Guides/Activity Monitor alternatives
The 11 best Activity Monitor alternatives for Mac
Quick answer
Orcylo (we make it) is the pick if you want one row per app with every helper counted in, 30 days of history and alerts, plus your Claude Code and Codex limits and the dev servers you left running. It needs macOS 15 or later. Vitals does the same app-first job and adds fan control and per-app volume. If you only want figures in the menu bar, iStat Menus is the most complete and Stats is free.
Activity Monitor lists processes, not apps, so one browser can fill dozens of rows, and apart from a 12-hour energy column on laptops it only shows the present. The apps below fill those gaps in different ways. We make Orcylo, so this page says plainly where it leads and where another app is the better buy. Each app is ranked as a replacement for Activity Monitor's window and labelled with the one job it does best.
| # | App | Best for | Price | Runs in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  OrcyloBest overall | Seeing which app is behind every figure, plus your Claude Code and Codex limits | €5 launch price for the first 20 licences, then €7.50 for the next 30, then €9.99, once, for one Mac | Menu bar and a window |
| 2 | Vitals | The same app-first view, with fan control and per-app volume | $9 during the launch, then $29, once | Menu bar and a window |
| 3 | MacPulse | History explained in plain English | €14.99 once, €49.99 for 5 Macs | Menu bar and a window |
| 4 | ProcessSpy | A Process Explorer for developers | Free; $34.99 once for everything | A window and the menu bar |
| 5 | iStat Menus | The most figures in the menu bar | $11.99 once, $14.99 for a family of 5 | Menu bar |
| 6 | Stats | A free, open-source monitor | Free (MIT licence) | Menu bar |
| 7 | TK-mac | Windows switchers who miss Task Manager | $7.99 launch offer, then $13.99, once | A window and the menu bar |
| 8 | ProcXray | Inspecting one process in depth | Free basic tier; $15 once for 3 Macs | A window |
| 9 | iStatistica Pro | A Mac App Store monitor with widgets and a REST API | $9.99 on the Mac App Store ($5.99 without Pro) | A window, widgets and the menu bar |
| 10 | btop | A monitor in the terminal | Free (Apache 2.0) | Terminal |
| 11 | htop | The classic terminal process list | Free (GPLv2) | Terminal |
- 01
Orcylo
by usBest for: Seeing which app is behind every figure, plus your Claude Code and Codex limits
- Price
- €5 launch price for the first 20 licences, then €7.50 for the next 30, then €9.99, once, for one Mac
- Runs in
- Menu bar and a window
Orcylo folds every process into the app that owns it, so a browser and all its helpers are one row with one figure for CPU, memory, GPU, power, disk and network. On the Mac we build it on, about 700 processes become about 25 apps. It keeps 30 days of per-minute history, alerts you when an app burns CPU or keeps growing in memory, and lists dev servers by project with their ports. It is the only app here that also shows your exact Claude Code and Codex limits.
Good
- One row per app, helpers counted in
- 30 days of per-minute history for every metric
- Alerts for CPU hogs, growing memory and heavy disk writes
- Exact Claude Code and Codex limits with reset countdowns
- Dev servers by project, with ports and idle time
- One payment with every future update
Not so good
- New, so no long track record yet
- Needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later
- Reads fan speeds but cannot control fans
- No per-app volume
- 02
Vitals
by Fore StudioBest for: The same app-first view, with fan control and per-app volume
- Price
- $9 during the launch, then $29, once
- Runs in
- Menu bar and a window
Vitals is the app closest to Orcylo. It adds every helper to the app that launched it, which by its own count turns about 1,000 processes into about 60 apps, keeps 30 days of history and alerts you when an app misbehaves. It finds dev servers and the ports they hold, and it goes further than Orcylo on hardware: you can set fan speeds and change the volume of each app. Tracking for Claude Code and Codex is on its roadmap, not in the app yet.
Good
- One figure per app, helpers included
- 30 days of history and alerts
- Fan control and volume per app
- Runs on macOS 15 Sequoia and later
Not so good
- No free trial, a 14-day money-back guarantee instead
- Price rises to $29 after the launch
- No Claude Code or Codex limits yet
- 03
MacPulse
by MacPulseBest for: History explained in plain English
- Price
- €14.99 once, €49.99 for 5 Macs
- Runs in
- Menu bar and a window
MacPulse keeps 30 days of data in a local database and runs it through an Insights Engine that writes up what happened: heat, memory pressure trends, battery drain. Its process list can merge each app's helpers into one row with Group by App, and you can end or force quit from it. The version sold on its site adds fan curves and per-process history. Buy it there, because the Mac App Store edition leaves out sensors, fan control and top processes.
