ANTS Performance Profiler vs Performance Validator: What’s the Difference?
ANTS Performance Profiler and Performance Validator from Software Verify both profile .NET applications. The comparison is worth making clearly, because the tools handle the work quite differently – and because one of them has not shipped an update in 21 months.
What ANTS Does
ANTS Performance Profiler measures .NET managed method execution. It provides both sampling and instrumented profiling modes, builds call trees, and identifies hot paths in C#, VB.NET, or any managed language targeting the CLR. For developers whose performance problem is entirely in .NET, ANTS has historically been a serviceable option.
The last update was August 24, 2023. There has been nothing since.
What Performance Validator Does
Performance Validator measures execution performance for Windows applications regardless of what they are built with.
For .NET applications, it instruments managed methods and records call trees, execution counts, and cumulative timing. The analysis is comparable to what ANTS provides for managed code.
For native C++ applications, Performance Validator provides both instrumented and sampling profiling. Every function call can be recorded precisely – or you can use low-overhead sampling when that is more appropriate. In instrumented mode, function timing instrumentation is on by default. Line timing instrumentation – which records execution time at the level of individual source lines – is available but off by default; enable it when line-level precision is needed. Neither mode was available in ANTS, because ANTS does not profile native code.
For mixed-mode applications – C++/CLI, native C++ that calls .NET, .NET that P/Invokes into native code – Performance Validator profiles the whole application in a single session. Native methods and managed methods appear together in the same call tree. You do not need to run a native profiler and a .NET profiler separately and try to correlate their output.
The Scope Difference
ANTS profiles the managed layer. What happens on the other side of a P/Invoke call, inside a C++ COM component, or inside a native library that the application depends on – ANTS cannot measure that. If the performance bottleneck is in native code, ANTS will show you the managed side of the call but not where the time is actually going.
Performance Validator follows the call across the boundary.
The Update Cadence
ANTS Performance Profiler v11.1 and ANTS Memory Profiler v11.0 were released on the same day – August 24, 2023. Both were the first releases in approximately two and a half years. Both have received no further updates since.
Red Gate appears to have made a single maintenance pass across both ANTS products simultaneously in 2023, then shipped nothing further. The pattern is consistent with a product in managed decline rather than active development.
Performance Validator ships multiple updates per year.
“Do I Need ANTS Alongside Performance Validator?”
For teams with mixed-mode applications, the question sometimes comes up: should we run ANTS for the .NET profiling and Performance Validator for the native profiling?
No. Performance Validator covers the .NET performance profiling ground that ANTS covers, plus the native code that ANTS cannot see. A team with Performance Validator does not need a separate .NET profiler.
The Licence Model
ANTS Performance Profiler is a subscription product. No subscription, no software.
Performance Validator is a perpetual licence. Buy once, own permanently. An annual update subscription is optional – if you let it lapse, you keep the version you licensed.
In Short
For a pure .NET application where you are comfortable on a product with no updates for 21+ months, ANTS Performance Profiler still runs.
For any application with native components, for teams that want to profile across the managed/native boundary in one session, or for anyone who wants a product that is still being actively developed in 2026, Performance Validator covers the same ground and more.
For a detailed feature-by-feature comparison, see the Performance Validator vs ANTS Performance Profiler guide.