Memory usage is typically similar because ABI compatibility can't be broken - you have to be able to link a debug object file with a release object file; I doub

Memory usage is typically similar because ABI compatibility can't be broken - you have to be able to link a debug object file with a release object file; I doubt they'd release it without optimisations (smaller executable, faster code) as it'd be unbearably slow. The thing that might drive up the consumption on a debug build is an instrumented memory allocator or so, but even then the overhead shouldn't be that massive.