Good
- 30 days of history with written insights
- Group by App merges helpers into one row
- Fan curves with presets (direct version)
- 14-day free trial
Not so good
- The App Store edition leaves out sensors, fan control and top processes
- The menu bar item shows CPU, memory or network, not every metric
- Its site does not mention dev servers or AI coding tools
- 04
ProcessSpy
by ProcessSpyBest for: A Process Explorer for developers
- Price
- Free; $34.99 once for everything
- Runs in
- A window and the menu bar
Built by a developer who could not tell his Java processes apart in Activity Monitor, ProcessSpy shows each process's full command line, path and version. Its tree view links helpers and XPC services to their parent and rolls up CPU, memory and threads. Search takes regular expressions, filters take JavaScript, and Shortcuts can run on process events. The paid licence adds CPU and memory history, recall of finished processes, CSV export and deep inspection such as environment variables and signatures.
Good
- Full command line, path and version per process
- Tree view with rolled-up totals
- Regex search and JavaScript filters
- One licence covers unlimited Macs
Not so good
- A tree of processes, not a list of apps
- History and finished-process recall are paid
- No temperatures or fans
- 06
Stats
by exelban (open source)Best for: A free, open-source monitor
- Price
- Free (MIT licence)
- Runs in
- Menu bar
The most popular free option, with more than 42,000 stars on GitHub and a release as recent as September 29, 2026. Nine modules cover CPU, GPU, memory, disk, sensors, network, battery, Bluetooth and a clock. The CPU menu lists the most demanding processes and the memory menu the top memory users, and each module can notify you past a threshold you set. Its fan control is marked as legacy and no longer maintained.
Good
- Free and open source
- Updated most weeks
- Top processes and threshold notifications
Not so good
- Processes, not apps
- Fan control no longer maintained
- No window with a full list
- 07
TK-mac
by TK-macBest for: Windows switchers who miss Task Manager
- Price
- $7.99 launch offer, then $13.99, once
- Runs in
- A window and the menu bar
A Task Manager for people coming from Windows, laid out the way they remember it. It separates your apps from background tasks, says it combines sub-processes into one figure per app, and tracks upload and download speed per process. The menu bar shows the ten heaviest apps with pause, restart and force quit, plus a quit-all button for a frozen Mac. It also reads system and security logs and can sample one app for up to 60 seconds.
Good
- The Task Manager layout, on a Mac
- Network speed per process
- Logs with search and CSV export
- 7-day free trial
Not so good
- Young app, version 1.5
- No history beyond a 60-second sample
- No alerts stated on its site
- 08
ProcXray
by ProcXrayBest for: Inspecting one process in depth
- Price
- Free basic tier; $15 once for 3 Macs
- Runs in
- A window
A process explorer aimed at developers and security work. It shows a process tree with environment variables, code signature and entitlements, loaded libraries, open files and listening ports, and it can suspend or signal a process. It keeps processes visible after they exit, so short-lived ones are not missed. The basic features are free; loaded libraries, ports, open files and history export need the $15 licence, which you can try for 14 days.
Good
- Open files, ports and libraries per process
- Keeps exited processes on screen
- Low one-time price
Not so good
- Ports, files and libraries are paid features
- A tree of processes, not a list of apps
- No temperatures or fans
- 09
iStatistica Pro
by ImageTasksBest for: A Mac App Store monitor with widgets and a REST API
- Price
- $9.99 on the Mac App Store ($5.99 without Pro)
- Runs in
- A window, widgets and the menu bar
A system monitor sold on the Mac App Store, with menu bar monitors, desktop widgets and notifications that can run a Terminal command. Both editions offer a web dashboard and a REST API on your local network. Pro adds an Applications tab with CPU and memory history per app, storage visualisation and CSV export. Temperatures, fan speeds and the Quit and Force Quit buttons need the separate Sensors plug-in.
