Case Study: SeatGeek improves API reliability and controls traffic spikes with Kong Gateway

SeatGeek flattens API traffic spikes and manages 1,000s of consumers with Kong

SeatGeek, a leading online ticketing platform, partnered with Kong to address a "noisy neighbor" issue. Unpredictable traffic surges from their broker-integrated services threatened to overwhelm backend systems and degrade overall platform performance. Their challenge was to implement a granular rate limiting strategy that could protect their services while accommodating thousands of integration partners and fitting their Kubernetes-native infrastructure.

Kong implemented a solution using Kong Gateway with the Rate Limiting Advanced plugin, deployed via Kong Ingress Controller. This provided centralized, consumer-based rate limiting, allowing SeatGeek to enforce default limits and grant custom limits to specific partners. The solution significantly improved platform stability by flattening traffic spikes and reducing backend load, eliminating the need to scale infrastructure for unpredictable surges. Kong's solution also reduced operational overhead through automation and empowered application teams to manage their own traffic policies safely.

SeatGeek