Introduction

Last modified: 01 August 2022

Welcome to dotTrace Help!

dotTrace is arguably the most convenient tool for .NET performance profiling.

dotTrace lets you find performance bottlenecks in a variety of .NET applications, including applications based on .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono, and Unity version of Mono.

For the information about dotTrace system requirements, refer to this page.

For the details on how to use dotTrace integrated into JetBrains Rider, refer to the JetBrains Rider documentation.

Supported CPU architectures

CPU

Details

x86, x64

  • Windows, Linux, macOS: See details.

  • Linux (musl-based): .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5.0–6.0 on x64 only. Only Alpine 3.13-3.15 is supported.

arm64

  • Linux (glibc-based): GLIBC_2.23 or later.

  • Linux (musl-based): .NET 5.0–6.0. Only Alpine 3.13-3.15 is supported.

Supported operating systems and frameworks

Windows

macOS | Linux

Native

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, Visual Studio, standalone, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline.

Not available

.NET Framework 1.0 – 4.8

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, Visual Studio, standalone, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline, Sampling, Tracing, Line-by-Line.

Notes:

  • You can attach only to .NET Framework 4.0 or later processes.

Not available

.NET Core 1.0 – 3.1

.NET 5 – 6

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, Visual Studio, standalone, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline, Sampling, Tracing, Line-by-Line.

Notes:

  • You can attach only to .NET Core 3.0 or later processes.

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline, Sampling, Tracing.

Notes:

  • Because of some limitations of .NET Core, there may be some issues with profiling projects that target .NET Core 3.0 or earlier. In some cases, the profiled application may hang or crash. Projects targeting .NET Core 3.1 can be profiled without any issues.

  • Attaching to running .NET Core processes is possible:

    • On Linux: only for .NET Core 3.0 or later.

    • On macOS: only for .NET 5 or later.

Mono 5.10 and later

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, Visual Studio, standalone, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline.

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline.

Notes:

  • Only 64-bit processes can be profiled.

  • Attaching to running Mono processes is not possible.

Mono Unity 2018.3 and later

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, Visual Studio, standalone, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline.

Supported

Available in: JetBrains Rider, console tool

Supported profiling types: Timeline.

Notes:

  • Attaching to running Unity processes is not possible.

Get started

  • If you are new to performance profiling or dotTrace, start with Basic Concepts.

  • For details on how to perform main profiling scenarios, refer to How To.

  • If you need more information on profiling process (running and configuring a profiling session, getting snapshots, and so on), start with Run Profiling.

  • The details on performance snapshots analysis are covered in Analyze Performance Profiling Results.

  • Since the version 6.0, dotTrace provides the completely new way of profiling applications - timeline profiling. This method allows you to collect temporal data about your application. This way of profiling is extremely helpful when you need to analyze UI freezes, sync delays, excessive garbage collections, file I/O, and other interval events. For details on how to analyze timeline profiling snapshots, refer to Analyze Timeline Profiling Results.