Guides/Vitals vs Activity Monitor
Vitals vs Activity Monitor
Quick answer
Vitals is an activity monitor and process inspector for Mac: CPU, GPU, memory, temperatures, fans, disk, network and battery in the menu bar and in a window, every app with its helper processes counted in, a Process Inspector with any process’s code signature, parent, command line, CPU time and memory peak, up to a year of history, a notification when an app misbehaves, dev servers and their ports, Docker containers, coding agents and AI plans, a volume slider for every app, and a vitals command and MCP server, paid once. Activity Monitor is the process monitor that comes with macOS: one row per process for this second, live graphs, and the Sample and spindump tools, which Vitals leaves to it.
VitalsActivity Monitor Choose Vitals if
- You want to know which app is using memory, CPU or battery, helpers included
- You want to look back as far as a year, not just now
- You want to be told when an app misbehaves
- You run dev servers and lose track of what is holding a port
- You want a process’s code signature, parent and command line without opening Terminal
Choose Activity Monitor if
- You need to sample a process, take a spindump or run diagnostics
- You want a quick look at what is using the CPU this second, for free
- You are on a macOS older than 15
Where Vitals pulls ahead
One row per app, not forty
Vitals adds each helper to the app that launched it, so Chrome is one row with one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network. Activity Monitor lists about 1,000 processes on a working Mac, dozens of them called Google Chrome Helper.
It remembers
Vitals keeps up to a year for every app, so what drained the battery this afternoon still has an answer tomorrow. Activity Monitor shows this second, plus 12 hours of energy on a laptop.
It tells you
Vitals sends a notification when an app keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network, and names the app. Activity Monitor waits to be opened.
See it for yourself
The same Mac, listed the way Activity Monitor lists it and the way Vitals does. Tap Vitals to watch about 900 processes become eight apps.
Everything Vitals does
One app, paid once, no subscription.
- A tab per subsystem. Overview, CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, GPU, Neural Engine, Battery, Fans, Sound, Bluetooth, Developer and Agents, each with its live figures and the apps behind them.
- Temperatures and fans. CPU and GPU temperature on Intel and Apple silicon, M5 included, and fan speed. Run the fans on automatic, at a speed you choose, along a curve you draw, or at full speed for a while. The menu bar temperature can follow the CPU, the GPU or the hottest sensor.
- A menu bar you arrange. Every readout can be its own menu bar item: CPU, memory, GPU, network, disk, temperature, fan speed or battery, as a value, a graph or both, ⌘-dragged into any order. Behind it, a dropdown with every metric, the busiest apps, and a tab for each metric.
- 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.
- The Process Inspector. Click any process for the app it belongs to, its code signature, Team ID and entitlements, its parent process and launch agent, its full command line, the processes it started, and the CPU time, memory, open files and listening ports it has used since it started. An app’s version, bundle ID and Info.plist too. Copy it as text, save it as CSV, or get the same from vitals process in Terminal and over MCP.
- Up to a year of history. CPU, memory, energy, disk and network from the last hour to the last year, with the apps that used the most, ranked hour by hour for the last two days. Keep 30 days, 90 days, 6 months or a year.
- Alerts for misbehaving apps. A notification when an app keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network.
- Your coding agents, and what is left of your plans. An Agents tab with every running coding agent, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and the rest: its project, what it is doing right now, and everything it started, with Quit for the session and all of it together. For Claude, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Antigravity, Grok, Ollama and OpenCode, how much of each plan is left, when it resets and whether you are on pace, for every account signed in on the Mac, and the tokens Claude Code and Codex used today and this week.
- An MCP server for Claude, Codex and Cursor. Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any assistant that speaks MCP can ask what is running, which app is behind a number, what is on a port, and what the last 30 days looked like. It cannot quit anything by itself: Vitals asks you first. Off until you turn it on.
- The vitals command. A command for the terminal that answers from the running app: the apps using the most, ports and dev servers by project, coding agents, what is left of each AI plan and up to a year of history, as a table or as JSON. Quitting and stopping ask first. It comes with the app, or with Homebrew.
