Memory profiling of .NET code

The goal of memory profiling is to find the cause of memory and performance issues in an application. It can give answers to questions like "What functions allocate so much memory?", "Why is this object still in memory (a memory leak)?", "How does garbage collection affect performance," and more.

JetBrains Rider integrates with dotMemory to provide memory profiling of .NET applications. You can use the profiler via the dotMemory Profiler tool window, via the Run menu, and via the run widget menu.

Limitations

Compared to the standalone version of dotMemory, some features and views are not available:

Automatic inspections and the Heap Fragmentation diagram.
The Group by Similar Retention, Group by Creation Stack Trace, and Group by Shortest Paths views for object sets.
The Key Retention Paths and Creation Stack Trace views for instances.

Installation and licensing

dotTrace and dotMemory are provided as a single bundled plugin for JetBrains Rider, which is added and enabled automatically during the IDE installation. If you want to disable the plugin, open the Plugins page of settings Ctrl+Alt+S, switch to the Installed tab and clear the checkbox next to dotTrace and dotMemory.

Note that the dotTrace and dotMemory plugin is available in Rider only for the owners of dotUltimate or All Products Pack subscriptions.

Supported CPU architectures

CPU	Standalone	Command-line tool	Profiler in JetBrains Rider
x86, x64	Windows: x64 only Linux: x64 only. Only Alpine 3.13–3.15 is supported macOS: x64 See details	Windows: x86 and x64 Linux (glibc and musl-based): x64 only macOS: x64	Windows, Linux, macOS: x64 only
ARM	Windows: arm64 only. Windows 11: .NET 5.0–7.0 only Linux (glibc-based only): arm64 only macOS: arm64 (Apple Silicon). macOS 12 Monterey and later: .NET 6.0–7.0 only	Windows: arm64 only Linux (musl-based): arm64 only Linux (glibc-based): arm32 and arm64. GLIBC_2.23 or later macOS: arm64 (Apple Silicon). macOS 12 Monterey and later: .NET 6.0–7.0 only	Windows, Linux, macOS: arm64 only

CPU

Standalone

Command-line tool

Profiler in JetBrains Rider

x86, x64

Windows: x64 only
Linux: x64 only. Only Alpine 3.13–3.15 is supported
macOS: x64

See details

Windows: x86 and x64
Linux (glibc and musl-based): x64 only
macOS: x64

Windows, Linux, macOS: x64 only

ARM

Windows: arm64 only. Windows 11: .NET 5.0–7.0 only
Linux (glibc-based only): arm64 only
macOS: arm64 (Apple Silicon). macOS 12 Monterey and later: .NET 6.0–7.0 only

Windows: arm64 only
Linux (musl-based): arm64 only
Linux (glibc-based): arm32 and arm64. GLIBC_2.23 or later
macOS: arm64 (Apple Silicon). macOS 12 Monterey and later: .NET 6.0–7.0 only

Windows, Linux, macOS: arm64 only

Supported frameworks for x86 and x64 CPUs

	Windows	macOS \| Linux
.NET Framework 1.0 – 4.8	Available in: standalone, console tool, Visual Studio, JetBrains Rider Notes: You can attach only to .NET Framework 4.0 or later processes.
.NET Core 1.0 – 3.1 .NET 5 – 7	Available in: standalone, console tool, Visual Studio, JetBrains Rider Notes: You can attach only to .NET Core 3.0 or later processes.	Available in: standalone, console tool, JetBrains Rider Notes: Attaching to running .NET Core processes is possible: On Linux: only for .NET Core 3.0 or later, .NET 5 or later. On macOS: only for .NET 5 or later.

Windows

macOS | Linux

.NET Framework 1.0 – 4.8

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

Notes:

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

.NET Core 1.0 – 3.1

.NET 5 – 7

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

Notes:

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

Available in: standalone, console tool, JetBrains Rider

Notes:

Attaching to running .NET Core processes is possible:
- On Linux: only for .NET Core 3.0 or later, .NET 5 or later.
- On macOS: only for .NET 5 or later.

Last modified: 17 June 2024