A bottleneck is the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle near its opening, which limits the rate of outflow, or any object of a similar shape. The literal neck of a bottle was originally used to play what is now known as slide guitar.
Metaphorically, the term may also be used as an analogy for any of the following implications of rate limitation or function restriction:
Computing
- Bottleneck (network), in communication networks using max-min fairness
- Bottleneck (software), a software component that severely affects application performance
- Internet bottleneck, when high usage slows the performance on the Internet at a particular point
- Von Neumann bottleneck, a limit of throughput between a computer's processor and memory
- Interconnect bottleneck
Geography
- Bottleneck (K2), a mountain feature near the top of K2 mountain
- Choke point, a feature that reduces passability of terrain
- Free State of Bottleneck, a quasi-state that existed in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic
Other
- Bottleneck (engineering), where the performance of an entire system is limited by a single component
- Bottleneck (production), where one process reduces capacity of the whole chain of processes
- Nocturnal bottleneck hypothesis to explain several mammal traits
- Population bottleneck, an evolutionary event that drastically reduces a population
- Traffic bottleneck, a local disruption in a transportation network
- Bottleneck, a design element of some firearms cartridge cases
