Seeing the Full Picture: Heap Profiling for Node.js Apps

Every Node.js developer has chased down a slow endpoint or a CPU hotspot — but what about memory leaks silently draining your app’s performance (and your cloud budget)? In this episode of The Node (& More) Banter, Luca Maraschi & Matteo Collina dive into one of the most exciting updates to the Platformatic ecosystem: heap profiling support in @platformatic/flame and Watt Runtime. With heap profiling now built right in, developers can finally see where memory is going, why it’s not being freed, and how to fix it — all alongside CPU profiling. We’ll cover: ✅ Why memory leaks are so hard to catch (and how flamegraphs make them visible) ✅ How heap and CPU profiling work together for a full performance picture ✅ What’s new in @platformatic/flame and Watt’s profiling tools ✅ Real-world scenarios where heap profiling exposes hidden inefficiencies ✅ Best practices for using these tools in development and production If you’ve ever wondered why your app slows down over time or crashes under load, this episode will help you uncover the hidden story of your memory usage — and how to take back control.