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Željko Šević
Željko Šević

Posted on • Originally published at sevic.dev on

Profiling Node.js apps with Chrome DevTools profiler

#node #chromedevtools #profiling

Profiling refers to analyzing and measuring an application's performance characteristics.

Profiling helps identify performance bottlenecks in a Node.js app, such as CPU-intensive tasks like cryptographic operations, image processing, or complex calculations.

This post covers running a profiler for various Node.js apps in Chrome DevTools.

Prerequisites

  • Google Chrome installed

  • Node.js app bootstrapped

Setup

  • Run node --inspect app.js to start the debugger.

  • Open chrome://inspect, click Open dedicated DevTools for Node and then navigate to the Performance tab. Start recording.

  • Run load testing via autocannon package using the following command format npx autocannon <COMMAND>.

  • Stop recording in Chrome DevTools.

Profiling

On Perfomance tab in Chrome DevTools open Bottom-Up subtab to identify which functions consume the most time.

Look for potential performance bottlenecks, such as synchronous functions for hashing (pbkdf2Sync) or file system operations (readFileSync).

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