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VisualVM VS PerfView

Compare VisualVM VS PerfView and see what are their differences

VisualVM logo VisualVM

VisualVM is a visual tool integrating several commandline JDK tools and lightweight profiling...

PerfView logo PerfView

CPU and memory performance-analysis tool
  • VisualVM Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-18
  • PerfView Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-11

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.

PerfView features and specs

  • Comprehensive Performance Analysis
    PerfView offers extensive performance analysis capabilities, including CPU usage, memory allocation, and garbage collection, making it a powerful tool for diagnosing performance issues.
  • Low Overhead
    The tool is designed to have minimal impact on the performance of the application being monitored, allowing for accurate measurement without significant interference.
  • Command-line Capabilities
    PerfView supports command-line operations, enabling integration with automated performance testing and continuous integration pipelines.
  • Rich Visualization
    It provides a range of data visualization options to help users understand complex performance data in an intuitive way.
  • Free and Open Source
    As an open-source project, PerfView is free to use and benefit from community contributions and transparency in its development.

Possible disadvantages of PerfView

  • Steep Learning Curve
    PerfView has a complex interface and options that may require a significant amount of time for new users to learn and use effectively.
  • Windows Only
    The tool is designed specifically for Windows environments, limiting its applicability for cross-platform development.
  • Limited Real-time Analysis
    PerfView is not primarily focused on real-time performance monitoring, which might be a limitation for certain use cases requiring immediate feedback.
  • Complex Data
    The sheer volume and complexity of data that PerfView can produce may be overwhelming to users who are less experienced with performance profiling.
  • Outdated Documentation
    Some users may find the official documentation to be outdated or lacking in comprehensive examples and explanations, making self-learning harder.

VisualVM videos

Java Heap Dump Analysis - VisualVM Tutorial

More videos:

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

PerfView videos

PerfView: The Ultimate .NET Performance Tool

More videos:

  • Review - Track Down Outlaw Memory Leaks with PerfView | Pluralsight
  • Review - PerfVIew - PC Performance Analysis - HDD/CPU/Memory

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VisualVM and PerfView)
Software Development
75 75%
25% 25
Resource Profiling And Monitoring
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
IDE
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VisualVM should be more popular than PerfView. It has been mentiond 23 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.

VisualVM mentions (23)

  • 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 / almost 4 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 / 5 months 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: almost 2 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: almost 2 years ago
  • Top metrics for Elasticsearch monitoring with Prometheus
    The Java VisualVM project is an advanced dashboard for Memory and CPU monitoring. It features advanced resource visualization, as well as process and thread utilization. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
View more

PerfView mentions (3)

  • Microsoft's perfview - Do you care about this tool?
    It is fascinating to see so many distributed nugets of software lying around for specific use cases. One of them is perfview by Microsoft (https://github.com/microsoft/perfview). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • W4 Games raises $8.5M to support Godot Engine growth
    Could you profile it with windows perfview[1]? [1] https://github.com/microsoft/perfview. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Any recommendation on profiling tools for .Net Framework 4.7 application? On a legacy project (mvc, api) we are experiencing high CPU and I need to pinpoint root causes of this.
    Can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned yet: https://github.com/microsoft/perfview. Source: about 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

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

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.

dotTrace Performance - JetBrains dotTrace is the complete profiling solution for .NET.

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

Relyze WonderLeak - WonderLeak is a native Windows allocation profiler, designed from the ground up to be blazingly fast and handle profiling large multi threaded applications with ease.

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

dotTrace Memory - With dotTrace Memory, you can quickly profile the memory usage of your applications based on .