The best profilers, according to hackers
9 profilers recommended in Hacker News comments over the past year, ranked by how many separate people recommend each one.
All profilers
- perfFree Linux profiler that people rely on to find where code spends its time, and to build intuition for CPU performance. Its output is raw, and it expects you to already understand the OS.13recommend
- Java Flight RecorderPeople recommend it as a free, low-overhead profiler and telemetry tool for diagnosing Java performance and memory problems, including in production. No critic in these quotes names a caveat.10recommend
- InstrumentsApple's free performance profiler bundled with Xcode, praised for finding bottlenecks and for its UI; critics note its trace format is proprietary.9recommend
- PerfettoFree tool that spares you building your own trace viewer. Critics say it is less seamless than chrome://tracing.8recommend
- Python 3.15 sampling profilerBuilt into Python 3.15, it gives sampling profiling with strong reporting and a live mode. Critics note it cannot be switched on and off from code.6recommend
- HeaptrackFree memory profiler that shows where a program allocates memory and whether allocations leak, recommended for finding performance problems.5recommend
- Nsight SystemsFree NVIDIA profiler people use for GPU work and for CPU-side and Python GIL analysis.5recommend
- py-spyRecommended as the best tool for finding CPU-hogging Python code, and for its dump command on supported interpreters. No criticism was recorded.5recommend
- Superluminal ProfilerA paid profiler that people recommend for latency work, finding it much better than alternatives they tried. It is often suggested alongside Tracy.5recommend