Systems and methods of communicating in a network use rate limiting. Rate limiting units (either receive side or transmit side) can perform rate limiting in response to a) a maximum number of bytes that can be solicited over a first period of time is exceeded, b) a maximum number of bytes that are outstanding over a second period of time is exceeded; or c) a maximum number of commands that are outstanding over a period of time is exceeded as part of CMD_RXRL. The CMD_RXRL can have three components (a) max bytes, b) outstanding bytes, c) outstanding commands. TXRL contains the component of max bytes or maximum number of bytes that can be transmitted over a third period of time to match the speed of a receive link, or any node or link through the network/fabric.