Orcylo vs iStat Menus

iStat Menus is one of the longest-running menu bar monitors on the Mac, now at version 7.5, so it is a fair test for Orcylo. The table has the row-by-row answer; the sections below explain where each app is genuinely ahead and how to run both.

Who should pick which

Both apps live in the menu bar, but they are built for different questions. iStat Menus is Bjango’s long-running menu bar monitor; Orcylo is a newer one built around apps. iStat Menus answers “what is every part of my Mac doing?” with a very wide range of readings, from CPU cores to the weather. Orcylo answers “which app is doing this, and since when?” with a window behind its menu bar items.

Pick iStat Menus if

• You want to control fan speeds, manually or with a curve that follows temperature.
• You want weather, world clocks, a calendar or the new astronomy forecast in the menu bar.
• You like writing your own alert rules for any reading.
• You are on macOS 11 to 14, or you already pay for Setapp.

Pick Orcylo if

• You want to see every app with its helper processes counted in, not only the top few.
• You want history for each app, not only for each reading.
• You want alerts about apps that misbehave, with no rules to write.
• You run dev servers, Claude Code or Codex and want their state in the menu bar. See Orcylo’s pricing.

Where iStat Menus is ahead

iStat Menus has a long head start, and version 7.5 shipped on 14 September 2026 with Liquid Glass menus for macOS 27 and a new Astronomy item (Bjango version history). Four things stand out.

Fan control

The version sold on Bjango’s site can raise fan speeds by hand or ramp them along a custom curve as temperatures rise (Bjango help: Fans). It never takes them below the speed macOS would choose. Orcylo only reads fan speed. If a loud or hot Mac is the problem, read our guide to a loud Mac fan first; if you then want control, iStat Menus or TG Pro is the answer. The Mac App Store edition of iStat Menus cannot control fans.

More readings in more places

Weather with hourly and weekly forecasts, menu bar clocks, a calendar, world clocks, S.M.A.R.T. disk status, public and private IP addresses, and battery levels for AirPods and other Bluetooth devices all fit in its menus. Combined mode is a single menu bar item that folds several of them into one slot, which helps on a laptop. Weather comes with 6 months of data; after that, data packs start at $2.49 for 12 months, with no subscription (Bjango help: Weather).

Rules you write yourself

Its Rules tab can notify you about almost anything it measures. Bjango’s own examples include CPU above 60% for more than 10 seconds, low disk space, a dropped internet connection, a changed public IP and the day’s weather (Bjango: iStat Menus). Orcylo’s alerts are fixed to app behaviour and system strain; you can tune thresholds and cooldowns, but you cannot alert on an arbitrary reading.

More ways to buy and older Macs

You can buy it direct, through the Mac App Store or as part of Setapp, and the direct version runs on macOS 11 Big Sur and later. Orcylo needs macOS 15 Sequoia.

Where Orcylo is ahead

A window behind the menu bar

iStat Menus shows the top apps inside each dropdown, and it already combines child processes for per-app memory (Bjango help: Memory). Orcylo goes further with a full window that lists every app, about 25 rows on our Mac in place of about 700 processes, each with CPU, memory, GPU, power, disk and network. For example, Chrome and all of its helper processes become a single row. Expand an app to see its processes, and quit or force quit it after a confirmation.

History for every app

iStat Menus graphs each reading over ranges from 10 minutes to 28 days, added in version 7.0 according to the same version history, so it can show that memory was tight yesterday. Its app lists show who is busy now. Orcylo keeps one point per minute for every metric and for the busiest apps for 30 days, stored on your Mac. The app that drained the battery yesterday still has a name today.

Alerts about behaviour, not thresholds

Orcylo does not wait for a figure to cross a line you set. It watches each app and names it: the one that burns CPU for minutes, the one whose memory keeps growing, or the one writing heavily to disk.

Built for developers

Dev servers are grouped by project folder with their ports and how long they have been idle, and Claude Code and Codex limits sit in the menu bar with reset countdowns. iStat Menus does not describe either.

Using both

Nothing stops you from keeping both. iStat Menus is strong in the menu bar itself; Orcylo’s strength is the window and the history behind it. If you keep both, turn off the Orcylo items that duplicate iStat’s and keep the ones it does not have, such as the Claude and Codex limits. The cost is two licences: $11.99 for iStat Menus and €9.99 for Orcylo, for one Mac, after its launch price.

Orcylo’s limits are worth saying plainly: it is new (version 1.0), needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later, has no fan control and no per-app volume, and shows nothing about weather or time. For the wider field, see our best menu bar system monitors for Mac.

How we compared

We make Orcylo. The iStat Menus column comes from Bjango’s product page, help pages, version history and live prices for iStat Menus 7, and from its Mac App Store listing. All of it was fact-checked on October 1, 2026. Where Bjango’s site does not say whether iStat Menus does something, the cell says “Not described on its site”. Orcylo cells describe version 1.0. For a free option, read Orcylo vs Stats.