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The buddy memory allocation technique is a memory allocation algorithm that divides memory into partitions to try to satisfy a memory request as suitably as possible.

This system makes use of splitting memory into halves to try to give a best-fit.

According to Donald Knuth, the buddy system was invented in 1963 by Harry Markowitz, who won the 1990 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, and was first described by Kenneth C. Knowlton ( published 1965 ).

Compared to the more complex memory allocation techniques that some modern operating systems use, buddy memory allocation is relatively easy to implement.

It supports limited but efficient splitting and coalescing of memory blocks.