dotTRACE

What is dotTRACE?

dotTrace is a professional-grade performance profiling tool designed to help developers identify and eliminate bottlenecks in .NET applications. With deep integration into Visual Studio and powerful analysis capabilities, it provides full visibility into how your application behaves at runtime.

Whether you're working on desktop software, web applications, or backend services, dotTrace enables you to diagnose performance issues with precision and confidence.

Who should use dotTrace?

dotTrace is ideal for:

• .NET developers focused on performance optimization
• Development teams working on high-demand or critical systems
• Companies aiming to improve user experience
• Projects experiencing slowdowns, freezes, or high CPU usage

What types of applications can you profile?

dotTrace supports a wide range of .NET applications, including:

• Desktop applications (WinForms, WPF)
• Web applications (ASP.NET on IIS or IIS Express)
• APIs and services (including WCF and Windows Services)
• Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps
• Unit tests and development environments

This flexibility makes it suitable for virtually any .NET performance analysis scenario.

Understand performance behavior over time

One of dotTrace’s key strengths is its ability to show not just how much time is spent, but how that time is distributed.

With this level of insight, you can:

• Detect UI freezes and responsiveness issues
• Identify excessive garbage collection activity
• Analyze thread interactions and concurrency problems
• Spot inefficient file or network operations
• Visualize performance spikes over time

This timeline-based perspective is essential for diagnosing complex, real-world performance issues.

Multiple profiling modes for different needs

dotTrace offers several profiling approaches depending on the level of detail you need:

Sampling

Provides a quick overview of application performance with minimal overhead.

Tracing

Captures detailed method call information for deeper investigation.

Line-by-line

Allows precise analysis of how individual lines of code perform—ideal for optimizing specific algorithms.

Each mode is designed to support different stages of performance analysis, high-level monitoring to deep debugging.

Smart data analysis and filtering

dotTrace includes powerful tools to explore performance data efficiently.

You can:

• Filter specific time ranges
• Isolate problematic execution scenarios
• Navigate call trees and method relationships
• Focus on the most critical performance issues

This makes it easier to move raw data to actionable insights.

Seamless integration with Visual Studio

dotTrace integrates directly into Visual Studio, making it a natural part of your development workflow.

With this integration, you can:

• Start profiling sessions directly the IDE
• Jump performance data to source code instantly
• Identify hotspots (performance-critical methods)
• Fix issues without leaving your development environment

This significantly reduces the time between identifying and resolving performance problems.

Profile specific parts of your code instantly

dotTrace allows you to analyze individual methods without running the entire application.

This means you can:

• Select a specific method
• Profile it in isolation
• Validate performance improvements immediately

This feature is especially useful during rapid development and testing cycles.

Remote application profiling

In addition to local environments, dotTrace also supports profiling applications running on remote machines.

This is particularly valuable for:

• Troubleshooting production environments
• Diagnosing slow web servers
• Monitoring long-running services

The setup is straightforward and does not require a full installation on the remote machine.

Key benefits for your team

By using dotTrace, your team can:

• Gain full control over application performance
• Reduce bottlenecks and system slowdowns
• Improve end-user experience
• Diagnose complex issues faster
• Increase overall development efficiency

System requirements

To run dotTrace effectively, the following is recommended:

• CPU: Dual-core 1.8 GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB or more
• Storage: At least 50 GB of available space
• Operating System: Windows 7, 8, 10 or later
• Display resolution: Minimum 1024×768