Methods, devices, and machine-readable media are provided to perform rule-based rate limiting. As provided in this disclosure, this may include receiving a message en route to a destination, determining one or more parameters of the message, and determining whether the parameters of the message match parameters of a rule that specifies taking a first action when more than some number of messages having those parameters are received within a specific amount of time. When the one or more parameters of the message match the one or more parameters of the first restriction rule, a sliding window counter that indicates a total number of corresponding messages received within the amount of time may be incremented. When the first sliding window counter exceeds the first number of messages, the specified action may be taken.