Arcjet bot detection allows you to manage traffic by automated clients and bots.
What is Arcjet?Arcjet helps developers protect their apps
in just a few lines of code. Bot detection. Rate limiting. Email validation. Attack protection. Data redaction. A developer-first approach to security.
Quick start
This guide will show you how to protect your entire
application from bots and automated clients.
1. Install Arcjet
In your project root, run the following command to install the SDK:
Add your key to a .env.local file in your project root.
Add your key to a .env file in your project root.
Add your key to a .env.local file in your project root.
Add your key to a .env.local file in your project root.
Add your key to a .env.local file in your project root.
Add your key to a .env.local file in your project root.
Add your key to a .env file in your project root.
3. Add bot protection
The example below will return a 403 Forbidden response for all requests from
clients we are sure are automated.
The example below will return a 403 Forbidden response for all requests from
clients we are sure are automated.
The example below will return a 403 Forbidden response for all requests from
clients we are sure are automated.
For this quick start we will enable Arcjet Bot Protection across your entire
Next.js application. Next.js
middleware
runs before every request, allowing Arcjet to protect your entire application
before your code runs.
The basic option exports the middleware directly whereas the advanced
option allows you to customize the response based on the Arcjet
decision.
Create a file called middleware.ts in your project root (at the same level as
pages or app or inside src).
Create a file called middleware.js in your project root (at the same level as
pages or app or inside src):
Create a file called middleware.ts in your project root (at the same level as
pages or app or inside src).
Create a file called middleware.js in your project root (at the same level as
pages or app or inside src):
Create a new API route at /src/routes/api/arcjet/+server.js:
Create a new API route at /src/routes/api/arcjet/+server.ts:
The example below will return a 403 Forbidden response for all requests from
clients we are sure are automated.
This creates a global guard that will be
applied to all routes. In a real application, implementing guards or per-route
protections would give you more flexibility. See the reference
guide and the NestJS example
app for how to do this.
The example below will return a 403 Forbidden response for all requests from
clients we are sure are automated.
Create a new route at app/routes/arcjet.tsx with the contents:
4. Start server
Start your Bun server:
Make a curl request from your terminal. You should see a 403 Forbidden
response because curl is considered an automated client by default.
4. Start server
Start your Deno server:
Make a curl request from your terminal. You should see a 403 Forbidden
response because curl is considered an automated client by default.
4. Start app
Make a curl request from your terminal to your application. You should see a
403 Forbidden response because curl is considered an automated client by
default. See the reference guide to learn about
configuring this.
4. Start app
Start your Next.js app:
Make a curl request from your terminal to your application. You should see a
403 Forbidden response because curl is considered an automated client by
default. See the reference guide to learn about
configuring this.
4. Start server
Start your Node.js server:
Make a curl request from your terminal to your application. You should see a
403 Forbidden response because curl is considered an automated client by
default. See the reference guide to learn about
configuring this.
4. Start app
Make a curl request from your terminal to your application. You should see a
403 Forbidden response because curl is considered an automated client by
default. See the reference guide to learn about
configuring this.
4. Start app
Start your SvelteKit app:
Make a curl request from your terminal to your application. You should see a
403 Forbidden response because curl is considered an automated client by
default. See the reference guide to learn about
configuring this.
No, Arcjet handles all the infrastructure for you so you don't need to
worry about deploying global Redis clusters, designing data structures to
track rate limits, or keeping security detection rules up to date.
What is the performance overhead?
Arcjet SDK tries to do as much as possible asynchronously and locally to
minimize latency for each request. Where decisions can be made locally or
previous decisions are cached in-memory, latency is usually <1ms.
When a call to the Arcjet API is required, such as when tracking a
rate limit in a serverless environment, there is some additional latency
before a decision is made. The Arcjet API has been designed for high
performance and low latency, and is deployed to multiple regions around the
world. The SDK will automatically use the closest region which means the
total overhead is typically no more than 20-30ms, often significantly less.
What happens if Arcjet is unavailable?
Where a decision has been cached locally e.g. blocking a client, Arcjet
will continue to function even if the service is unavailable.
If a call to the Arcjet API is needed and there is a network problem or
Arcjet is unavailable, the default behavior is to fail open and allow
the request. You have control over how to handle errors, including choosing
to fail close if you prefer. See the reference docs for details.
How does Arcjet protect me against DDoS attacks?
Network layer attacks tend to be generic and high volume, so these are
best handled by your hosting platform. Most cloud providers include network
DDoS protection by default.
Arcjet sits closer to your application so it can understand the context.
This is important because some types of traffic may not look like a DDoS
attack, but can still have the same effect. For example, a customer making
too many API requests and affecting other customers, or large numbers of
signups from disposable email addresses.
Network-level DDoS protection tools find it difficult to protect against
this type of traffic because they don't understand the structure of your
application. Arcjet can help you to identify and block this traffic by
integrating with your codebase and understanding the context of the
request e.g. the customer ID or sensitivity of the API route.
Volumetric network attacks are best handled by your hosting provider.
Application level attacks need to be handled by the application. That's
where Arcjet helps.
What next?
Arcjet can be used with specific rules on individual routes or as general
protection on your entire application. You can customize bot protection, rate
limiting for your API and minimize fraudulent registrations with the signup form
protection.