Java programming language is one of the most widely and easy-to-use languages for developers to develop applications. However, after development, the most challenging aspect for software developers is monitoring the performance of the java application. Therefore, to help developers excel at monitoring Java-based applications, we have compiled a list of the best Java performance monitoring and optimization tools.
But before getting started, let’s understand what a Java application performance monitoring tool is.
What is Java Application Monitoring Tool?
Java application monitoring tool is a type of tool that helps you to measure performance and detect problems that might affect your end users’ experiences.
Moreover, with different tools available out there for java monitoring, it’s important to choose the best effective Java performance monitoring tools
16 Best Java Application Performance Monitoring Tools
Below is the list of 16 best widely used for Java application performance monitoring tools to help you more quickly resolve performance bottlenecks, identify memory leaks, and obtain a better understanding of any threading issues.
1. JProfiler
Using JProfiler, users can identify java memory leaks and overcome performance challenges. Additionally, it helps users understand threading issues. A smart UI in JProfiler allows developers to view a set of objects from different angles. Developers can also use this tool to solve memory problems.
2. VisualVM
VisualVM is a powerful Java troubleshooting tool with a stunning graphical interface. It integrates command-line JDK tools and provides full visibility into Java applications running on Java Virtual Machine.
The Java Virtual Machine includes tools such as JConsole and Jstatt. These tools allow you to view data from multiple Java applications uniformly, regardless of the environment in which they’re running.
3. Eclipse Memory Analyzer (MAT)
In a Java-based system, memory must be monitored continuously. Java objects are stored in heaps, and the heap’s size fluctuates when an application runs. Eclipse Memory Analyzer is a Java heap analyzer that helps find memory leaks.
Additionally, it reduces memory consumption and examines productive heap dumps to determine the retained size of objects. It can also be used to automatically extract leak suspects from a report.
4. SolarWinds AppOptics
SolarWinds AppOptics is a Java application performance monitoring tool that helps developers analyze Java-based applications down to the code level. Using Java applications, it is able to provide detailed and real-time troubleshooting.
Additionally, it also lists JVM metrics on the dashboard for effective and continuous java application monitoring. With the help of this Java monitoring tool, it is easy to implement all Java-based app management processes, from JMX integration to code profiling.
5. Stagemonitor
Stage monitor is designed to monitor distributed applications. The tool is useful for clustered application stacks and helps developers monitor Java-based applications running on multiple servers.
Furthermore, Stagemonitor lets developers know about the application performance during development, testing, and production. For better monitoring, it also gives users an overview of real-time and historical data, both from the cluster and the developer server, and allows them to create threshold-based custom alerts.
Therefore, from the Stagemonitor JVM Dashboard, users can gain insight into the performance of CPU and heap, as well as garbage collection behavior, in real-time.
6. NetBeans Profiler
As part of the Apache, NetBeans Integrated Development Environment is NetBeans Profiler. For ease of use, the tool is integrated into the IDE and enables monitoring of CPU performance, memory usage, and threads with relatively low overhead for the application.
By using NetBeans Profiler, you can analyze memory usage for object allocation and garbage collection.
7. Scouter
Scouter is a free and open-source alternative to New Relic and AppDynamics’ APM. With Scouter, you can get real-time metrics on user activity, service activity (TPS, response time, SQL profiling, and more), and resource consumption metrics (CPU, memory usage, heap memory).
8. Pinpoint
Pinpoint is also a free and open-source APM solution that helps you monitor the performance of complex distributed systems written in Java and PHP.
Additionally, with the Pinpoint java performance monitoring tool, you can track active threads in real-time, view request count, response patterns, and JVM performance metrics such as CPU and memory usage, garbage collection, and JVM arguments.
9. JavaMelody
JavaMelody is another free and open-source APM tool designed to monitor Java or Java EE applications in QA and production environments.
Moreover, JavaMelody being a lightweight solution you can easily integrate into most applications without any hassle.
10. MoSKito
MoSKito is a complete toolset for DevOps to monitor the behavior and performance of Java applications. In real-time, it collects, analyzes, and stores all critical JVM performance metrics such as memory, CPU, threads, caches, load distribution, and many others.
Furthermore, MoSkito works with all major app servers including Tomcat, JBoss, Jetty, and WebLogic, does not require code changes, and protects your data. Monitoring all application processes in a multi-node production environment is easier with thresholds and alerts, as well as a clean dashboard that provides a record of user activity.
11. Oracle Java Mission Control
The JDK Mission Control is the second component of the toolchain for analyzing the data collected by the Java Flight Recorder.
With Oracle Java Development Kit Mission Control and Java Flight Recorder, a complete monitoring toolchain can be built to collect detailed runtime information necessary for incident analysis post-mortem.
