin server.
  • detail: A human-readable explanation specific to this occurrence.
  • documentation: A link to the relevant technical documentation.
  • contact: The official contact for infrastructure and tier-related inquiries.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter a 429 error:

  1. Examine Request Frequency: Check for unoptimized polling, recursive scripts, or high-frequency automated tasks in your environment.
  2. Shared Network Environments: In corporate environments, multiple users may share a single egress IP address. Collective traffic from one network may trigger the community limit.
  3. Inquiries: For questions regarding usage tiers or to report an error in enforcement, contact infrastructure@eclipse-foundation.org.

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