Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
https://cppcon.org
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CTRACK: C++ Performance Tracking and Bottleneck Discovery - Grischa Hauser - CppCon 2025
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Finding performance bottlenecks in complex C++ applications has always been a challenge—existing tools often require significant integration effort, add substantial runtime overhead, or lack the granularity needed for precise insights. This session introduces CTRACK, an open-source, header-only C++17 library born from our frustration with these limitations, which has since gained significant traction in the C++ community, even contributing to performance improvements in major projects like ClickHouse.
CTRACK emerged from our experience managing large legacy codebases where traditional profilers failed us: we needed something with minimal integration overhead, near-zero runtime cost, and the ability to work seamlessly in both development and production environments. I'll share our journey developing CTRACK, demonstrating how its unique approach of simply adding a one-line macro to functions you want to track provides deep performance insights—especially in multi-threaded environments where timing relationships are critical to understand.
The presentation will cover both practical usage patterns and implementation techniques that make CTRACK's remarkable recording speed possible (75+ million events/second). You'll learn how to interpret CTRACK's statistical metrics, customize its output for your needs, and how it fills the gap between manual std::chrono timing and heavyweight profilers. By exploring alternatives we considered and explaining the design decisions we made, this talk will equip C++ developers with knowledge applicable beyond just using CTRACK itself.
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Slides: github.com/CppCon/CppCon2025/blob/main/Presentations/CTRACK.pdf
Work at Hudson River Trading (HRT): tinyurl.com/safxfctf
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Grischa Hauser
Grischa Hauser from Karlsruhe is the founder and managing director of COMPAILE Solutions GmbH, established in 2019 following his career as a freelance programmer. With over 10 years of C++ experience, he specializes in high-performance C++ optimization, including template metaprogramming, parallel algorithms, and multithreading techniques for maximizing computational throughput. His work focuses on performance-critical AI applications and machine vision systems where computational efficiency is paramount. Grischa actively contributes to several open-source C++ libraries and regularly shares implementation insights at technical panels and community events.
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CppCon is the annual, week-long face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference is organized by the C++ community for the community. You will enjoy inspirational talks and a friendly atmosphere designed to help attendees learn from each other, meet interesting people, and generally have a stimulating experience. Taking place this year in Aurora, Colorado, near the Denver airport, and including multiple diverse tracks, the conference will appeal to anyone from C++ novices to experts.
Annual CppCon Conference - cppcon.org
linkedin.com/company/cppcon
https://x.com/cppcon
facebook.com/CppConference
reddit.com/r/cppcon
https://mastodon.social/@CppCon
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Videos Filmed & Edited by Bash Films: BashFilms.com
YouTube Channel Managed by Digital Medium Ltd: events.digital-medium.co.uk
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#cpp #cplusplus #cppcon #cppprogramming #cplusplusprogramming #softwaredevelopment #softwareengineering #coding #code #computerscience #technology #technews #programming #programmer
https://cppcon.org
---
CTRACK: C++ Performance Tracking and Bottleneck Discovery - Grischa Hauser - CppCon 2025
---
Finding performance bottlenecks in complex C++ applications has always been a challenge—existing tools often require significant integration effort, add substantial runtime overhead, or lack the granularity needed for precise insights. This session introduces CTRACK, an open-source, header-only C++17 library born from our frustration with these limitations, which has since gained significant traction in the C++ community, even contributing to performance improvements in major projects like ClickHouse.
CTRACK emerged from our experience managing large legacy codebases where traditional profilers failed us: we needed something with minimal integration overhead, near-zero runtime cost, and the ability to work seamlessly in both development and production environments. I'll share our journey developing CTRACK, demonstrating how its unique approach of simply adding a one-line macro to functions you want to track provides deep performance insights—especially in multi-threaded environments where timing relationships are critical to understand.
The presentation will cover both practical usage patterns and implementation techniques that make CTRACK's remarkable recording speed possible (75+ million events/second). You'll learn how to interpret CTRACK's statistical metrics, customize its output for your needs, and how it fills the gap between manual std::chrono timing and heavyweight profilers. By exploring alternatives we considered and explaining the design decisions we made, this talk will equip C++ developers with knowledge applicable beyond just using CTRACK itself.
---
Slides: github.com/CppCon/CppCon2025/blob/main/Presentations/CTRACK.pdf
Work at Hudson River Trading (HRT): tinyurl.com/safxfctf
---
Grischa Hauser
Grischa Hauser from Karlsruhe is the founder and managing director of COMPAILE Solutions GmbH, established in 2019 following his career as a freelance programmer. With over 10 years of C++ experience, he specializes in high-performance C++ optimization, including template metaprogramming, parallel algorithms, and multithreading techniques for maximizing computational throughput. His work focuses on performance-critical AI applications and machine vision systems where computational efficiency is paramount. Grischa actively contributes to several open-source C++ libraries and regularly shares implementation insights at technical panels and community events.
---
CppCon is the annual, week-long face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference is organized by the C++ community for the community. You will enjoy inspirational talks and a friendly atmosphere designed to help attendees learn from each other, meet interesting people, and generally have a stimulating experience. Taking place this year in Aurora, Colorado, near the Denver airport, and including multiple diverse tracks, the conference will appeal to anyone from C++ novices to experts.
Annual CppCon Conference - cppcon.org
linkedin.com/company/cppcon
https://x.com/cppcon
facebook.com/CppConference
reddit.com/r/cppcon
https://mastodon.social/@CppCon
---
Videos Filmed & Edited by Bash Films: BashFilms.com
YouTube Channel Managed by Digital Medium Ltd: events.digital-medium.co.uk
---
#cpp #cplusplus #cppcon #cppprogramming #cplusplusprogramming #softwaredevelopment #softwareengineering #coding #code #computerscience #technology #technews #programming #programmer
