We love team players. For a more enjoyable developer experience and be a good member of the Vimeo Developer community, take a look at these best practices for interacting and using our developer tools.
Cache responses
Most metadata on Vimeo doesn't change frequently (such as video names, descriptions, embed code, etc). Wherever possible, developers should cache these responses and serve from cache, only making requests to the API when new metadata is needed or expected. Implementing parameters such as the If-Modified-Since header can help in this area.
Use field filters
Many requests to Vimeo will return a firehose of data, which may not be efficient if you only need a specific piece of information. Using the fields parameter to specify exactly what you need from the response will reduce the workload on our servers, and increase the response time from the API. As an added perk, using the fields parameter will grant you a higher rate limit.
Respect rate limits
We enforce rate limits to help ensure a stable platform for all developers. If your application exceeds the rate limit, the API will return an HTTP 429 error. Developers should anticipate this and cease making requests to the API until the rate limit ban has been lifted. Not sure how many requests your app can make per minute? Check our rate limit documentation.
Avoid scraping
Scraping is the action of extracting data from a website, oftentimes by loading a webpage and executing a script to get the desired data from the page.
Instead of scraping to get data, developers should utilize one of our APIs to get the same data; implementing our API is easier and quicker than scraping the site.
If a server is found scraping Vimeo and sending excessive traffic our way, that server’s IP address may be banned without notice. Reach out to us with technical details if you believe your server’s IP address has been banned.
Use only our publicly documented APIs
Intrepid developers may discover meta tags, config files, or other APIs used to get data from Vimeo. While they may be accessible to savvy users, we ask that developers only utilize the public APIs documented on the Developer Site. These internal APIs are not intended for third-party use and may change at any time without notice. Need some guidance? Contact us and we’ll point you in the right direction!