Clinic.js rises to the top in diagnosing Node.js performance issues

Clinic.js is being used more often by developers and organisations in helping pinpoint performance bottlenecks.  Here we take a look at some recent instances in which it is having a profound effect and what others have to say about what makes it unique.  We hope this gives you a better idea of how it might help you with your own performance optimisation. But sometimes a live demo is what you need - so if you’re interested, you can sign up for our webinar here where you’ll have a chance to ask questions too.

(We'll also take this blog post as an opportunity to let you know about how we’re dedicating even more time and people to its further development this year)

Clinic.js is one of those tools that has become invaluable for many Node.js developers. We were particularly pleased to hear from Ali Yousuf in ADP Lifion Engineering on the Promise.allpocalypse .  Ali discusses the performance implications of misunderstanding Node.js promises and how Clinic.js has become an indispensable debugging tool for the development team at ADP Lifion Engineering.

The key benefits it has delivered to them include the introspection into how a Node application is performing beyond simple top-line execution times, introspecting not only resource utilization but what the code itself is doing. Using Clinic.js, the team were given insight into why a specific code path might wreak havoc inside of a live service.

Ali notes its ease of use and its clear presentation as an enabler into not only identifying problems but in helping to communicate them to other key team members and stakeholders.

Over on Opensource.com, Hiren Dhadhuk expressed his views on why Clinic.js is in their 9 favourite open source tools for Node.js developers , simplifying development. Given the increasing demand for and the rising popularity of Node.js, Hiren points to the challenge in keeping up the pace while delivering high-quality results. He quotes Clinic.js as one of the tools to help in optimising the development process using Doctor to provide recommendations on the overall health of your project, Bubbleprof for profiling and generating metrics using async_hooks and Flame for uncovering hot paths and bottlenecks in your code.

And earlier in 2019, Adnan Rahic included Clinic.js in their Node.js Open Source Monitoring Tools list. For Adnan, high performance with no downtime is the most important feature a Node.js application can have. Minimal downtime, predictable resource usage and the ability to scale effectively based on load top the list of their priorities for performant applications.  In this Sematext blog post, Adnan takes you through the process of running and generating the tools noting that the outputs will “make troubleshooting much easier”. And we loved the comment that "It’s surprisingly easy to use."

The TensorFlow.js team has very kindly highlighted its use in Clinic.js Doctor at multiple events including TensorFlow Dev and Node+JS Interactive.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jWvv0QTOs&feature=youtu.be&list=PLfMzBWSH11xZPfWcC0DqFqKo_reMP58mw[/embed]

Here's just a selection of the lovely things people have been saying on Twitter about how Clinic.js has helped them.

https://twitter.com/FlavioAandres/status/1196858806317338624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1196858806317338624&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fclinicjs.org%2Fblog%2Fall-the-latest-coverage-and-news-on-clinic-js%2F

One of the most important things we'd like to tell you is that NearForm Research, a new group inside NearForm, is now responsible for Clinic.js. It's still the same Node.js experts but now we have even more team members giving their time and expertise to advancing the suite of tools (among other things). You can expect to see a lot of new functionality in Clinic.js over the next several months.

We love hearing from Clinic.js users and how it helped to solve performance issues for them. If you are interested in sharing your thoughts on the future of Clinic.js, please get in touch. To easily share your Clinic.js outputs with others, you can use Clinic.js Upload and if you'd like one of NearForm's Node.js experts to analyse your Clinic.js output for free ( Ts & Cs apply of course), just make use of the Ask An Expert button built into the output of all the Clinic.js tools.

We're always interested in receiving profile data from as broad a range of applications as possible. This will enable us to continue to improve the tools for you.

Want to find out more? We're planning a series of webinars to demonstrate how the Clinic.js suite of tools can help to solve Node.js performance issues. Register your interest here and we'll be in touch with some suggested dates.

You can also follow Clinic.js and NearForm Research on Twitter.