Amazon CodeGuru Profiler vs Scalene

Amazon CodeGuru Profiler collects runtime performance data from live applications and recommends ways to improve performance and find CPU bottlenecks. It is designed for continuous profiling of production applications with minimal overhead. Interactive flame graphs show CPU and latency analysis, including which code paths use the most resources. Machine learning recommendations identify expensive methods and explain their cause, impact, and possible resolution.

The service can detect anomalies in application profiles and, when configured, send an Amazon SNS notification for a new anomaly. It supports Java, JVM languages such as Scala and Kotlin, and Python 3.6 or later. Java and other JVM languages can be profiled for CPU and heap summary; Python profiling covers CPU wall-clock time. Applications may run on EC2, ECS, EKS, Fargate, Lambda, or on premises. The agent can be enabled in JVM applications from the command line or application code and is also used for Lambda applications. An AWS account is required, with IAM permissions controlling access. The agent collects stack traces, not parameter names or values, variable values, or application data.

Scalene is a free, open-source profiler for Python programs that reports CPU, GPU and memory use and offers AI-powered optimization proposals. Its line- and function-level reports separate Python time from native-code and system time. Memory analysis shows per-line use, distinguishes Python from native allocations and flags lines with likely memory leaks. GPU profiling reports time on NVIDIA-based systems. Async profiling attributes wall-clock await time to the suspended coroutine line and reports mean and peak concurrent waiters. Its graphical interface can display stitched Python and native call stacks, memory flame charts and a timeline. Scalene is usable from the command line, a web-based GUI, a Visual Studio Code extension or Jupyter notebooks. The web interface processes profiles locally and works offline. For optimization suggestions, listed AI providers include Amazon Bedrock, Microsoft Azure, OpenAI and local models through Ollama. The project reports typical profiling overhead of no more than 10–20%, often less. Scalene is available for free under the Apache-2.0 license, with installations listed for macOS, Linux, Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux 2.