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: DBpedia
providerId: dbpedia
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - SPARQL
  - Knowledge Graph
  - Linked Data
  - Rate Limiting
description: >-
  DBpedia publishes explicit fair-use limits for the public SPARQL endpoint. The Lookup,
  Spotlight, and Live endpoints do not document specific rate limits but operate under a
  community fair-use expectation. Heavy usage is directed toward self-hosted deployments
  using Docker images and dataset downloads from the Databus.
notes: >-
  Queries that time out return HTTP 200 with partial results — not an error. Queries exceeding
  row limits similarly return HTTP 200 with truncated results. Callers should check result
  completeness independently.
sources:
  - https://www.dbpedia.org/resources/sparql/
  - https://www.dbpedia.org/resources/lookup/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
  - name: SPARQL Max Result Rows
    scope: query
    metric: rows-per-query
    limit: 10000
    notes: Queries returning more rows are silently truncated; response is HTTP 200.
  - name: SPARQL Query Timeout
    scope: query
    metric: seconds-per-query
    limit: 120
    notes: Timed-out queries return partial results with HTTP 200, not an error.
  - name: SPARQL Parallel Connections per IP
    scope: ip
    metric: concurrent-connections
    limit: 50
    notes: Applies to the public dbpedia.org/sparql endpoint.
  - name: SPARQL Request Rate per IP
    scope: ip
    metric: requests-per-second
    limit: 100
    burstLimit: 120
    notes: Sustained 100 req/sec; burst up to 120 req/sec allowed.
  - name: Lookup Service
    scope: global
    metric: requests-per-second
    limit: unspecified
    notes: No documented limit; fair-use expected. Self-host via Docker for heavy workloads.
  - name: Spotlight Annotation
    scope: global
    metric: requests-per-second
    limit: unspecified
    notes: No documented limit; fair-use expected. Self-host via Docker for heavy workloads.
  - name: DBpedia Live SPARQL
    scope: global
    metric: requests-per-second
    limit: unspecified
    notes: No documented limit; real-time updates ~105 pages/minute processed.
policies:
  - name: Fair Use
    description: >-
      DBpedia public endpoints are community resources. High-volume or continuous querying
      should be done against a local Virtuoso instance loaded with datasets from the Databus.
  - name: Result Truncation
    description: >-
      Partial results are returned (HTTP 200) for queries exceeding the row limit or timeout.
      Always verify result set size and consider adding LIMIT clauses to SPARQL queries.
  - name: Self-Hosting Preference
    description: >-
      Production applications are encouraged to download the DBpedia dataset from
      https://databus.dbpedia.org/ and run a local OpenLink Virtuoso instance.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com