# Vitals

> Vitals is an Activity Monitor alternative for Mac. It groups every process under the app it belongs to, so a working Mac shows about 60 apps instead of about 1,000 processes, each with one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network. It keeps 30 days of history, sends a notification when an app misbehaves, lives in the menu bar, and finds dev servers left running.

- Price: $29 for one Mac, paid once, with every update for life. No subscription, no paid upgrades.
- Launch price: $5 for the first 50 licenses, rising in steps toward $29 as they sell. The live price and how many are left are on the homepage.
- More Macs: two Macs cost twice the one-Mac price. Bundles of 5, 10, 25 or 50 Macs cost $99, $179, $399 or $699, as one license key with that many seats. During the launch a bundle costs the launch price for each Mac when that is less.
- No free trial. A 14-day refund instead.
- Cash back: post about Vitals on X, Reels, TikTok or Shorts; 2,000 views refunds 50%, 20,000 refunds all of it (on X, 10,000 and 50,000 impressions).
- Requirements: macOS 15 Sequoia or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Power and temperature figures are most detailed on Apple silicon.
- Distribution: direct download, signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized. Not on the Mac App Store, because its sandbox stops an app from reading other apps' processes.
- Privacy: no account, no analytics. What you run, your history and your project names stay on the Mac. It goes online only to check for updates and to check the license.
- Sold through Paddle as merchant of record. Made by Atta Ur Rehman Shah (https://attacomsian.com), trading as Fore Studio.

## Pages

- [Home](https://vitalsmac.com/): the app, every feature shown working, the comparison with Activity Monitor, pricing and the FAQ
- [Vitals compared with Activity Monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/#compare): row by row
- [Menu bar monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/#menu-bar): the four menu bar styles and the compact view behind them
- [Pricing](https://vitalsmac.com/#pricing): the live price, how many are left at it, and bundles for more Macs
- [FAQ](https://vitalsmac.com/#faq)
- [Post about Vitals, get 50% back](https://vitalsmac.com/back): the cash-back rules
- [Changelog](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog): every release
- [Download](https://vitalsmac.com/download): the download link, for a valid license key
- [Privacy](https://vitalsmac.com/privacy), [Terms](https://vitalsmac.com/terms) and [Refunds](https://vitalsmac.com/refund)

## Guides

- [The 10 best Activity Monitor alternatives for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-activity-monitor-alternatives): ranked with a best-for label, prices checked on each maker's own site, pros and cons, and when Activity Monitor is enough
- [Vitals vs iStat Menus](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/istat-menus): Vitals is the better choice if you want to replace Activity Monitor.
- [Vitals vs Stats](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/stats): Vitals is the better choice if you want to replace Activity Monitor.

