# Vitals vs btop

Canonical page: https://vitalsmac.com/vs/btop

By Atta Ur Rehman Shah, maker of Vitals. btop checked on its maker's site October 21, 2026.

**Short answer:** btop and Vitals both show what your Mac is doing, from different places. btop is a free, full-screen monitor for the terminal, with graphs and a process tree, on macOS, Linux and BSD. Vitals lists apps instead of processes, keeps up to a year of history and sends alerts, in a window and the menu bar, and since 1.8 it answers in the terminal too, with the `vitals` command and JSON for scripts.

| | Vitals | btop |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An Activity Monitor replacement: a window, the menu bar and a terminal command | A full-screen monitor in the terminal |
| Where it runs | A window, the menu bar and Terminal, on the Mac it watches | The terminal, on macOS, Linux and BSD, over SSH too |
| List of what is running | Every app, about 60 rows, with its helper processes counted in | Every process, with a tree view |
| Live view | The window and the menu bar; `vitals status --watch` in the terminal | Full screen, with graphs for CPU, memory, network and disk |
| History | Every metric, per app, for up to a year | None beyond the session |
| Alerts | When an app keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network | None |
| Ending a process | Quit or force quit, after a verdict on whether it is safe | Any signal, from the list |
| Dev servers and open ports | Grouped by project, with whether each port is open to the network | Not stated |
| For scripts | JSON or CSV from every `vitals` command | Not stated |
| AI assistants | An MCP server: Claude, Codex and Cursor can ask what is running | Not stated |
| Coding agents and AI plans | Every running agent and what it started, what is left of each AI plan and when it resets, and the tokens used | Not stated |
| GPU and temperature | GPU, and the Neural Engine on Apple silicon, each with the apps using it; CPU and GPU temperature, fan speed and fan control | Apple silicon GPU since version 1.4.7, CPU temperature and battery |
| Open source | No | Yes, Apache 2.0 |
| Price | $9 for a year of updates, or $15 for life during the launch ($39 after). Paid once | Free (Apache 2.0 license) |
| Requirements | macOS 15 or later | macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD |

## Choose Vitals if

- You want to know which app is responsible, not which process
- You want up to a year of history and alerts
- You want answers a script or an agent can read, as JSON

Vitals website: [vitalsmac.com](https://vitalsmac.com/)

## Choose btop if

- You want a live, full-screen view in the terminal
- You also watch Linux or BSD machines
- You want free and open source

btop website: https://github.com/aristocratos/btop

## Where Vitals pulls ahead

**Apps, not a thousand rows.** btop lists every process, so a browser is dozens of rows. Vitals adds each helper to the app that started it, in the window and in `vitals top` alike, so Chrome is one row with one figure.

**It remembers, and it tells you.** btop shows the session in front of you. Vitals keeps up to a year for every app and sends a notification when one keeps the CPU busy or keeps growing in memory, so a slow afternoon can still be explained in the evening.

**Answers a script can read.** btop is a view for a person. Every `vitals` command answers in JSON or CSV as well, so a script, a cron job or a coding agent can ask what is using the Mac and get the same answer you see.

## Everything Vitals does

- **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, Neural Engine, Battery, Sound, Bluetooth and Projects, plus Containers while Docker runs, each with its live figures and the apps behind them.
- **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 by window.
- **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.
- **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.
- **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.
- **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.
- **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.** A Containers tab with every Docker container’s memory, CPU, network and ports, 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.
- **Temperatures and fans.** CPU and GPU temperature on Intel and Apple silicon, M5 included, and fan speed. Hold any fan at a speed you choose, and hand it back to the Mac in one click. The menu bar temperature can follow the CPU, the GPU or the hottest sensor.
- **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.
- **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.

## Common questions

**Can I use btop and Vitals together?**

Yes. They read the same Mac and change nothing for each other: btop for a live view in a terminal, Vitals for which app, since when, and answers by app with the `vitals` command.

**Does Vitals have a full-screen view like btop?**

No. The `vitals` command answers a question and stops; add `--watch` and it refreshes every two seconds. The live, full-screen view is btop’s, and for it btop is the right tool.

**Which one is for servers?**

btop. It runs on Linux and BSD as well as macOS. Vitals watches the Mac it runs on.

## How we compared

The btop column comes from its README on GitHub on September 22, 2026. Where the README does not say whether it does something, the cell says "Not stated". If a cell is out of date, email hi@vitalsmac.com and we will fix it.

See [all 12 Activity Monitor alternatives](https://vitalsmac.com/best-activity-monitor-alternatives), [Vitals vs Activity Monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/activity-monitor), [Vitals vs iStat Menus](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/istat-menus), [Vitals vs Stats](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/stats), [Vitals vs MacPulse](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/macpulse), [Vitals vs iStatistica Pro](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/istatistica), [Vitals vs ProcXray](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/procxray), [Vitals vs Sensei](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/sensei), [Vitals vs CleanMyMac Menu](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/cleanmymac), [Vitals vs TK-mac](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/tk-mac), [Vitals vs ProcessSpy](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/processspy).