I realise that this may be subjective (and would appreciate not being voted down on this one XD), but I would like some advice from other developers out there who have used RedGate's .Net productivity addins - ANTS Performance Profiler Pro, ANTS Memory Profiler, and Excpetion Hunter. Its quite pricey, and basically, does anyone recommend it? And do the ANTS products do what they say they can (respectively)?:
Anticipating your input on this. much thanks!
I have both the RedGate performance and memory profilers, and both are good. I used the trial of Exception Hunter when it first came out, but didn't see a need for it so I don't have a licence for that.
ANTS Performance Profiler - this is very good and I have used it many times to identify bottlenecks in code. The user interface is intuitive and easily shows slow/inefficient areas to focus on.
ANTS Memory Profile - I've had less success with this as I find it harder to use. I also have a licence for the SciTech Memory Profiler which I find a better tool for memory profiling, allowing you to see more detailed information and drill down into it easier.
My biggest niggle with the RedGate tools (and this applies to all of their tools) is that they do not work through authenticating proxies and there is no way to configure them to (this doesn't stop them from running though).
If cost is an issue, Eqatec make a free performance profiler. I've never used it though, so cannot comment on how good it is.
If you are looking to solve a specific memory/performance issue, the cost of these tools will pay for itself in saved time. If you are just curious about your application then it would be a harder cost to justify.