OPENALEX API PERFORMANCE NOTE v0 10 6
# OpenAlex API Performance Note — v0.10.6
The package intentionally keeps one `OPENALEX_API_KEY`.
## Why a second key is not used for speed
The primary OpenAlex collection path is sequential: the institution is resolved, then aggregate/count/group queries are executed in a defined order. A second credential does not make those individual requests return faster and does not create concurrency by itself.
In a previous 100-institution run, the collector averaged about 37.6 OpenAlex requests per institution and about 15.9 seconds of cumulative OpenAlex request time per institution, which is only about 2–3 requests per second. This is far below the service's request-rate ceiling.
A second key would mainly affect available daily budget/quota if it belonged to another account; that is not the same as computational speed and is not implemented here. If future throughput needs exceed the account's legitimate daily budget, use an appropriate OpenAlex plan rather than key rotation to bypass limits.
The current collector already parallelizes independent secondary sources where safe.
The package intentionally keeps one `OPENALEX_API_KEY`.
## Why a second key is not used for speed
The primary OpenAlex collection path is sequential: the institution is resolved, then aggregate/count/group queries are executed in a defined order. A second credential does not make those individual requests return faster and does not create concurrency by itself.
In a previous 100-institution run, the collector averaged about 37.6 OpenAlex requests per institution and about 15.9 seconds of cumulative OpenAlex request time per institution, which is only about 2–3 requests per second. This is far below the service's request-rate ceiling.
A second key would mainly affect available daily budget/quota if it belonged to another account; that is not the same as computational speed and is not implemented here. If future throughput needs exceed the account's legitimate daily budget, use an appropriate OpenAlex plan rather than key rotation to bypass limits.
The current collector already parallelizes independent secondary sources where safe.