Good
- Low price, on the Mac App Store
- Web dashboard and REST API
- Per-app CPU history in Pro
Not so good
- Quit, Force Quit and temperatures need a plug-in
- No grouping of helpers stated
- 10
btop
by aristocratos (open source)Best for: A monitor in the terminal
- Price
- Free (Apache 2.0)
- Runs in
- Terminal
A full-screen terminal monitor with a process tree, filtering, and any signal sent to the selected process. It draws graphs for CPU, memory, network and disks, shows the battery, and since version 1.4.7 in May 2026 reads the GPU on Apple silicon. Install it with
brew install btop. If you live in a terminal, it is the most readable way to see what is running.Good
- Free, fast and keyboard-driven
- Tree view and signals from the list
- Apple silicon GPU figures
Not so good
- Nothing kept after you quit
- Processes, not apps
- 11
htop
by htop-dev (open source)Best for: The classic terminal process list
- Price
- Free (GPLv2)
- Runs in
- Terminal
The long-running interactive process viewer, still maintained, with version 3.5.3 out in August 2026. It sorts, filters and shows a tree, and kills or renices a process without typing its PID. It is plainer than btop, and it is on almost every Linux server you will log into, which is the best reason to know it. Install it with
brew install htop.Good
- Free, and on nearly every Unix machine
- Kill and renice from the list
Not so good
- No GPU, temperatures, history or alerts
- Processes, not apps
Activity Monitor is built around two things: processes, and the present moment. Every app on this list changes at least one of them, by grouping processes into the apps that own them, by remembering the last 30 days, by putting the figures in the menu bar, or by moving the whole job into the terminal. The sections below match each app to the question you usually open Activity Monitor with, compare all 11 in one table, and say when Apple’s own tool is still the better choice.
Which one fits how you work
Most people open Activity Monitor with one of four questions, and the right replacement depends on which one you ask most often. One term matters for all of them: helper processes are the extra processes an app starts for its tabs, extensions and graphics work. A browser, for example, can run dozens of them, and Activity Monitor gives each its own row.
- Which app is slowing my Mac down? You want one row per app with its helpers counted in. Orcylo, Vitals, MacPulse and TK-mac work this way. If you are not sure yet, our guide to why a Mac gets slow shows where each cause appears.
- What happened while I was away? You want history. Orcylo, Vitals and MacPulse keep 30 days; iStat Menus draws graphs as far back as 28 days in its menus.
- What exactly is this process? You want a process explorer. A process explorer is a tool for one process at a time: its command line, environment variables, open files and ports. ProcessSpy and ProcXray are the two here.
- How busy is the Mac right now? A menu bar monitor is a small app that keeps a figure such as CPU or memory in sight at the top of the screen, so you never open a window to check. Our menu bar monitor ranking judges those apps on what each puts in the bar.
If you came from Windows and want the Task Manager layout itself, read Task Manager for Mac, which covers that question on its own.
The 11 apps at a glance
The table puts the four things that separate these apps side by side. “Not stated” means the maker’s site does not say either way, so we do not guess.
| App | Helpers grouped by app | History | Alerts | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orcylo | Yes | 30 days, per minute | Per app and system | €5, then €7.50, then €9.99, one Mac |
| Vitals | Yes | 30 days | Per app | $9 launch, then $29 |
| MacPulse | Yes (Group by App) | 30 days | System (heat, battery, fans) | €14.99 |
| ProcessSpy | Tree with rolled-up totals | Timelines (paid) | Shortcuts on process events | Free, or $34.99 |
| iStat Menus | Memory only | Graphs up to 28 days | Rules on any metric | $11.99 |
| Stats | Not stated | Not stated | Thresholds per module | Free |
| TK-mac | Yes | 60-second sample | Not stated | $7.99 launch, then $13.99 |
| ProcXray | Tree view | Export (paid) | Not stated | Free, or $15 |
| iStatistica Pro | Not stated | Per-app CPU history | Thresholds with actions | $9.99 |
| btop | Tree view | Session only | None | Free |
| htop | Tree view | None | None | Free |
Orcylo and Vitals lead the table for the same reason: both answer “which app” with helpers included, and both remember. Orcylo adds your AI coding limits; Vitals adds fan control and per-app volume. Our side-by-side pages compare Orcylo with Vitals, iStat Menus and Stats in more detail.
Tools that do one job well
These do not replace Activity Monitor, so they are not ranked above. Each is the strongest pick for its one job.
- TG Pro, $10 once (on sale from $20). Temperatures and fan control, with Auto Boost rules and email alerts, on Macs from Intel through the M5 series. It has no process list.
- Little Snitch, €59 once. Which app talks to which server. Its Network Monitor charts traffic for up to twelve months and blocks a connection with one click. Network only.
- App Tamer, $14.95 once, 15-day trial. Slows or pauses background apps that use too much CPU, and warns you when a process suddenly takes a lot.
When Activity Monitor is enough
Keep Activity Monitor for the jobs only Apple’s tool does. Its Sample Process button records what a process is doing over 3 seconds, and Spindump writes a report for an app you had to force quit (Apple: Run system diagnostics in Activity Monitor). None of the apps above copy those reports.
It is also free, already installed, and fine for a glance at what is using the CPU this second. It falls short when the question is about an app rather than a process, or about the past. On a laptop, the 12 hr Power column and the 12-hour battery graph are the only history it keeps (Apple: View energy consumption). Our Orcylo vs Activity Monitor comparison goes row by row.
