Guide
The 10 best Activity Monitor alternatives for Mac
Quick answer
Vitals is the best Activity Monitor alternative for Mac. It shows the 60 apps on your Mac instead of 1,000 processes, counts every helper process under its app, keeps 30 days of history and tells you when an app misbehaves. If you only want figures in the menu bar, iStat Menus is the most complete and Stats is free.
Activity Monitor shows what is running right now, one row per process, so a single app can be dozens of helper processes. It does not answer the questions people open it with: which app is slowing the Mac down, what drained the battery this afternoon, and what is holding port 3000. The apps below answer them better. They are ranked as replacements for Activity Monitor, and each is labeled with the job it does best.
| # | App | Best for | Price | Runs in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vitals Best overall | Replacing Activity Monitor | $5 during the launch | A window and the menu bar |
| 2 | iStat Menus | Every figure in the menu bar | $11.99 once | The menu bar |
| 3 | Stats | A free, open-source menu bar monitor | Free (MIT license) | The menu bar |
| 4 | MacPulse | Plain-English history of how your Mac has been | $14 once | A window and the menu bar |
| 5 | iStatistica Pro | A low-cost Mac App Store monitor with widgets | From $5.99 on the Mac App Store; Pro is a separate listing | A window, widgets and the menu bar |
| 6 | ProcXray | Inspecting a single process in depth | Free basic tier | A window |
| 7 | btop | A monitor in the terminal | Free (Apache 2.0) | The terminal |
| 8 | htop | The classic terminal process list | Free (GPLv2) | The terminal |
| 9 | Sensei | Monitoring and Mac maintenance in one app | $29 a year or $59 lifetime | A window and the menu bar |
| 10 | CleanMyMac Menu | People who already have CleanMyMac | Part of CleanMyMac | The menu bar |
- 01
Vitals
Best for: Replacing Activity Monitor
- Price
- $5 during the launch, then $29, once
- Runs in
- A window and the menu bar
Vitals is the best Activity Monitor alternative for Mac. Activity Monitor shows about 1,000 processes. Vitals shows the 60 apps they belong to, with every helper process counted under the app that launched it, so Chrome is one row with one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network. It keeps 30 days of history for every app, tells you when an app keeps the CPU busy or keeps growing in memory, finds dev servers left running and the ports they hold, and puts every metric in the menu bar. It is the only app on this list built around apps instead of processes, which is the question people open Activity Monitor to answer: which app is doing this?
Good
- One row and one figure per app, helpers included
- 30 days of history for every metric, per app
- Alerts when an app misbehaves
- Dev servers and open ports, by project
- Every metric in the menu bar too
- One payment, every update for life
Good to know
- Needs macOS 15 or later
- Sold direct, not on the Mac App Store, because its sandbox blocks reading other apps' processes
- 03
Stats
by exelban (open source)Best for: A free, open-source menu bar monitor
- Price
- Free (MIT license), also
brew install stats - Runs in
- The menu bar
The most popular free option, with over 42,000 stars on GitHub and releases most weeks (the latest on September 20, 2026). It adds menu bar modules for CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery, sensors (temperature, voltage, power), Bluetooth devices and a clock. Its README does not describe a process list, history length or alerts, and its fan control is marked as legacy and unmaintained. If you want menu bar figures and do not want to pay, start here.
Good
- Free and open source
- Very actively maintained
- Broad sensor coverage
Not so good
- Fan control no longer maintained
- Open source, but not open to contributions
- 04
MacPulse
by MacPulseBest for: Plain-English history of how your Mac has been
- Price
- $14 once, 14-day trial
- Runs in
- A window and the menu bar
The other app here built around history: 30 days of it, downsampled, with plain-English insights about what happened, temperatures and fan curves, menu bar sparklines and CSV export. Its FAQ notes that the Mac App Store version has no sensors and no top processes, so buy it direct if you want those.
Good
- 30 days of history
- Session recording and CSV export
Not so good
- The App Store version leaves out sensors and top processes
- macOS 14 or later
- 05
iStatistica Pro
by ImagetasksBest for: A low-cost Mac App Store monitor with widgets
- Price
- From $5.99 on the Mac App Store; Pro is a separate listing
- Runs in
- A window, widgets and the menu bar
A system monitor sold on the Mac App Store, with menu bar monitors, widgets and alerts for CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU and sensors. The Pro version adds app activity with CPU history, force quit, a web dashboard, a REST API and CSV export. Temperatures and fans need a separate Sensors plug-in.
Good
- Low price, on the Mac App Store
- Alerts, a REST API and a web dashboard
Not so good
- Temperatures need a separate plug-in
- Force quit needs the plug-in too
- 06
ProcXray
by ProcXrayBest for: Inspecting a single process in depth
- Price
- Free basic tier, $15 once for everything, 3 Macs
- Runs in
- A window
A process explorer for developers: a process tree with each process's open ports, connections, files, environment variables and code signature, the ability to suspend, terminate or signal a process, and capture of processes that only live for a moment. It answers "what exactly is this process doing" better than anything else here.
