---
title: Memory consumption
grand_parent: Performance
parent: Tune performance
nav_order: 3
---

# Reduce memory consumption

## Contents
{: .no_toc }

* TOC placeholder
{:toc}

## Shared arena based allocator

Memory consumption can be reduced between multiple sessions by configuring the shared arena based allocation. See the `Share allocator(s) between sessions` section in the [C API documentation](../../get-started/with-c.md).

## mimalloc allocator usage

ONNX Runtime supports overriding memory allocations using [mimalloc](https://github.com/microsoft/mimalloc), a fast, general-purpose allocator.

Depending on your model and usage, it can deliver single- or double-digit improvements in performance. The GitHub README page describes various scenarios on how mimalloc can be leveraged for performance tuning.

mimalloc is a submodule in the ONNX Runtime source tree. On Windows, one can employ the `--use_mimalloc` build flag which builds a static version of mimalloc and links it to ONNX Runtime. This redirects ONNX Runtime allocators and all new/delete calls to mimalloc.
Currently, there are no special provisions to employ mimalloc on Linux. It is recommended to use the LD_PRELOAD mechanism using pre-built binaries of mimalloc that you can build/obtain separately.