DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework originally created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time.

DTrace can be used to get a global overview of a running system, such as the amount of memory, CPU time, filesystem and network resources used by the active processes.

[2] In September 2016 the OpenDTrace effort began on github with both code and comprehensive documentation of the system's internals.

The goal of OpenDTrace is to provide an OS agnostic, portable implementation of DTrace that is acceptable to all consumers, including macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and Linux as well as embedded systems.

Sun Microsystems designed DTrace to give operational insights that allow users to tune and troubleshoot applications and the OS itself.

DTrace was the first component of the OpenSolaris project to have its source code released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL).

[10] Apple added DTrace support in Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", including a GUI called Instruments.

In the original Mac OS X DTrace implementation, this could affect tracing of other system information, as unrelated probes that should fire while a program with this flag set was running would fail to do so.

The Linux port of DTrace has been available since 2008;[15] work continues actively to enhance and fix issues.

[21][22] With a supported language provider, DTrace can retrieve context of the code, including function, source file, and line number location.

[26][27] DTrace won the top prize in The Wall Street Journal's 2006 Technology Innovation Awards competition.