Performance profiling setup guide

Learn how to enable pprof and Pyroscope performance profiling in EasyAPI

Overview

EasyAPI offers two kinds of performance profiling:

pprof (built-in): Best for ad-hoc diagnostics and offline analysis. Once enabled, you can collect CPU, memory, goroutine, and other profiles over HTTP endpoints.
Pyroscope (optional): Best for continuous profiling in production with flame graph visualization. Profiling data is continuously sent to a Pyroscope server.

You can enable both at the same time without conflicts.

Features

Zero-code integration: configured entirely through environment variables
Works with Docker Compose and standalone deployments
Ad-hoc diagnostics and continuous profiling can run side by side
Optional authentication and per-instance labeling

pprof (built-in) setup

1. Configure environment variables

Docker Compose:

environment:
  - ENABLE_PPROF=true

Standalone deployment:

export ENABLE_PPROF=true

2. Restart the application

Restart the EasyAPI service to apply the changes.

# Docker Compose
docker-compose down && docker-compose up -d

# Standalone deployment
# Restart your EasyAPI application

3. Verify

Once enabled, the pprof endpoints are usually available at /debug/pprof/ (depending on your deployment). The default listening port is 8005.

You can use go tool pprof to collect and analyze profiles, for example:

go tool pprof http://localhost:8005/debug/pprof/profile?seconds=30

Security tip: In production, restrict access to the pprof endpoints and never expose diagnostic interfaces to the public internet.

Pyroscope setup

1. Prepare a Pyroscope server

Make sure the Pyroscope server is reachable and note its address (for example, http://localhost:4040).

You can deploy quickly with the official Pyroscope Docker image, or use Grafana Cloud Profiles.

2. Configure environment variables

Docker Compose:

environment:
  - PYROSCOPE_URL=http://localhost:4040
  - PYROSCOPE_APP_NAME=easy-api
  - PYROSCOPE_BASIC_AUTH_USER=your-user
  - PYROSCOPE_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD=your-password
  - PYROSCOPE_MUTEX_RATE=5
  - PYROSCOPE_BLOCK_RATE=5
  - HOSTNAME=your-hostname

Standalone deployment:

export PYROSCOPE_URL=http://localhost:4040
export PYROSCOPE_APP_NAME=easy-api
export PYROSCOPE_BASIC_AUTH_USER=your-user
export PYROSCOPE_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD=your-password
export PYROSCOPE_MUTEX_RATE=5
export PYROSCOPE_BLOCK_RATE=5
export HOSTNAME=your-hostname

Note: If PYROSCOPE_URL is empty, Pyroscope reporting is disabled. Basic Auth credentials are only needed when the Pyroscope server has authentication enabled.

3. Restart the application