specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Amazon Neptune
providerId: amazon-neptune
created: '2026-05-04'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-04, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-05'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Rate Limiting
  - AWS
  - Database
  - Graph Database
  - Neptune
description: Amazon Neptune has two distinct API surfaces. The control-plane (CreateDBCluster, etc.) is
  throttled per-account/region under the standard AWS API throttling envelope. The data-plane (Gremlin/SPARQL/openCypher
  endpoints) accepts queries up to the configured query timeout and concurrent-request limit on each
  cluster, scaling with instance class. Use exponential backoff with jitter on ThrottlingException and
  ConcurrentModificationException.
sources:
  - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/neptune/latest/userguide/limits.html
  - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/api-retries.html
headers:
  requestId: x-amzn-RequestId
  retryAfter: Retry-After
responseCodes:
  throttled: 400
  quotaExceeded: 400
  serviceUnavailable: 503
  queryTimeout: 408
limits:
  - name: Neptune control-plane API throttling
    scope: account/region
    metric: varies
    limit: see Service Quotas console for Neptune
    notes: Standard AWS API throttling. Limits depend on action.
  - name: Concurrent open queries (data-plane)
    scope: cluster
    metric: concurrent_requests
    limit: varies by instance class
    notes: Approximately 8 to 80 concurrent queries depending on instance type; configurable via DB cluster
      parameter group.
  - name: Default query timeout
    scope: cluster
    metric: seconds
    limit: 120
    timeFrame: second
    notes: Configurable via neptune_query_timeout parameter (max 2,147,483,647 ms).
  - name: Clusters per account/region
    scope: account/region
    metric: count
    limit: 40
    notes: Soft default; raisable via Service Quotas.
policies:
  - name: Backoff with jitter
    description: AWS SDKs default to standard retry mode (truncated exponential backoff with jitter, max
      20s, 3 attempts).
  - name: Read scaling
    description: Add up to 15 read replicas per cluster to absorb concurrent queries.
  - name: Long-running queries
    description: Use the Neptune Status API (/status) and explicit /gremlin/status endpoints to monitor
      and cancel long-running queries.
  - name: Quota increases
    description: Most quotas are soft and can be raised via Service Quotas.
maintainers:
  - name: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com
    url: https://apievangelist.com
  - name: Amazon Web Services
    email: support@aws.amazon.com
    url: https://aws.amazon.com