How to make your search box faster with throttle and debounce

Why does a search box sometimes feel fast and sometimes slow? Think of typing on your phone - If your phone checks spelling every few letters while you type - that’s throttle. - If your phone waits until you stop typing for 2–3 seconds before checking - that’s debounce. I used these ideas to fix a slow search in some of our projects - Throttle is good when you need updates at regular intervals (like scroll events, live data, or APIs with limits). - Debounce is good when you only need the final action (like search suggestions, form checks, or auto-saving drafts). In React, we often use debounce from lodash to handle this. Along with that - Wrap functions in useCallback for stability - Clean up on unmount - Cancel timers when input changes This reduced server calls by ~70% and made the search feel smoother. In short Need steady updates? Use throttle. Need the last action after typing stops? Use debounce. #debounce #throttle

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