Automatic memory management in .NET makes development a lot easier, but it's still easy to introduce memory leaks into your application. For example, forgetting to unregister event handlers can lead to significant chunks of memory being held on to unnecessarily, but spotting that this is happening can be very difficult.

Trying to understand memory problems without a suitable tool can take hours or days, if you're lucky enough to know a problem exists. This is time which would be better spent fixing the problem.

A tool every .NET developer should use

ANTS Memory Profiler makes memory profiling simple.

Key features

Obtain clear, meaningful results

Making it easier for you to interpret the information. Spend your time fixing problems instead of struggling to understand them.

Get results fast

With a footprint of less than 32 MB, the profiler can comfortably profile large, complex applications, with virtually no overhead. Take as many snapshots of the heap memory as you like, in seconds rather than minutes.

Quickly visualize the relationships between your objects

Use the instance retention graph to quickly see why your leaking objects are still being held in memory. You don't have to build a mental map to keep track of how objects reference each other.

Go straight to the source of the problem

Intelligent analysis highlights the most likely causes of issues, often saving hours of problem-hunting.

Zero in fast on the cause

Powerful filtering options allow you to cut through the noise, enabling you to quickly get to the root of even the most complex problems.

If you're programming in C# or VB.NET, and you need to understand where your memory is going, give ANTS Memory Profiler a try.

It takes five minutes to download, install, and start using the tool.

Features

Instance retention graph quickly allows you to see the shortest reference paths to all GC roots, which will need to be broken to fix memory leaks.

Compare any two snapshots with each other.

Automated API for taking snapshots from within your application using a single line of code.

Capable of attaching to a running .NET 4 / 4.5 / 4.6 process. Ideal if you want zero downtime and to preserve the state of your current process.

Ability to profile .NET executables, ASP.NET and ASP.NET 5 DNX applications and web services in IIS, IIS Express, and Web Development Server, worker and web roles running in the local Azure emulator, SharePoint 2007 or 2010 collections, Silverlight applications, Windows services, and COM+ applications.

Supports .NET 2 to .NET 4.6, in any language supported by the .NET framework.

Profile unmanaged memory use – if your .NET code uses unmanaged code or components, you can see how much memory unmanaged modules and classes are holding on to.

Ability to take and analyse an arbitrarily large number of memory snapshots.

One-step setup dialog.

Assembly loading view to let you explore memory consumption from static and dynamic assemblies..

Native Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) support.

Integration with Visual Studio 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015, so you can start profiling your application from within your IDE. One click launches ANTS Memory Profiler within seconds, with the executable path already set.

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