- A Neural Engine tab. How hard the Neural Engine is working, which apps are using it, and a chart of the last minutes, in the window, the menu bar and on the Overview. On Macs with Apple silicon.
- Inside your browser. Click Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Arc or Dia to see its memory and CPU split into tabs, extensions, graphics and the browser itself. Slack, VS Code and similar apps are split the same way.
- What keeps the Mac awake, and the fans on. The Battery tab lists the apps holding sleep off, what each said it is doing and for how long. When the Mac runs hot, Vitals names the apps behind it, with Quit beside each.
- Dev servers and open ports, by project. A Developer tab: 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.
- Every port in use, and who can reach it. Every listening port on the Mac with the process, project, container or Homebrew service behind it, and whether only this Mac or your whole network can connect.
- What keeps a disk from ejecting. Open Files lists every disk with the apps holding files on it, and Quit Them and Eject quits them and ejects the disk, after a confirmation. Type a file name to see which app has it open.
- Homebrew packages and services. Every formula and cask with its size, the update waiting and when it last ran, the ones never seen running, brew services with Start, Stop and Restart, and what a cleanup would free.
- Make it yours. Vitals’ own colors, Monochrome, or a set made for color blindness. The numbers in Rounded, San Francisco, SF Mono, New York or any font on the Mac, light to bold. Comfortable or compact spacing, charts of the last 5, 15 or 30 minutes, light or dark, and exported pictures in the same look.
- Arrange the window and the dropdown. Choose the window’s tabs and their order, and show, hide or reorder the sections, cards and lists on every tab. The dropdown has its own tiles and a List layout with one line per metric. Reset puts everything back.
- Docker containers. Every Docker container’s memory, CPU, network and ports in the Developer tab, in the window and the dropdown, and Stop on each, after a confirmation.
- Sound and Bluetooth tabs. The Mac’s output device and level with a slider for every app playing sound, the microphone and the apps using it, and every connected Bluetooth device with its battery, lowest first.
- Units you choose. Celsius or Fahrenheit, bytes or bits for network speed, and CPU per core or per Mac, each with a live example in Settings.
- Quit and force quit. Quit an app or a single process, always after a confirmation.
- Keyboard shortcuts and Shortcuts actions. Open the dropdown or the window from any app, and get a reading or the busiest app from the Shortcuts app.
- Export as an image. Save or copy a snapshot of the Mac as a 1200 × 630 share card or a dashboard image, or any tab of the window as an image.
- In the Dock, if you like. Show in Dock keeps Vitals in the Dock like Activity Monitor. Opened by hand it shows its window; at login it stays in the menu bar.
What Mac users say
…it doesn't feel overwhelming or bloated in the slightest. It feels native. Lightweight. It's an absolutely vital app.
Merlin ★★★★★ Verified owner Now I find myself stealing quick glances at the menu bar, instead of taking another sip of coffee.
Ed Wiseman Emmy-winning director and producer I’ve tried many monitoring tools in the past, and Vitals just shows me exactly the information i need to see.
Tobias Strebitzer ★★★★★ CTO · Verified owner Common questions
Does Vitals replace Activity Monitor completely?
For the everyday question, which app is doing this, yes. For sampling a process, spindumps and system diagnostics, no: Activity Monitor does those and Vitals does not try to. Keep both: Activity Monitor stays in Utilities for the rare day you need it.
Is Activity Monitor free?
Yes. It comes with every Mac, in Applications → Utilities. Vitals is paid once: $29 for life during the launch and $49 after, with a 14-day refund; or $15 for a year of updates.
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. Activity Monitor lists each one; Vitals adds them up under the app that launched them.
Lifetime for $29 while the launch price lasts
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Get Vitals for $29How we compared
Every cell about Activity Monitor is something you can check by opening it: Applications → Utilities → Activity Monitor. If a cell is out of date, email us and we will fix it.
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Wondering why apps show so many rows in Activity Monitor? Read about helper processes.