How can I implement rate limiting with Apache? (requests per second)

The best

• mod_evasive (Focused more on reducing DoS exposure)
• mod_cband (Best featured for 'normal' bandwidth control)

and the rest

• mod_limitipconn
• mod_bw
• mod_bwshare

As stated in this blog post it seems possible to use mod_security to implement a rate limit per second.

The configuration is something like this:

SecRuleEngine On

<LocationMatch "^/somepath">
  SecAction initcol:ip=%{REMOTE_ADDR},pass,nolog
  SecAction "phase:5,deprecatevar:ip.somepathcounter=1/1,pass,nolog"
  SecRule IP:SOMEPATHCOUNTER "@gt 60" "phase:2,pause:300,deny,status:509,setenv:RATELIMITED,skip:1,nolog"
  SecAction "phase:2,pass,setvar:ip.somepathcounter=+1,nolog"
  Header always set Retry-After "10" env=RATELIMITED
</LocationMatch>

ErrorDocument 509 "Rate Limit Exceeded"

Depends on why you want to rate limit.

If it's to protect against overloading the server, it actually makes sense to put NGINX in front of it, and configure rate limiting there. It makes sense because NGINX uses much less resources, something like a few MB per ten thousand connections. So, if the server is flooded, NGINX will do the rate limiting(using an insignificant amount of resources) and only pass the allowed traffic to Apache.

If all you're after is simplicity, then use something like mod_evasive.

As usual, if it's to protect against DDoS or DoS attacks, use a service like Cloudflare which also has rate limiting.