Open-source alternatives to Jemalloc

The Hoard Memory Allocator: A Fast, Scalable, and Memory-efficient Malloc for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

c3c is the compiler for the C3 programming language, transforming source code into executable binaries, static libraries, or dynamic libraries using an LLVM backend. It implements a system based on result-based error handling, scoped memory pooling, and a semantic macro system. The compiler provides first-class support for hardware-backed SIMD vectors that map directly to processor instructions and enables runtime polymorphism through interface-based dynamic dispatch. The project covers a broad set of low-level capabilities, including manual and pooled memory management, inline assembly inte

Velox is a high-performance C++ query execution engine and columnar data processing library. It serves as a composable framework for implementing analytical query engines, providing a vectorized expression evaluator and a toolkit for data management systems. The project is distinguished by its use of vectorized columnar execution and arena-based memory allocation to process large-scale datasets. It features specialized optimizations such as broadcast join table caching, dynamic filter push-down, and dictionary encoding to reduce memory overhead and accelerate analytical reads. The engine cov

gperftools is a collection of specialized tools for profiling CPU usage, detecting memory errors, and providing high-performance memory allocation. It provides a memory profiling toolkit for C++ applications, including a sampling CPU profiler and a heap profiler for analyzing consumption patterns. The project includes a high-performance memory allocator designed as a multi-threaded replacement for standard allocation to reduce contention and improve execution speed. It further provides a memory debugger to identify illegal memory access and double frees. The toolkit covers broad diagnostic c

Public domain cross platform lock free thread caching 16-byte aligned memory allocator implemented in C

RapidJSON is a header-only C++ library designed for high-performance parsing, generation, and manipulation of JSON data. It functions as a dual-mode engine, providing both an in-memory document object model for tree-based manipulation and a stream-based interface for event-driven processing. The library is built to minimize memory footprint and maximize execution speed, making it suitable for resource-constrained environments. The library distinguishes itself through advanced memory management and optimization techniques, including in-situ parsing that modifies input buffers directly to elimi

Memray is a memory profiler for Python that tracks heap allocations in both Python code and native C or C++ extensions. It captures memory events by hooking into the language runtime and traversing call stacks, providing a comprehensive view of how an application consumes memory. The tool is designed to minimize performance impact on the target application by using thread-local buffering and streaming data to an external process or file. The project distinguishes itself through its ability to monitor complex, multi-threaded systems and child processes in real-time. It provides diagnostic util

Memcached is a high-performance, distributed, in-memory key-value storage and request routing engine. It functions as a volatile data store designed to accelerate dynamic applications by caching objects in RAM, thereby reducing backend database load and providing sub-millisecond response times. The system utilizes a specialized architecture that organizes memory into fixed-size slabs to minimize fragmentation and maximize throughput for high-concurrency workloads. The project distinguishes itself through a multi-threaded, lock-friendly design that scales across CPU cores and supports complex

Perfetto is a platform for system-level performance tracing and analysis on Linux and Android. It combines a high-throughput trace recorder, a SQL-based query engine, and a browser-based visualizer into a single toolchain. The platform covers CPU scheduling and call-stack profiling, native and Java heap memory allocation tracking, GPU and graphics events, and system-wide counters such as CPU frequency and power consumption. The architecture decouples trace recording from offline analysis, using a compact protobuf format for event encoding and columnar storage for efficient SQL queries. The we

Smart pointers for the (GNU) C programming language

The Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative C/C++ Garbage Collector (bdwgc, also known as bdw-gc, boehm-gc, libgc)

STL compatible C++ memory allocator library using a new RawAllocator concept that is similar to an Allocator but easier to use and write.

A Tiny Garbage Collector for C

Message passing based allocator

Public domain cross platform lock free thread caching 16-byte aligned memory allocator implemented in C

Custom memory allocators in C++ to improve the performance of dynamic memory allocation

FrankenPHP is a Go-based PHP runtime and application server that integrates a web server and PHP interpreter to host applications without requiring a separate process manager. It functions as a worker mode server that keeps applications in memory across requests to eliminate bootstrap overhead and a static binary bundler that packages applications and the server into a single self-contained executable. The project distinguishes itself by allowing the embedding of a PHP runtime directly into Go programs and enabling the development of PHP extensions using the Go language. It also includes a bu

