How to Debug Memory Leaks in Node.js Production Apps

How to Debug Memory Leaks in Node.js Production Apps Your Node.js app works fine for hours, then slows to a crawl. Memory climbs steadily. A restart fixes it temporarily — then it happens again. That's a memory leak. Here's how to find and fix it. Confirm It's a Leak # Watch RSS memory of your Node process over time watch -n 30 'ps -o pid,rss,vsz,comm -p $(pgrep -f "node server")' # Or log it from inside the app setInterval (() => { const m = process.memoryUsage () ; console.log ( JSON.stringify ({ rss: Math.round ( m.rss / 1024 / 1024 ) + 'MB' , heap: Math.round ( m.heapUsed / 1024 / 1024 ) + 'MB' , time : new Date () .toISOString () })) ; } , 60000 ) ; If RSS grows steadily and never drops, you have a leak. Step 1: Generate a Heap Snapshot # Start Node with inspector node --inspect server.js # Or send signal to running process kill -USR1 <PID> # Opens inspector on port 9229 Then in Chrome: chrome://inspect → Open dedicated DevTools → Memory → Take heap snapshot. Take a snapshot, do s