Orcylo vs Stats

Stats is free, so Orcylo has to earn its price by doing something Stats does not; this page sets out what that is, and where Stats is simply the better choice.

Who should pick which

Stats and Orcylo share the menu bar but not the job. Stats is a set of readouts: how hard the CPU, GPU, memory, disk and network are working, and what the sensors say. Orcylo is built to put a name on those readouts and remember them.

Pick Stats if

• You want menu bar figures and do not want to pay.
• You want open source you can read, build and change yourself.
• You are on macOS 12 to 14, which Orcylo does not support.
• You want a remote dashboard for several machines, or the app in one of its 41 languages.

Pick Orcylo if

• You want to know which app is responsible, with its helper processes counted in, not just the total.
• You want 30 days of history and alerts that name the app.
• You want a window that can stand in for Activity Monitor, not only the menu bar.
• You run dev servers, Claude Code or Codex. See Orcylo’s pricing.

Where Stats is ahead

With more than 40,000 stars on GitHub, Stats is one of the most popular open-source Mac utilities, and it earns that. Five things it does better than Orcylo:

It is free and open source

The whole app is on GitHub under the MIT licence and installs with brew install stats. It is actively maintained: version 3.0.19 shipped on 29 September 2026, the latest in a run of weekly releases (Stats releases). Its README states that it collects no telemetry and only calls its own server for update checks and your public IP address (Stats README).

More widget choice

Every module can appear as one of 13 widget styles, from a line chart to a pie, a gauge or a dot (mac-stats.com). Modules can also be combined into one menu bar item. Orcylo offers four styles per item: value, graph, both or ring.

It runs on older Macs

Stats supports macOS 12 Monterey and later. Orcylo needs macOS 15 Sequoia, so on Monterey through Sonoma, Stats is the one of the two you can install.

Notifications on many readings

Each module has its own thresholds. You can be told about CPU and GPU load, memory use, memory pressure and swap, disk use, battery level, sensor values and Bluetooth device batteries. The network module also reports events such as a lost connection or a new IP address (we read this in its source code). Orcylo’s alerts are fewer and aimed at app behaviour.

Languages and remote monitoring

Stats is translated into 41 languages; Orcylo is in English. Stats can also stream metrics to System Stats. System Stats is an optional web dashboard you sign in to, and Orcylo has no equivalent for it.

Where Orcylo is ahead

A name behind every figure

Stats can tell you how busy the CPU is and list the busiest processes in its popups. Orcylo tells you it is Chrome, with all of Chrome’s helper processes added together, and does the same for memory, GPU, power, disk and network. On our Mac that turns about 700 processes into about 25 apps. The Activity Monitor glossary explains why one app runs so many processes.

It remembers

Stats shows live charts and lists a longer history view among its plans in the 3.0.0 release notes (Stats 3.0.0). Orcylo already keeps one point per minute for every metric and the busiest apps for 30 days, on your Mac. A slowdown from yesterday afternoon can still be traced to an app.

Alerts that name the app

A Stats threshold tells you memory use passed the level you set. Orcylo tells you which app’s memory keeps growing, which one has burned CPU for minutes, or which one is writing heavily to disk.

Built for developers

Orcylo groups dev servers by project folder with their ports and flags ones that have sat idle for days, and shows Claude Code and Codex limits with reset countdowns. Stats does not describe either in its README.

Using both

You do not have to choose. Stats in the menu bar with Orcylo’s window behind it is a reasonable pairing. For example, keep the Stats widgets you like, turn off the Orcylo menu bar items that repeat them, and open Orcylo when you want to know which app is responsible. If Stats already answers every question you have, keep your money; the best menu bar system monitors for Mac covers the rest of the field.

Orcylo’s own limits, stated plainly: it is new (version 1.0), needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later, has no fan control and no per-app volume, and is not open source.

How we compared

We make Orcylo. The Stats column comes from its README, its release notes and its source code on GitHub, and from mac-stats.com, all fact-checked on October 1, 2026. Where the README does not say whether Stats does something, the cell says so. Orcylo cells describe version 1.0. For a paid menu bar monitor with fan control and weather, see Orcylo vs iStat Menus.