I love the profiler for Visual Studio Ultimate 2010. But I do not have $8,000 or whatever it costs to just get that functionality. Are there any profilers that are just as good, if not better? It does NOT have to be free. I basically would like to see something like method X has this amount of inclusive time, times it was called and by WHO, exclusive time, and so on. Does anything else do this?
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Ants Profiler is very good: http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet-development/ants-performance-profiler/
Also I like dotTrace: http://www.jetbrains.com/profiler/
Ants is more robust but dotTrace's company support is awesome :)
Also, with dotTrace, if you are doing opensource projects, then you can qualify for an OpenSource license. They also have frequent updates and they still support .netCF (For VS 2008. Not important to you, but shows they care and support all the Windows Platforms)
EDIT:
Here are 2 screenshots of a project I'm working on, profiled in dotTrace. As you can from the first image, you get the call tree, organized by threads. It shows the inclusive time and the inclusive run percentage of each method and sub methods.
In this picture you see the exclusive run time, number of calls and in the lower panel, the functions that called the selected method (in the top panel) and the number of calls and recursive calls.
I am not affiliated with jetbrains, but I have several opensource projects and they have given me free licenses because of them. For that reason I really like the company.
Hope this helps!
(Oh, and I have the Professional version. I'm not sure what the other version have or don't have)
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joe_coolish
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So which version would I be looking at for the same functionality I mentioned in the first post? The dotTrace bundle and the ANTS .NET Developer bundle are the only two editions that would satisfy my needs? – Nathan Apr 12 '11 at 23:04
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Both do it (at least from what I can remember). Ill look for some screenshots and show you. If not I'll post the ones from dotTrace. I don't currently have Ants installed on my computer, so I'll have to go to an older desktop to get screenshots of it. I'll update my post when I've found something – joe_coolish Apr 12 '11 at 23:07
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Would the basic version do this, or do I need to get the highest version for all that functionality? – Nathan Apr 12 '11 at 23:10
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Ok, I updated my post. As for the limitations of the standard version of dotTrace, I think you are only limited in that you can't profile Silverlight projects. Maybe others, but I'm not sure. – joe_coolish Apr 12 '11 at 23:22
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Okay thanks. Do you know if I can try both editions (standard and professional) for both products each? That way I can see if it is missing a feature I need. I know some companies only let you try the Pro or Ultimate version. Did you happen to find any ANTS screenshots? – Nathan Apr 12 '11 at 23:33
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I looked and my version of Ants is 2 versions behind :) I don't think it would do you any good. But for what you are wanting, I don't think those kinds of features would be removed from a Pro/Ultimate to a standard version. Things that would be removed would be in the realm of network profiling, Silverlight/Device profiling, Floating License, 2 yr support, priority emailing, etc. – joe_coolish Apr 13 '11 at 00:58
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Exclusive time is useless except for high-percent tight loops without function calls. Call trees are useless for finding problems that aren't localized in the tree. [Here's a simple example.](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5525758/function-profiling-woes-visual-studio-2010-ultimate/5560023#5560023) It seems people are enamored of a nice-looking UI and more "features" than they could possibly need. – Mike Dunlavey Apr 17 '11 at 18:01
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jetbrains dotTrace is mentioned often in this case. It's not as expensive but powerful.
Femaref
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2I evaluated both dotTrace and Ants and found Ants was easier to use and helped me solve problems more quickly. They both worked well, Ants was just easier – Orion Edwards Apr 12 '11 at 23:00
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2I agree, but I had some issues with licensing when I moved to another computer and I was on hold with Red-Gate for ever before I could get the issue resolved. jetbrains' support was excellent. I asked about a feature and had a developer contact me (via email) the next day, and they put it in the next version! I was floored – joe_coolish Apr 12 '11 at 23:03
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I have a complicated ASP.NET project and dotTrace is the only profiler I tried that worked flawlessly. I tried other profilers, including the VS Ultimate Profiler, Red Gate ANTS, and EQATEC and none of them could handle it - they crashed or prevented my app from working. So big fan of dotTrace. – mhenry1384 Oct 18 '12 at 15:01
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There are two free ones I use:
AQTime from Smart Bear software (the free one lacks the cool integration in Visual Studio that shows the percentage of time spent for each line within a routine in the margin/gutter). Download the free version here: http://smartbear.com/products/free-tools/aqtime-standard/
Ocasionally I also use the free profiler that comes with SharpDevelop: http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/download/
I prefer the AQTime Pro though, it has a steeper learning curve but once you get the hang it really provides allot of insight (I use it for analyzing code, not for speed optimization but simply tracing the paths of code (who calls this method when I click on ...).
Tried the JetBrains once, but I found it was lacking too many features to spend anything on it.
Never tried the RedGate one yet.
Edit: There's another one I use for a quick glance of what's going on: SoftwareTrails (http://www.lovettsoftware.com/LovettSoftware/post/2012/09/07/Software-Trails.aspx). It's the simpelest to set up and built for real time analysis instead of viewing the results afterwards.
Louis Somers
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Redgate sell their ANTS Performance Profiler
Also have a look at the list of products in the first answer to this question.
Brian Webster
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I have been using EQATEC Profiler. They have a free version and there is also a way to get a full license without paying by trying out another one of their products.
Pete
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I have success with it. Note that it's desktop-only though (no ASP.NET). – mhenry1384 Sep 10 '12 at 20:34
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1@mhenry1384, EQATEC Profiler does work with ASP.NET. I'm using it now. See [Profiling ASP.NET websites with EQATEC Profiler](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3014650/37964). – Gan Oct 17 '12 at 07:07
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@Gan Good to know. I just tried it and couldn't get it working unfortunately. The project I need to profile is complicated and the only profiler that doesn't seem to choke on it is JetBrains dotTrace. – mhenry1384 Oct 18 '12 at 14:52
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@mhenry1384, what was the problem that you encountered? Perhaps you can post it as another question with details and I may be able to help? – Gan Oct 19 '12 at 02:49
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Have you ever had a look at InsightProfiler?
Its free and although the website is english the software itself has a english user interface. Its user interface maskes it quite easy to get used to it and it has kind of a lightweight feel to it. I use it quite regularyly.
