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stackprof VS VisualVM

Compare stackprof VS VisualVM and see what are their differences

stackprof logo stackprof

stackprof is a a sampling call-stack profiler for ruby 2.1+

VisualVM logo VisualVM

VisualVM is a visual tool integrating several commandline JDK tools and lightweight profiling...
  • stackprof Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-22
  • VisualVM Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-18

stackprof features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

VisualVM features and specs

  • Comprehensive Monitoring
    VisualVM allows developers to monitor and troubleshoot Java applications through various data points like JVM-level statistics, thread monitoring, and memory inspection.
  • Integration with JDK
    As a part of the JDK, VisualVM is easy to access and use without the need for additional installations or configurations.
  • Lightweight
    Being lightweight, VisualVM does not add significant overhead to the system and can be used effectively in development without impacting performance.
  • User-friendly Interface
    VisualVM provides an intuitive and graphical interface that makes it easier for users to analyze the performance metrics and diagnose issues.
  • Plugin Support
    VisualVM supports plugins, allowing users to extend its functionalities according to specific requirements and use cases.
  • Cross-platform
    As a Java-based tool, VisualVM can be run on any platform that supports Java, making it highly versatile.

Possible disadvantages of VisualVM

  • Limited to Java Applications
    VisualVM can only be used with Java applications, which can be a limitation for mixed-environment monitoring needs.
  • Limited Features for Enterprise
    While excellent for basic monitoring, VisualVM might lack some features and scalability needed for large enterprise-grade monitoring and performance analysis.
  • Steep Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    Despite its user-friendly interface, some advanced features and customizations can be complex and may require a steep learning curve.
  • Infrequent Updates
    The update cycle for VisualVM can be slower compared to commercial alternatives, leading to potential lag in addressing bugs or adding new features.
  • Resource Usage
    Running VisualVM for in-depth analysis on the same machine as the application it monitors could potentially affect the application’s performance due to resource consumption.

Analysis of stackprof

Overall verdict

  • StackProf is a well-regarded, sampling-based profiler for Ruby that provides low-overhead, actionable insights into CPU, wall-clock, object allocation, and memory usage, making it a reliable choice for performance analysis in production and development.

Why this product is good

  • Low-overhead sampling profiler that is safe to run in many scenarios, including production, without significantly impacting performance
  • Supports multiple profiling modes including CPU time, wall-clock time, and object allocation, giving flexibility for different diagnostic needs
  • Produces detailed reports with call graphs and flamegraph output that make it easy to identify hotspots and bottlenecks
  • Well-maintained, widely adopted in the Ruby community, and integrates cleanly with tools like rack-mini-profiler and speedscope
  • Simple API that lets you profile specific code blocks or entire applications with minimal setup

Recommended for

  • Ruby developers needing to diagnose CPU or performance bottlenecks in their applications
  • Teams optimizing Rails applications for latency and throughput
  • Engineers profiling memory allocation and garbage collection pressure
  • Developers who want to generate flamegraphs for visual performance analysis
  • Anyone needing a lightweight profiler suitable for production sampling

stackprof videos

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VisualVM videos

Java Heap Dump Analysis - VisualVM Tutorial

More videos:

  • Tutorial - OutOfMemoryError Java Heap Space Fix - Heap Dump Analysis VisualVM Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to stackprof and VisualVM)
Software Development
22 22%
78% 78
Resource Profiling And Monitoring
IDE
28 28%
72% 72
Memory Monitoring
46 46%
54% 54

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VisualVM should be more popular than stackprof. It has been mentiond 24 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

stackprof mentions (3)

  • A Trick For Reading Flamegraphs
    Stackprof can be used alone/by itself to generate flamegraphs for arbitrary Ruby code. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • Why do my requests take so much time to complete when View and ActiveRecord are finishing fast?
    I’d use something like stackprof ( https://github.com/tmm1/stackprof ) to see where the time is going. If you already have suspicions you can use it to get information about a specific method / few lines of Ruby but there’s also a rack middleware. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Optimizing your tests in 5 steps
    Other profilers, such as stackprof, trace everything that’s happening by line. These types of profilers usually need some instrumentation to be configured, as shown below:. - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago

VisualVM mentions (24)

  • Racket v9.0
    Java has the VisualVM. https://visualvm.github.io/ I would love a similar tool for Racket. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Streaming data from RDBMS with jooq
    For the purposes of this demo, let’s simply count the number of retrieved rows. The Thread.sleep() is included to give me time to open VisualVM and check the metrics:. - Source: dev.to / about 5 years ago
  • How to Monitor SQL Performance in Spring Boot
    To track query-level metrics, check out the Hibernate Statistics section. Profiling tools like YourKit or VisualVM can help you analyze key metrics such as:. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Can java collection be fixed?
    If you're curious, attach VisualVM and watch the RAM usage graph. You'll notice that Java performs garbage collections long before reaching allocating the maximum amount of RAM allocated, and you can't even feel any performance issue in-game. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Items won't drop when either mined or dropped from inventory and new chunks won't load.
    Hangs and deadlocks are significantly harder to debug. A first step is taking a thread dump so you can see what each thread in the JVM is currently trying to do. I like VisualVM for this, you can also use the command-line tools jps -l (to list all Java PIDs) and jstack for taking a thread dump. Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing stackprof and VisualVM, you can also consider the following products

dotMemory - dotMemory allows users to analyze memory usage in a variety of .NET and .NET Core applications.

Eclipse Memory Analyzer - The Eclipse Foundation - home to a global community, the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE and over 350 open source projects, including runtimes, tools and frameworks.

Robot Console - Robot Console is a Message and Event Monitoring Software for IBM i thathas automatic message management, resource monitoring, and log monitoring.

JConsole - Provides information about performance and resource consumption for Java applications.

Valgrind - Valgrind is an instrumentation framework for building dynamic analysis tools.

YourKit Java Profiler - Java profiler