diff --git a/pulsar-metadata/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/metadata/impl/AbstractMetadataStore.java b/pulsar-metadata/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/metadata/impl/AbstractMetadataStore.java
index b0e4b43f70067..c6a376e45ee39 100644
--- a/pulsar-metadata/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/metadata/impl/AbstractMetadataStore.java
+++ b/pulsar-metadata/src/main/java/org/apache/pulsar/metadata/impl/AbstractMetadataStore.java
@@ -25,7 +25,10 @@
 import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.AsyncLoadingCache;
 import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.Caffeine;
 import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.LoadingCache;
+import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.RemovalCause;
+import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.RemovalListener;
 import com.google.common.annotations.VisibleForTesting;
+import io.netty.buffer.ByteBufUtil;
 import io.netty.util.concurrent.DefaultThreadFactory;
 import io.opentelemetry.api.OpenTelemetry;
 import java.time.Instant;
@@ -102,10 +105,35 @@ protected AbstractMetadataStore(String metadataStoreName, OpenTelemetry openTele
                         StringUtils.isNotBlank(metadataStoreName) ? metadataStoreName : getClass().getSimpleName()));
         registerListener(this);
 
-        this.childrenCache = Caffeine.newBuilder()
+        long childrenCacheMaxSizeBytes = getChildrenCacheMaxSizeBytes();
+
+        Caffeine<Object, Object> childrenCacheBuilder = Caffeine.newBuilder()
                 .recordStats()
                 .refreshAfterWrite(CACHE_REFRESH_TIME_MILLIS, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
-                .expireAfterWrite(CACHE_REFRESH_TIME_MILLIS * 2, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
+                .expireAfterWrite(CACHE_REFRESH_TIME_MILLIS * 2, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
+        if (childrenCacheMaxSizeBytes > 0) {
+            childrenCacheBuilder.maximumWeight(childrenCacheMaxSizeBytes)
+                    .weigher((String key, List<String> children) -> {
+                        // calculate the total byte size of the key and entries in the children list
+                        // to get some estimation of the required heap memory required for the entry.
+                        // add 16 bytes overhead for Java object header and 16 bytes for java.lang.String fields.
+                        int totalSize = ByteBufUtil.utf8Bytes(key) + 32;
+                        for (String child : children) {
+                            totalSize += ByteBufUtil.utf8Bytes(child) + 32;
+                        }
+                        return totalSize;
+                    });
+        }
+        this.childrenCache = childrenCacheBuilder
+                .evictionListener(new RemovalListener<String, List<String>>() {
+                    @Override
+                    public void onRemoval(String key, List<String> value, RemovalCause cause) {
+                        if (cause == RemovalCause.SIZE) {
+                            log.warn("[{}] Evicting path {} from children cache because the size of the cache is too "
+                                    + "large. Consider increasing the maximum heap size.", metadataStoreName, key);
+                        }
+                    }
+                })
                 .buildAsync(new AsyncCacheLoader<String, List<String>>() {
                     @Override
                     public CompletableFuture<List<String>> asyncLoad(String key, Executor executor) {
@@ -152,6 +180,20 @@ public CompletableFuture<Boolean> asyncReload(String key, Boolean oldValue,
         this.metadataStoreStats = new MetadataStoreStats(metadataStoreName, openTelemetry);
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Return the maximum size of the children cache in bytes.
+     * @return maximum size of the children cache in bytes.
+     */
+    protected long getChildrenCacheMaxSizeBytes() {
+        long heapMaxSizeBytes = Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory();
+        // default 20% of max heap size, this should be sufficient to prevent OOME in the use case
+        // when a lot of namespaces with lots of topics are listed in the metadata store.
+        long defaultSizeBytes = heapMaxSizeBytes / 5;
+        // min size 20MB
+        int minSizeBytes = 1024 * 1024 * 20;
+        return Math.max(defaultSizeBytes, minSizeBytes);
+    }
+
     @Override
     public CompletableFuture<Void> handleMetadataEvent(MetadataEvent event) {
         CompletableFuture<Void> result = new CompletableFuture<>();