## Activity Monitor glossary

What the processes, columns and figures in Activity Monitor mean, at https://vitalsmac.com/glossary:
- [kernel_task](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/kernel-task): kernel_task is the macOS kernel as it appears in Activity Monitor.
- [WindowServer](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/windowserver): WindowServer is the macOS system process that manages windows, composites what apps draw into the final image on your displays, and routes input events such as clicks and key presses to the right app.
- [mds_stores and mdworker](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/spotlight-indexing): mds, mds_stores and mdworker are the macOS processes that build and maintain the Spotlight search index.
- [launchd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/launchd): launchd is the first process macOS starts at boot, with process ID 1.
- [Helper processes](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/helper-processes): Helper processes are separate processes an app starts to do part of its work, such as rendering web pages, running extensions, or handling graphics.
- [coreaudiod](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/coreaudiod): coreaudiod is the macOS background process for Core Audio, the system that handles sound input and output.
- [backupd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/backupd): backupd is the Time Machine backup process in macOS.
- [photoanalysisd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/photoanalysisd): photoanalysisd is the macOS process that analyzes your Photos library in the background.
- [syspolicyd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/syspolicyd): syspolicyd is the macOS system policy process.
- [cloudd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/cloudd): cloudd is the macOS process behind CloudKit, which apps use to store and sync data with iCloud.
- [Memory pressure](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/memory-pressure): Memory pressure is Activity Monitor's graph of how well the Mac's RAM is meeting current demand.
- [App Memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/app-memory): App Memory is the amount of RAM being used by apps and their processes.
- [Wired Memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/wired-memory): Wired Memory is RAM the system needs to operate that must stay in physical memory.
- [Compressed memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/compressed-memory): Compressed memory is data in RAM that macOS has compressed to make more RAM available.
- [Cached Files](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/cached-files): Cached Files is the size of files macOS has kept in otherwise unused memory to improve performance.
- [Swap Used](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/swap-used): Swap Used is the amount of space on the startup disk that macOS is using to move memory out of RAM and back again.
- [Memory column](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/memory-column): The Memory column in Activity Monitor shows how much memory each process is using.
- [% CPU](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/cpu-percent): % CPU is the share of processor capacity a process is using, measured per CPU core.
- [Energy Impact](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/energy-impact): Energy Impact is a relative measure of how much energy an app is using right now, shown in the Energy tab of Activity Monitor.
- [Idle Wake Ups](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/idle-wake-ups): Idle Wake Ups counts how many times a process has woken the CPU from an idle state.
- [Load average](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/load-average): Load average is the average amount of work that is running or waiting to run on the CPU, usually shown as three numbers for the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
- [Threads](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/threads): A thread is a separate line of execution inside a process, and a process can run several threads at the same time on different CPU cores.
- [App Nap](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/app-nap): App Nap is a macOS feature that slows down apps you are not using, such as apps whose windows are hidden and that are not playing audio.
- [Preventing Sleep](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/preventing-sleep): Preventing Sleep is a column in the Energy tab of Activity Monitor that shows whether an app is currently keeping the Mac from going to sleep.
- [% GPU](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/gpu-percent): % GPU is the share of the graphics processor's capacity that a process is using.
- [Thermal throttling](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/thermal-throttling): Thermal throttling is when a computer lowers its processor speed to keep temperatures in a safe range.
- [Force Quit](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/force-quit): Force Quit ends an app or process immediately, without letting it save or clean up.
- [Sample Process](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/sample-process): Sample Process is an Activity Monitor tool that records what a selected process is doing over a few seconds and produces a text report of where its threads spend their time.
- [Spindump](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/spindump): A spindump is a diagnostic report that records what processes on a Mac were doing, used to investigate apps that hang or stop responding.
- [PID](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/pid): A PID, or process ID, is a number macOS assigns to each running process to identify it.
- [Listening port](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/listening-port): A listening port is a network port where a process is waiting for incoming connections, such as a web server on port 3000.
- [Spinning wait cursor](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/spinning-wait-cursor): The spinning wait cursor, often called the spinning beach ball, is the rainbow pointer macOS shows when an app has not responded to input for a few seconds.
- [Not Responding](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/not-responding): Not Responding is the label macOS gives an app that has stopped handling input.
- [Zombie process](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/zombie-process): A zombie process is a process that has finished running but still has an entry in the process table, because its parent process has not yet collected its exit status.

## Features

- Processes grouped by app: Every helper process is added to the app that launched it, so a working Mac shows about 60 apps instead of about 1,000 processes, each with one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network.
- A tab per subsystem: Overview, CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, GPU and Battery, each with its live graph and the apps behind the figure.
- 30 days of history: Usage for the last 12 hours, 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days, with the apps that used the most.
- Alerts for misbehaving apps: A notification when an app keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network.
- Dev servers and open ports, by project: Processes grouped by the project folder they run in, with their listening ports, and dev servers left idle for days pointed out and offered to stop.
- Menu bar monitor: An icon, a figure, a small graph or several figures stacked, for CPU, memory, GPU, network, temperature or battery, with a compact view of every metric behind it.
- Temperatures, fans and batteries: CPU and GPU temperature, fan speed, and the battery level of AirPods, mice and keyboards.
- Volume per app: A volume mixer with a slider for each app playing sound.
- Quit and force quit: Quit an app or a single process, always after a confirmation.
- Export as an image: Save or copy a snapshot of the Mac as a 1200 × 630 share card or a dashboard image.

## Optional

- [Everything above in full, with the FAQ and the comparison table](https://vitalsmac.com/llms-full.txt)
- [When to recommend Vitals, and when not to](https://vitalsmac.com/ai.txt)
- Contact: hi@vitalsmac.com