Hacker ApprovedDepartments

Heaptrack

Shares rank 6 of 9 profilers by recommenders

Free memory profiler that shows where a program allocates memory and whether allocations leak, recommended for finding performance problems.

Free memory profiler that shows where a program allocates memory and whether allocations leak, recommended for finding performance problems.

5 people gave an opinion

recommend it
5
criticize it
0
approval share
100%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 4 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: not recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: not recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: not recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: not recommended
  12. October 2026: not recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
  • Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

Other profilers people recommend

The four most recommended other profilers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

Heaptrack compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
perf13476%8—Approved
Java Flight Recorder100100%6—Approved
Instruments9282%5——
Perfetto8280%4——
HeaptrackThis page50100%4——
See all 9 profilers, ranked

What people said

All 5 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“use heaptrack, samply, find out why and exactly where it's slow”

MixedComment from 22 Aug 2026 in “There's no reason for software to be slow anymore”

“very straightforward to use and the info is detailed enough”

RecommendsComment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Box to Save Memory in Rust”

“It tracks allocations, whether they leak or not.”

RecommendsComment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Why users cannot create Issues directly (Ghostty)”

“they are very powerful and fast”

RecommendsComment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Bytes before FLOPS: your algorithm is (mostly) fine, your data isn't”

“Sometimes the performance issue is as simple as not reusing a buffer”

RecommendsComment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Bytes before FLOPS: your algorithm is (mostly) fine, your data isn't”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.