Build an API Proxy Server – Hide Your API Keys, Rate Limiting & Caching
Using APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) has become an essential part of modern web development. APIs allow developers to integrate various services and access data from different sources easily. However, APIs often require the use of API keys or tokens, which are sensitive information that needs to be protected.
In this article, we will learn how to build an API proxy server to hide API keys, implement rate limiting, and caching. This proxy server acts as a middleman between your application and the API, providing an extra layer of security and functionality.
Hide Your API Keys
One of the main advantages of using an API proxy server is the ability to hide your API keys from the client-side code. When making requests to the API, your proxy server will handle the authentication and include the necessary API keys in the requests. The client-side code doesn’t need to know or handle the API keys, reducing the risk of exposing them.
To achieve this, you can set up your proxy server to read the API keys from a secure environment variable or a configuration file. This way, the API keys are protected and are not visible in the client-side code.
Rate Limiting
Another important feature of an API proxy server is rate limiting. Rate limiting helps prevent abuse and control the number of requests made to the API within a certain time frame.
You can configure your proxy server to limit the number of requests per minute or hour, depending on the API’s rate limit. If the rate limit is exceeded, the proxy server can respond with an error code or a custom message, preventing excessive usage and potential API key abuse.
Implementing rate limiting can help protect your API keys from being used excessively or maliciously and ensure fair usage among different clients.
Caching
Caching is another powerful feature of an API proxy server. Caching responses can significantly improve the performance of your application by reducing the load on the API and decreasing response times.
When a client makes a request to the API through the proxy server, the server can check if the response is already cached. If it is, the server can return the cached response instead of making a new request to the API. This reduces the number of API calls and improves the overall efficiency of your application.
However, it’s essential to set an appropriate expiration time for the cached responses to ensure that the data is always up to date. You can configure the proxy server to invalidate the cache after a certain period or when new data becomes available to maintain data accuracy.
Conclusion
Building an API proxy server provides several benefits, including hiding your API keys, implementing rate limiting, and caching responses. It adds an extra layer of security, improves performance, and ensures fair usage among different clients.
By following the steps outlined above, you can create an API proxy server that acts as a shield to protect your API keys, control the number of requests made, and optimize the performance of your application. Happy coding!
I forget if I mention it in the video or not, but you can also use serverless functions if you don't want to create your own server. You can use a platform like Netlify, AWS, Vercel, etc. I may do another video showing that method as well. Here is one I did 2 years ago on Netlify serverless functions – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drJwMlD9Mjo
Could you please re-create this but in nextjs project, this really good video, thank you
Great tutorial, thank you!
You're the goat Brad 🐐
do i need to change anything about these .env variables + am i gonna use them ?
Very cool! From this video I learned that needle exists and that UrlParams can be parsed that way
ive been trying to figure out how to actually do this properly thanks!!!
I'm confused with how to do this and host the app on my web hosting platform for my portfolio. Where should these files live? I get mixed messages on including some files in the public_HTML but definitely not putting the .env file there and so I'm just kind of confused.
Hi Brad, great video. But although you have rate limiting, your api is open. Is there a way to allow only your app to talk to the api?
How do you actually implement this with a POST request?
any idea how can i only cache the fonts?
I want to thank you for the extremely helpful and straightforward video sir! I've watched tons of guides before but I could finally manage to hide my API key watching this video. You sir are a legend! Keep up the good work! Massive thanks again!
Hey @Traversy Media and the community, whats up!
I do have one small confusion regarding rate limiter.
What is the app.set(''trust proxy', 1)?
If my backend app has few instances and the req gets distributied via nginx, i can tell the rate limiter with the "trust proxy" – thing to rate limit based on client ip and not nginx ip?
(If I explained something wrong, please correct me – i just became an jr. dev xD)
P.S: Your videos r amazing
Hiding api key is all good. But still you have to consider the fact that network calls from browser to you proxy server reveals your api and its payload to the malicious actors
1 day of worrying resolved in 30 mins hahaha
this is really informative, thank you Brad! keep at it!
Thank you so much! I don't have any basic knowledge of backend dev, and my weather app, which is exactly as yours, is up and running now, and I learned to hide my API key.
I've never been this overwhelmed how much things i have learn from you, thank you so much!
Just curious. Wouldn't just making the frontend read from a .env file the api keys accomplish the same?
I learned a lot via Codecademy but you explain the concept so simple and clear.