Hotspot

A Linux perf GUI for performance analysis

Hotspot is a standalone, user-friendly Graphical User Interface for analyzing performance data. It takes a perf.data file, parses and evaluates its contents, and presents the results in a visually appealing and easily understandable way.

Hotspot fully supports Qt 6 and KF6, while keeping compatibility with Qt 5 and KF5. Check out the latest developments in the latest changelog on GitHub.

Our initial goal for Hotspot was to provide a UI like KCachegrind around Linux perf. In future versions we will be supporting various other performance data formats under this umbrella.

Why Hotspot

Compared to perf report, Hotspot has the following advantages:

• The built-in flamegraph - easily the most important feature of hotspot - allows you to find optimization opportunities even in large code bases.
• The interactive GUI with tooltips makes it easy to analyze data in different ways.
• Its functionality is intuitive - no need to remember the magic invocation perf report -g srcline -s dso,sym,srcline --inline.
• It has the ability to display multiple events in one view, [as shown in the screenshots below].
• The top-down, bottom-up and caller/callee aggregations make understanding the results easier than the default aggregation of perf report.
• Full support for cross-machine analysis as required for embedded development - check out the details in the 'readme' file.

Get started with Hotspot

Get a quick glance at the main features of Hotspot and learn how to use them in this short tutorial video.

Documentation

For more detailed information and instructions, check out our guidance on usage on the GitHub page.