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: Dash
providerId: dash
created: '2026-06-14'
modified: '2026-06-14'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Rate Limiting
  - Cryptocurrency
  - Dash
  - Blockchain
  - Open Source
description: >-
  The Dash Insight API and DAPI are open-source, self-hosted or community-operated services with no
  formally published rate limit policy. Public instances at insight.dash.org are operated on a
  best-effort basis by Dash Core Group; high-volume consumers are encouraged to run their own
  Insight node. The DAPI is decentralized — requests are routed through masternode quorums, so
  practical throughput is determined by the network topology rather than a single rate-limit gate.
  Self-hosted Insight instances can apply nginx or application-level throttling at the operator's
  discretion.
sources:
  - https://docs.dash.org/en/stable/developers/insight.html
  - https://github.com/dashpay/insight-api
  - https://docs.dash.org/projects/platform/en/stable/docs/explanations/dapi.html
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  serverError: 500
limits:
  - name: Insight REST API — public instance (insight.dash.org)
    scope: IP
    metric: requests_per_period
    limit: unspecified (best-effort community instance)
    notes: >-
      No published numeric cap. High-volume integrations should self-host dashcore-node +
      insight-api. Install via npm on Ubuntu following docs.dash.org/en/stable/developers/insight.html.
  - name: Insight WebSocket — public instance
    scope: connection
    metric: concurrent_connections
    limit: unspecified
    notes: >-
      socket.io rooms: inv, sync, and per-address rooms. Subscribe to tx, txlock, block, and
      status events. High-frequency consumers should run a local node.
  - name: Dash Platform DAPI — gRPC endpoints
    scope: network
    metric: requests_per_period
    limit: decentralized (per-masternode quorum)
    notes: >-
      Requests are load-balanced across masternode quorums. No single-key or single-IP cap is
      published. Rate limiting is effectively enforced by the masternode set's aggregate capacity.
  - name: Testnet Insight API (testnet-insight.dash.org)
    scope: IP
    metric: requests_per_period
    limit: unspecified (best-effort testnet instance)
    notes: >-
      Intended for development and testing only; may have lower availability than mainnet.
policies:
  - name: Self-hosting recommended for production
    description: >-
      Dash Core Group recommends that production applications run their own dashcore-node +
      insight-api stack rather than relying on the community-operated public instance.
  - name: Use WebSocket for real-time data
    description: >-
      Subscribe to socket.io events (block, tx, txlock) instead of polling REST endpoints to
      reduce load on shared infrastructure and achieve lower latency.
  - name: Testnet for integration testing
    description: >-
      Use testnet-insight.dash.org and the Dash testnet DAPI seed nodes for all development
      and integration testing before targeting mainnet.
  - name: DAPI decentralized load balancing
    description: >-
      The dapi-client SDK automatically discovers and rotates across masternode quorum members.
      Use the official SDK rather than hard-coding seed addresses.