Facebook Graph API rate limiting

2
votes

We want to collect some metrics about our client public Facebook pages (~1-5K users) on a daily (or weekly) basis.

I'm talking about 3-5 typical metrics : "likes", "fan posts" etc.

I understand that according to the "Rate Limiting on the Graph API" documentation [1] it's possible to have 200 calls per 1 hour.

For now we don't have any FB public application that can help us to increase this limit. To generate application token we will create it to but I doubt it will have a lot of users.

Does anybody know will we have problems with rate limit exceptions while invoking Graph API more than 200 times per 60 min.?

I guess our expected rate is 5-10K calls per 60 min (once a day). Phrase from the documentation [1] "Rate limiting in the FB Graph API is encountered only in rare circumstances" gives me hope that it won't be a problem.

Thank you!

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/advanced/rate-limiting

1
facebook-graph-apirate-limiting

1 Answers

1
votes

You won't have any problems initially. Facebook does not necessarily block apps immediately for being over the limits. As per their documentation

If your app is making enough calls to be considered for rate limiting by our system, we return an X-App-Usage HTTP header

So, if you don't get any X-App-Usage header,Then your app hasn't be considered "worthy" of throttling by their automated systems yet.

So it would be best to check for this header, while making your api requests. Once you start receiving this Header, it would be best change your frequency of the API calls or give a timeout.