Is stopwatch benchmarking acceptable?

Question

Does anyone ever use stopwatch benchmarking, or should a performance tool always be used? Are there any good free tools available for Java? What tools do you use?

Answer 1

A profiler gives you more detailed information, which can help to diagnose and fix performance problems.

In terms of actual measurement, stopwatch time is what users notice so if you want to validate that things are within acceptable limits, stopwatch time is fine.

When you want to actually fix problems, however, a profiler can be really helpful.