diff --git a/darshan-util/pydarshan/benchmarks/benchmarks/cffi_backend.py b/darshan-util/pydarshan/benchmarks/benchmarks/cffi_backend.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..539e87b56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/darshan-util/pydarshan/benchmarks/benchmarks/cffi_backend.py
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+import darshan
+from darshan.backend import cffi_backend
+from darshan.log_utils import get_log_path
+
+
+class RetrieveLogData:
+    # see gh-811
+
+    # TODO: maybe produce a version of the log that also
+    # has runtime HEATMAP to guard memory leaks on that module;
+    # part of the issue here is
+    # perhaps the following to pull in new log repo files:
+    # https://github.com/darshan-hpc/darshan-logs/issues/15
+
+    params = ['POSIX', 'MPI-IO', 'H5F', 'H5D', 'LUSTRE', 'STDIO', 'DXT_POSIX', 'DXT_MPIIO']
+    param_names = ["module"]
+
+
+    def setup(self, module):
+        self.ior_log_path = get_log_path("ior_hdf5_example.darshan")
+
+
+    def peakmem_log_get_record(self, module):
+        for i in range(100000):
+            log = cffi_backend.log_open(self.ior_log_path)
+            rec = cffi_backend.log_get_record(log, module)
+            cffi_backend.log_close(log)
+
+
+    def peakmem_log_get_mounts(self, module):
+        for i in range(10000):
+            log = cffi_backend.log_open(self.ior_log_path)
+            rec = cffi_backend.log_get_mounts(log)
+            cffi_backend.log_close(log)
+
+
+    def peakmem_log_get_name_recs(self, module):
+        for i in range(10000):
+            with darshan.DarshanReport(self.ior_log_path,
+                                       read_all=True,
+                                       lookup_name_records=True) as report:
+                pass