# Vitals vs TK-mac Canonical page: https://vitalsmac.com/vs/tk-mac By Atta Ur Rehman Shah, maker of Vitals. TK-mac checked on its maker's site September 27, 2026. **Short answer:** TK-mac and Vitals take different views of the same Mac. TK-mac is a Task Manager in the Windows style: a process list split into apps and background tasks, a log viewer, and pause, restart and force quit from the menu bar. Vitals is built around apps rather than processes: every app with its helpers counted in, 30 days of history and alerts. Choose TK-mac if you switched from Windows and want that layout back; choose Vitals to know which app is using your Mac and what happened while you were not looking. | | Vitals | TK-mac | |---|---|---| | What it is | An Activity Monitor replacement with a menu bar item | A Task Manager in the Windows style | | List of what is running | Every app, with its helper processes counted in | Every process, with a toggle for My Apps, System or All | | Helper processes counted under their app | Yes | Not stated | | History | 30 days for every metric, per app | A 60-second sample of one app at a time | | Alerts | When an app keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network | Not stated | | Network per process | Per app, with 30 days of history | Live upload and download speed | | Menu bar | An icon, a figure or a graph, and a compact view of every metric | The top 10 consumers, with pause, restart and force quit | | Temperatures and fans | CPU and GPU temperature, fan speed | Thermal state in its system report; fans not stated | | Dev servers and open ports | Grouped by project, idle ones pointed out | Not stated | | Logs | No | System, app and security logs, with search and CSV export | | Quit and force quit | An app or a single process, after a confirmation | Pause, resume, restart, force quit, and quit all apps at once | | Price | $5 during the launch, $29 after, once | $7.99 once during its launch offer, $13.99 after | | Trial | None, a 14-day refund | 7 days | | Requirements | macOS 15 or later | macOS 14.6 or later | ## Choose Vitals if - You want to know which app is using memory, CPU or battery, helpers included - You want 30 days of history, not a 60-second sample - You want to be told when an app misbehaves - You run dev servers and lose track of what is holding a port Vitals website: [vitalsmac.com](https://vitalsmac.com/) ## Choose TK-mac if - You switched from Windows and want the Task Manager layout back - You want to read system and security logs in the same app - You want to pause a process rather than quit it - You are on macOS 14.6 TK-mac website: https://www.tk-mac.com/ ## Where Vitals pulls ahead **Apps, not a process list.** TK-mac lists processes with a toggle for My Apps, System or All. Vitals folds every helper into the app that launched it, so Chrome is one row with one figure, not forty rows called Google Chrome Helper. **30 days, not 60 seconds.** TK-mac samples one app for up to 60 seconds. Vitals keeps 30 days for every app, so the question is never "was I watching at the time?". **It tells you.** TK-mac's site describes no alerts. 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. ## 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 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. ## Common questions **Does Vitals look like the Windows Task Manager?** Not on purpose. It has a tab for each subsystem, like Task Manager's Performance tab, and every app opens to show its processes. It is built for the Mac rather than to resemble Windows. **Can Vitals pause a process?** No. Vitals quits or force quits an app or a single process, always after a confirmation. TK-mac can pause and resume. **Does Vitals read logs?** No. Vitals reads usage, not logs. TK-mac shows system, app and security logs; so does the Console app that comes with macOS. ## How we compared The TK-mac column comes from its maker's own site on September 27, 2026. Where the site 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 ProcessSpy](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/processspy).