Good
- Open ports, files and environment per process
- Catches short-lived processes
Not so good
- A tree of processes, not a list of apps
- No history or alerts stated
- 07
btop
by aristocratos (open source)Best for: A monitor in the terminal
- Price
- Free (Apache 2.0),
brew install btop - Runs in
- The terminal
A full-screen terminal monitor with a process tree, filtering and sorting, kill and renice, network and disk graphs, CPU temperature and battery, and Apple silicon GPU figures since version 1.4.7. If you already live in a terminal, it is the best-looking way to see what is running.
Good
- Free, fast, keyboard-driven
- Kill and renice from the list
Not so good
- No history beyond the session, no alerts
- Processes, not apps
- 08
htop
by htop-dev (open source)Best for: The classic terminal process list
- Price
- Free (GPLv2),
brew install htop - Runs in
- The terminal
The long-running interactive process viewer, still maintained (3.5.3, August 2026). Plainer than btop and available on almost every Unix machine you will ever log into, which is the reason to know it.
Good
- Free, everywhere
- Tree view and kill
Not so good
- No GPU, sensors, history or alerts
- Processes, not apps
- 09
Sensei
by CindoriBest for: Monitoring and Mac maintenance in one app
- Price
- $29 a year or $59 lifetime, 3 Macs
- Runs in
- A window and the menu bar
A performance suite: a status bar monitor for CPU, GPU and battery, process monitoring and a thermal dashboard, alongside battery and drive health, a cleaner, an uninstaller and a disk benchmark. Monitoring is one part of a larger toolbox, which suits you if you want the toolbox.
Good
- Many tools in one
- A lifetime option
Not so good
- The most expensive here
- Monitoring is not the main job
- 10
CleanMyMac Menu
by MacPawBest for: People who already have CleanMyMac
- Price
- Part of CleanMyMac, from $3.33 a month
- Runs in
- The menu bar
CleanMyMac's menu shows CPU and memory with the apps using the most, memory pressure and swap, disk, battery and network, with a button to free up memory. It is simple and it is already there if you pay for CleanMyMac; it is not a reason to start.
Good
- Simple
- Included with CleanMyMac
Not so good
- Subscription-first pricing
- Shallow compared with the rest
Tools that do one job well
These do not replace Activity Monitor, so they are not ranked against the list above. Each is the best pick for its one job.
Temperatures and fan control
Per-core temperatures on Apple silicon through M5 Max, fan control with rules, and email alerts. No process list.
Which app talks to which server
Its Network Monitor keeps up to 12 months of per-app traffic, with every connection, port and domain, and blocks with one click. Network only.
Slowing down CPU hogs automatically
Slows or pauses background apps that use too much CPU. Its site lists macOS up to 26.5.
When Activity Monitor is enough
Keep using Activity Monitor when you need to sample a process, take a spindump or run system diagnostics: it does those and none of the apps above copy them. It is also free, already installed, and fine for a quick look at what is using the CPU this second.
It falls short when the question is about an app rather than a process, about the past rather than now, or about something you were not watching. That is the gap the list above fills. The Activity Monitor glossary explains what each of its columns and processes means.
Checked, but not ranked
Still in most roundups, but no longer maintained:
- MenuMeters: last release in November 2021; its own README now points people elsewhere.
- eul: last release in August 2021.
- Hot: last release in July 2024.
- iGlance: last release in October 2020.
- XRG: last release in October 2023.
How we checked
Every price and feature comes from the maker's own site on September 22, 2026: the pricing page, product page or App Store listing, and for open-source tools the README and the release history on GitHub. Where a maker does not say whether their app does something, the entry does not claim it either way. Prices change; check the maker's site before you buy.
Vitals is first because it does what people open Activity Monitor for: it shows which app is using the Mac, with its helpers counted in, now and over the last 30 days, and tells you when one misbehaves. No other app here is built around apps instead of processes. Every other tool is ranked for the job it does best. If something here is out of date, email us and we will fix it.
Questions people ask
What is the best alternative to Activity Monitor on Mac?
Vitals. It shows about 60 apps instead of about 1,000 processes, with each app's helper processes counted in, keeps 30 days of history, and tells you when an app misbehaves. If you only want figures in the menu bar, iStat Menus is the most complete and Stats is free.
Is there a free Activity Monitor alternative?
Yes. Stats is a free, open-source menu bar monitor, and btop and htop are free terminal monitors you can install with Homebrew. Activity Monitor itself is free with macOS and is still the right 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. A browser runs one for each tab and extension, so one app can be dozens of rows. Activity Monitor lists each one; Vitals adds them up under the app that launched them.
Can Activity Monitor show history?
Only a little. Its Energy tab has a 12-hour power average on laptops and a view of apps used in the last 12 hours; the rest is live. Vitals and MacPulse keep 30 days.
Which Activity Monitor alternative works in the menu bar?
iStat Menus, Stats, Vitals, MacPulse, iStatistica, Sensei and CleanMyMac all add a menu bar item. iStat Menus and Stats are menu bar apps first; Vitals and MacPulse are full windows with a menu bar item too.