If you are reading this you may be in the unfortunate position of looking for an elusive and possibly intermittent problem in your production application. Debugging and diagnosing a memory leak or an
OutOfMemoryException can be a daunting, intimidating and challenging task. Fortunately, there are a number of tools to help; some of these are "paid license" apps, but there are even more tools that are free. I'll discuss some .NET Debugging Tools available. I've used all of the following tools with the exception of SciTech .NET Memory Profiler. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I prefer the free tools for several reasons:
- Getting approval for licensing and purchase of a 3rd-party tool is an uphill task and you rarely have time to wait for the approval process when it is a production issue.
- I find the feature set of a combination of the free tools gives you the largest "surface area" of features to help. Some are better at strict data collection, others have graphical views, some are static for post-mortem debugging, and others can do real-time analysis.
- Even though these are free, they are very robust and provide just as much data as the paid license tools. A good example of this is WinDbg which was developed in 1993 by Microsoft for in-house debugging of the Windows Kernel.
Free Tools
Advantages
- Duh! It's free
- There are lots of tools to choose from
- All of the ones I've seen are from reputable and well-known companies.
- You can often find blog posts (ahem...), articles, reddit threads, etc. that can provide some direction for getting started.
Disadvantages
- Formal documentation can be lacking. Finding a blog post or article is great but comprehensive detail is often missing or at best glossed over. This can make getting started a bit more of a challenge if the tool is new to you.
- Your company may have restrictions on using free tools for fear of malware, liability, or other reasons.
Licensed Tools
Hope this helps!
