How does Datadog's Continuous Profiler collect data without high overhead?

Rather than instrumenting every function call (which would add meaningful latency to every request), the profiler uses statistical sampling - periodically capturing a snapshot of what the application's threads are doing, at a configurable interval - and reconstructs a representative picture of where time is spent from those samples over time.

Collected samples are batched and sent asynchronously in the background, off the request-processing path, so profiling doesn't add latency to the actual requests being served.

This keeps typical overhead in the low single-digit percent range, which is what makes it practical to leave running continuously in production rather than only during dedicated, short-lived profiling sessions.

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