LMCache is a distributed key-value cache manager and tiering system designed to accelerate large language model inference. It functions as a tiered storage layer that offloads tensors from GPU memory to CPU RAM, local disks, or remote object stores, enabling the reuse of cached prefixes across different inference sessions and serving engines. The system differentiates itself through a disaggregated prefill-decode model, which separates prompt processing from token generation by transferring caches between distributed compute nodes. It utilizes peer-to-peer orchestration to share and retrieve

This project is a freestanding kernel written in Rust that boots on x86 hardware without a standard library. It serves as a low-level system implementation focusing on the creation of a bare metal operating system. The system implements a bootable disk image toolchain that transforms source code into binaries compatible with a bootloader. It features a custom memory allocator for dynamic memory management and an x86 kernel implementation that includes paging, interrupt handling, and VGA text mode. The project covers several core capability areas, including low-level memory management through

EASTL is a C++ Standard Template Library implementation consisting of containers, iterators, and algorithms. It provides cross-platform data structures and a template-based algorithm library designed for use in resource-constrained game engine environments. The library focuses on game engine memory management, providing specialized utilities that ensure predictable memory allocation and high-performance access for real-time applications. These containers maintain consistent behavior across different operating systems and hardware platforms. The project covers high-performance C++ development

Odin is a compiled, statically typed systems programming language designed for high-performance software development. It focuses on pragmatic low-level memory control, providing a toolset for manual memory management and precise control over hardware utilization. The language is distinguished by its flexible memory model, which includes custom allocators and precise data layout capabilities to optimize resource usage. It features a comprehensive foreign function interface for importing assembly files and linking with external libraries using configurable calling conventions. The type system

JerryScript is a lightweight, ECMAScript-compliant JavaScript engine and bytecode compiler designed for resource-constrained devices. It serves as an embedded interpreter and IoT scripting runtime, enabling the execution of JavaScript code within native C applications on hardware with limited memory. The project differentiates itself through a focus on low-memory runtime management, utilizing bytecode precompilation and pre-compiled state snapshots to reduce startup time and memory overhead. It features a C-binding native bridge for bidirectional communication between native code and scripts,

This is an open-source, crowd-sourced wiki textbook that teaches Linux system programming in C. It covers the core operating system concepts of process management through the fork-exec-wait model, dynamic memory allocation using implicit free list heap allocators, inode-based file systems, inter-process communication via pipes and shared memory, POSIX threads with synchronization primitives, signal-based asynchronous notification, virtual memory with page table translation, and runtime diagnostics using Valgrind and GDB. The textbook distinguishes itself by providing practical, implementation

Bytehound is a Linux memory profiler that utilizes a custom global allocator to intercept memory requests and track allocations and deallocations. It records full call-stack traces for every memory operation to map allocations back to their originating source code. The project features a remote memory profiling system that streams capture data via network sockets to a separate machine, minimizing resource overhead on the target system. Analysis is supported by a specialized domain-specific query language used to automate the detection of memory patterns and anomalies. The tool covers heap al

This project is an instructional repository and learning resource providing a comprehensive collection of study notes, programming guides, and runnable source code examples. It serves as a guide for Java SE and Java web development, featuring a library of code samples that demonstrate common algorithms and technical implementations. The repository focuses on language core and runtime analysis, with detailed tutorials on multithreading and concurrency. It provides practical implementations of software architecture and design patterns, such as the singleton and strategy patterns, as well as exp

freecache is a high-performance, concurrent in-memory key-value store library for Go applications. It functions as a fixed-size cache that manages large volumes of data while eliminating garbage collection overhead through the use of preallocated memory and off-heap storage. The system maintains a predictable memory footprint by utilizing fixed memory allocation and circular buffer management, where new entries automatically overwrite the oldest data upon reaching capacity. It further reduces contention between simultaneous readers and writers through lock-striped concurrent access. The libr

This project is a detailed analysis and study of the Nginx source code, focusing on high-performance server architecture and function call flows. It serves as a technical examination of the internal C implementation used to build high-concurrency networking systems. The project deconstructs the internal mechanisms of the web server, including the multi-process master-worker model, event-driven asynchronous I/O, and non-blocking socket communication. It analyzes the phase-based request processing lifecycle, from URI matching and header parsing to final content generation. The study covers a b