Checked, but not ranked
These still appear in many older roundups. We left them out for the reason given.
- MenuMeters: last release 2.1.6.1 in November 2021, and its own README now recommends Stats, iGlance and eul instead.
- eul: last release in August 2021.
- Hot: last release in July 2024.
- Sensei and CleanMyMac’s menu: both show top apps, but monitoring is one part of a maintenance suite and neither lists everything that runs. They are ranked in our best system monitors for Mac.
How we checked
We fact-checked every price and feature against the maker’s own site, its Mac App Store listing or its GitHub repository on October 1, 2026, and the sources are listed below. This is a comparison of what each maker documents, not a benchmark. Where a maker does not say whether its app does something, the table says “Not stated”. Prices change, so check the maker’s site before you buy.
We make Orcylo. We ranked it first because it answers the question people open Activity Monitor with: which app, with its helpers counted in, now and over 30 days. It is also the only app here that tracks Claude Code and Codex limits. On the other side, it is new and needs macOS 15 or later. If you want fan control or per-app volume, Vitals is the better buy today. The feature tour shows what Orcylo does, and pricing has the launch price.
Questions people ask
What is the best alternative to Activity Monitor on Mac?
It depends on what you open Activity Monitor for. To see which app is using your Mac, with history and alerts, pick Orcylo (we make it, macOS 15 or later) or Vitals (with fan control). For figures in the menu bar, iStat Menus is the most complete and Stats is free. To study one process in depth, ProcessSpy or ProcXray.
Is there a free Activity Monitor alternative for Mac?
Yes. Stats is free and open source and lists the most demanding processes in its CPU menu. btop and htop are free terminal monitors you install with Homebrew. ProcessSpy and ProcXray have free tiers. Activity Monitor itself stays free and is still the tool for sampling a process or taking a spindump.
Why does Activity Monitor show so many processes?
Modern apps split their work across helper processes, for example one per browser tab or extension, so a single app can fill dozens of rows. Activity Monitor lists each one. Orcylo, Vitals, MacPulse and TK-mac add the helpers up under their app, and iStat Menus does so for memory.
Can Activity Monitor show history?
Barely. On a Mac laptop its Energy tab has a 12 hr Power column and a battery graph for the last 12 hours; everything else is live. Orcylo, Vitals and MacPulse keep 30 days, iStat Menus draws graphs up to 28 days back, and ProcessSpy keeps CPU and memory timelines in its paid version.
Which Activity Monitor alternative shows Claude Code usage?
Of the apps on this list, only Orcylo shows Claude Code's 5-hour and weekly limits and Codex's plan limits, with reset countdowns and alerts at 80 % and 95 %. Vitals lists an Agents tab for Claude Code and Codex on its roadmap.
Sources
- 1.Vitals: product page, pricing and FAQ · vitalsmac.com
- 2.MacPulse: features, pricing and edition differences · macpulse.app
- 3.ProcessSpy: features and pricing · process-spy.app
- 4.Bjango: iStat Menus 7 · bjango.com
- 5.Bjango: iStat Menus memory help (combined processes) · bjango.com
- 6.Bjango: iStat Menus version history (7.0 added graph ranges up to 28 days) · bjango.com
- 7.Stats on GitHub (README and releases) · github.com
- 8.Stats: mac-stats.com · mac-stats.com
- 9.TK-mac: features and pricing · tk-mac.com
- 10.ProcXray: features and pricing · procxray.com
- 11.iStatistica Pro on the Mac App Store · apps.apple.com
- 12.ImageTasks: iStatistica Pro (Sensors plug-in notes) · imagetasks.com
- 13.btop on GitHub (README and v1.4.7 release) · github.com
- 14.htop on GitHub · github.com
- 15.TG Pro by Tunabelly Software · tunabellysoftware.com
- 16.Objective Development: Little Snitch shop · obdev.at
- 17.St. Clair Software: App Tamer · stclairsoft.com
- 18.MenuMeters (yujitach fork) on GitHub · github.com
- 19.Apple: View energy consumption in Activity Monitor · support.apple.com
- 20.Apple: Run system diagnostics in Activity Monitor · support.apple.com
About the author
Maker of Orcylo
Orcylo is a native menu bar system monitor for macOS 15 Sequoia and later. It groups about 700 processes under the 25 or so apps that own them, keeps 30 days of history and shows your Claude Code and Codex limits. The guides cover the same ground: what is slowing a Mac down, what Activity Monitor's figures mean, and how much of an AI coding limit is left.
How these guides are written and checked: our editorial policy. To report a mistake, contact support@orcylo.app.