diff --git a/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml b/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml
index 1ad538049..daaf00ac3 100644
--- a/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml
+++ b/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml
@@ -426,7 +426,7 @@ flag, e.g. <literal>--option gc-keep-outputs false</literal>.</para>
     <listitem><para>The maximum number of parallel HTTP connections
     used by the binary cache substituter to get NAR info files.  This
     number should be high to minimise latency.  It defaults to
-    150.</para></listitem>
+    25.</para></listitem>
 
   </varlistentry>
 
diff --git a/scripts/download-from-binary-cache.pl.in b/scripts/download-from-binary-cache.pl.in
index ea053bf14..60f7f9aef 100644
--- a/scripts/download-from-binary-cache.pl.in
+++ b/scripts/download-from-binary-cache.pl.in
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ Nix::Config::readConfig;
 my @caches;
 my $gotCaches = 0;
 
-my $maxParallelRequests = int($Nix::Config::config{"binary-caches-parallel-connections"} // 150);
+my $maxParallelRequests = int($Nix::Config::config{"binary-caches-parallel-connections"} // 25);
 $maxParallelRequests = 1 if $maxParallelRequests < 1;
 
 my $ttlNegative = 24 * 3600; # when to purge negative lookups from the database