Oracle JDK includes Java Flight Recorder, a framework for tracking events and profiling, which enables you to gather low-level information about the JVM and the Java application that runs on top of it. You can even use the tools for testing, development, and production environments.
12. xRebel
xRebel allows users to view the execution details of each request on all xRebel-enabled services. In this way, even though the request spans multiple Java Virtual Machines in the distributed application, performance is provided for each portion of it.
This includes requests performed using JPA, Hibernate, and JDBC and done to datastores such as MongoDB, Cassandra, HBase, and Neo4j. With all of these features, it is ideally suited to monitoring and troubleshooting microservices.
13. Glowroot
Glowroot is an open-source Java APM tool that is fast, clean, and easy to use.
Besides tracing to capture slow requests and errors, glowroot provides logging for every SQL catch, aggregation of logged user actions, and log time follow.
In addition, the monitoring tool provides historical data with configurable maintenance, as well as charts to visualize response time breakdowns and percentiles. This program also provides an interactive user interface that allows you to monitor Java applications both from a desktop computer and from a mobile device.
14. Sematext Experience
Sematext Experience is a real-time monitoring tool that lets you track java application performance and receive alerts whenever it detects issues that affect end-user experience.
The Sematext Experience can be correlated with Sematext Java Monitoring to expand your view of end-user behavior over a period of time. When you troubleshoot or analyze metrics in real-time, this gives you a broader perspective.
Understanding how your users interact with your application provides you with a unique opportunity to locate the root cause of the potential issue faster and more efficiently by examining the problem from different angles.
15. YourKit Profiler
Using YourKit Java Profiler, you can profile CPU and memory usage in local, test, and production environments, using a live connection or locally offline analysis. Yourkit Profiler along with the CPU and memory snapshots of the same session will let you see how modifying your code affects JVM performance.
The tool also supports common data stores like MongoDB, Cassandra, and HBase, so you can track down slow SQL queries and web requests. In addition to that, Java Exception profiling makes it possible to instantly find where exception throwing during execution is slowing down application performance.
16. LightStep
Using LightStep’s full-context distributed tracing and Application Performance Monitoring, you can gain insight into the deepest layer of your Java application for easier troubleshooting and root cause analysis.
With the easy-to-use UI, you can drill down to the service you are interested in and explore each of its calls, group them, and filter them. Added to dashboards, alerts, and data streams, this is considered a very useful Java application monitoring tool.
Top Java Application Monitoring Tips to Improve Your Java Application Performance
Below are the top Java monitoring tips that help you to improve your Java application performance.
1. Code Profiling
According to experts, Java-based applications should be monitored with systematic code profiling. This is a direct way to identify code inefficiencies and regressions. You can even identify low-performance areas of the Java virtual machine (JVM) by profiling the Java code.
In order to avoid manual code profiling hassles, developers must install profiling software with live code profiling capabilities to detect issues quickly and pay more attention to troubleshooting.
2. Spot Java Log Errors With Transaction Tracing
The Java logs can be tracked using transaction tracing. To trace app transactions, transaction tracing software can be used. Using efficient software origins in the log data, you can quickly trace transactions back to their source. You can even solve problems in the Java logs by tracking application transactions.
3. For Smart Troubleshooting, Optimize Log Libraries
Monitoring and troubleshooting Java application performance is easier when you know how to use JVM logging libraries.
With Java logging libraries, you can manually or via automated log management software get details regarding SMTP server logs, console logs, and other historical Java logs for effective troubleshooting.
4. Find and Fix Performance Bottlenecks
In order to avoid application slowdowns or malfunctions, it is important to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks early in the process. In order to identify and prioritize bottlenecks based on their severity, you must analyze a wide range of JVM performance metrics, such as garbage collection, heap usage, and response time.
5. Increase Efficiency by Tracking Exceptions
Exceptions have a unique connotation in Java, and they are defined as a pre-configured code line that helps identify programming errors.
Monitoring exceptions can improve Java performance. You can use JVM troubleshooting software to accelerate exception tracking – it provides corresponding metrics and graphical summaries to facilitate monitoring.
Takeaway
With the above tools, Java Performance Monitoring became easier than ever. It helps users get critical insights, optimize performance, and maximize uptime.
Moreover, choosing the right Java monitoring tool for your business should be cost-effective and scalable. Seagence is one such Java monitoring tool that continuously monitors your Java production application and finds defects and their root cause in real-time thus eliminating the need for debugging.
It also provides complete debug information so you won’t miss anything when you want to investigate. You can just go about fixing the code. This way, you can save time and use it for other productive tasks.
So what are you waiting for? Choose Seagence today for complete Java application Performance monitoring.