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Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

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Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#1

Post by segfault22 »

Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post.

Here are the key findings:

1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB) and spawned 3.7x more processes (33 total) than a standard VSCode setup with the same project open. The team has since made improvements, but it's still significantly heavier.

2. Telemetry Opt-Out Doesn't Work (It Makes It Worse): I found Trae was constantly sending data to ByteDance servers (byteoversea.com). I went into the settings and disabled all telemetry. To my surprise, this didn't stop the traffic. In fact, it increased the frequency of batch data collection. The telemetry "off" switch appears to be purely cosmetic.

3. What's Being Sent: Even with telemetry "disabled," Trae sends detailed payloads including: Hardware specs (CPU, memory, etc.) Persistent user, device, and machine IDs OS version, app language, user name Granular usage data like time-on-ide, window focus state, and active file types.

4. Community Censorship: When I tried to discuss these findings on their official Discord, my posts were deleted and my account was muted for 7 days. It seems words like "track" trigger an automated gag rule, which prevents any real discussion about privacy.

I believe developers should be aware of this behavior. The combination of resource drain, non-functional privacy settings, and censorship of technical feedback is a major red flag. The full, detailed analysis with all the evidence (process lists, Fiddler captures, JSON payloads, and screenshots of the Discord moderation) is available at the link. Happy to answer any questions.

Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork
github.com

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#2

Post by segfault22 »

Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post.

Here are the key findings:

1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB) and spawned 3.7x more processes (33 total) than a standard VSCode setup with the same project open. The team has since made improvements, but it's still significantly heavier.

2. Telemetry Opt-Out Doesn't Work (It Makes It Worse): I found Trae was constantly sending data to ByteDance servers (byteoversea.com). I went into the settings and disabled all telemetry. To my surprise, this didn't stop the traffic. In fact, it increased the frequency of batch data collection. The telemetry "off" switch appears to be purely cosmetic.

3. What's Being Sent: Even with telemetry "disabled," Trae sends detailed payloads including: Hardware specs (CPU, memory, etc.) Persistent user, device, and machine IDs OS version, app language, user name Granular usage data like time-on-ide, window focus state, and active file types.

4. Community Censorship: When I tried to discuss these findings on their official Discord, my posts were deleted and my account was muted for 7 days. It seems words like "track" trigger an automated gag rule, which prevents any real discussion about privacy.

I believe developers should be aware of this behavior. The combination of resource drain, non-functional privacy settings, and censorship of technical feedback is a major red flag. The full, detailed analysis with all the evidence (process lists, Fiddler captures, JSON payloads, and screenshots of the Discord moderation) is available at the link. Happy to answer any questions.

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#3

Post by circuit10 »

Is it just me or does the formatting of this feel like ChatGPT (numbered lists, "Key Takeaways", and just the general phrasing of things)? It's not necessarily an issue if you checked over it properly but if you did use it then it might be good to mention that for transparency, because people can tell anyway and it might feel slightly otherwise

(or maybe you just have a similar writing style)

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#4

Post by marksomnian »

circuit10 wrote: post #3

Is it just me or does the formatting of this feel like ChatGPT (numbered lists, "Key Takeaways", and just the general phrasing of things)? It's not necessarily an issue if you checked over it properly but if you did use it then it might be good to mention that for transparency, because people can tell anyway and it might feel slightly otherwise (or maybe you just have a similar writing style)

> might be good to mention that for transparency, because people can tell anyway and it might feel slightly otherwise

Devil's advocate: why does it matter (apart from "it feels wrong")? As long as the conclusions are sound, why is it relevant whether AI helped with the writing of the report?

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#5

Post by refulgentis »

segfault22 wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post. Here are the key findings: 1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB)…

[flagged]

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#6

Post by segfault22 »

circuit10 wrote: post #3

Is it just me or does the formatting of this feel like ChatGPT (numbered lists, "Key Takeaways", and just the general phrasing of things)? It's not necessarily an issue if you checked over it properly but if you did use it then it might be good to mention that for transparency, because people can tell anyway and it might feel slightly otherwise (or maybe you just have a similar writing style)

Yea, the core was written by me, i just used llm to fix my broken english.

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#8

Post by benreesman »

refulgentis wrote: post #5
segfault22 wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post. Here are the key findings: 1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB)…

[flagged]

I think we can cut the guy some slack for using machine translation given that English isn't his native language.

I bet I sound a lot dumber than this when I'm renting servers in Hong Kong in Cantonese.

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#9

Post by jdiff »

marksomnian wrote: post #4
circuit10 wrote: post #3

Is it just me or does the formatting of this feel like ChatGPT (numbered lists, "Key Takeaways", and just the general phrasing of things)? It's not necessarily an issue if you checked over it properly but if you did use it then it might be good to mention that for transparency, because people can tell anyway and it might feel slightly otherwise (or maybe you just have a similar writing style)

> might be good to mention that for transparency, because people can tell anyway and it might feel slightly otherwise Devil's advocate: why does it matter (apart from "it feels wrong")? As long as the conclusions are sound, why is it relevant whether AI helped with the writing of the report?

Because AI use is often a strong indicator of a lack of soundness. Especially if it's used to the point where its structural quirks (like a love for lists) shine through.

Re: Performance and telemetry analysis of Trae IDE, ByteDance's VSCode fork

#10

Post by kevingadd »

refulgentis wrote: post #5
segfault22 wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I was evaluating IDEs for a personal project and decided to test Trae, ByteDance's fork of VSCode. I immediately noticed some significant performance and privacy issues that I felt were worth sharing. I've written up a full analysis with screenshots, network logs, and data payloads in the linked post. Here are the key findings: 1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB)…

[flagged]

I don't think the post you're replying to deserves what feels like an aggressive dressing-down. The reality is that post formatting on HN is really janky and it's hard to get it to do what you want. I don't blame someone for failing to master HN formatting on one of their first tries.
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