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Hall of FameBrendan Gregg201122 min readintermediate

Flame Graphs

Read on brendangregg.comHN 1·0 comments

Summary

Flame Graphs are a visualization created by Brendan Gregg to quickly identify frequent code-paths in profiled software by representing stack traces as interactive SVG charts. They display stack profile population on the x-axis and stack depth on the y-axis, with frame width indicating frequency.

  • Flame Graphs visualize stack traces, with the x-axis showing stack population (alphabetical, not time) and y-axis showing stack depth.
  • Frame width indicates how often a function was present in the profiled stacks, highlighting hot code paths.
  • They are interactive, allowing users to hover for details, click to zoom, and search for specific functions.
  • Multiple types exist, including CPU, Memory, Off-CPU, and Differential Flame Graphs, for various performance analyses.

Any engineer performing performance analysis needs to understand and utilize Flame Graphs to efficiently diagnose bottlenecks in complex software systems.

9/10
observabilityperformancesystems programmingprofilingvisualizationdebugging

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