Guides/Vitals vs Sensei
Vitals vs Sensei
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. Sensei is a maintenance suite with a menu bar monitor alongside: a cleaner, an uninstaller, drive and battery health and a disk benchmark.
VitalsSensei Choose Vitals if
- You want to see which app is using memory, CPU or battery
- You want up to a year of history and alerts
- You run dev servers and want to see their ports
- You want to pay once, for less
Choose Sensei if
- You want cleaning, uninstalling and drive health in the same app
- You want a disk benchmark or SSD TRIM
- You are on a macOS older than 15
Where Vitals pulls ahead
It lists what is running
Vitals is built around a list of what is running: every app, one row each, with its helper processes folded in and one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network. Sensei's site does not describe one.
History and alerts
Vitals keeps up to a year for every app and sends a notification when one keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network. Sensei's site describes neither.
Pay once, pay less
Sensei is $29 a year or $59 once. Vitals is $15 per Mac for life during the launch and $39 after, paid once; or $9 for a year of updates. Either way the app keeps working.
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, Sound, Bluetooth and Projects, plus Containers while Docker runs, 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. 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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 clean my Mac?
No. Vitals shows which app is reading and writing to the disk and how much space is free, and never deletes anything. Cleaning, uninstalling and drive health are Sensei's job.
Does Vitals show the battery?
It shows the charge, whether the Mac is on power, and which apps are draining it, with up to a year of history. Battery and drive health checks are Sensei's.
Does Vitals run on older Macs, like Sensei?
No. Vitals needs macOS 15 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. Sensei runs back to macOS 11.
Lifetime for $15 while the launch price lasts
One-time paymentLifetime updates14-day refund
Get Vitals for $15How we compared
The Sensei column comes from its maker's own site on September 22, 2026. Where the site does not say whether it does something, the cell says "Not stated". 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.