REVIEW: xSQL Profiler

I came across the xSQL software website and realized they have a few Free SQL Server products, so being the curious monkey I am, I downloaded them and installed. Here's my first usage of xSQL Profiler and a short review

What I liked:

• Easy to use and setup a quick trace
• Filter (in both setting up or querying) and interfaces are better than SQL Profiler trace
• Easy to define Category/Event Definition
• Lets you pick a repository database
• Custom Query Template is useful to find Top N queries by CPU time/Duration/Execution etc...
• Able to schedule the trace (one-time/daily/weekly/month)
• e.g. I can setup a Daily trace from 10am to 11am to get a snapshot of busy times

What could improve:

• Let me think on it... maybe more licenses for the Free version (or for me?)
• Uses up a lot of memory when Viewing Trace Data (e.g. to view 81000 rows, my local SQL Server memory incrased by ~200MB, and so did the xSQL.Profiler.UI.exe and took about 2~3 minutes to display

So far so good, it shall remain my first choice for Profiling for now, unless I am in Servers where it's not installed. Keep up the good work, xSQL! This is something Red Gate didn't have =P