Alternatives to htop

Interactive process viewer for the terminal. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as htop.

  • btop++

    A terminal resource monitor that looks good enough to leave open, with processes, CPU, memory, disks, network and GPUs.

    FreeOpen sourcemacOSLinuxCommand line

    btop++ adds graphs for CPU, memory, disks and network plus GPU monitoring, but needs a 256-colour terminal and has no native Windows build.

  • bottom

    A graphical system monitor for the terminal, with charts for CPU, memory, network, temperature and disk over time.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    bottom runs on Windows as well as Linux and macOS and plots resources over time, though most tuning happens in its config file rather than in-session.

  • Glances

    A cross-platform system monitor that runs in a terminal, in a browser, or as an API feeding a dashboard.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand lineWeb

    Glances adds a web interface, APIs and container monitoring across Linux, macOS and Windows, but installs through Python and is heavier on small machines.

  • procs

    Inspect processes with a more readable command-line listing.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    procs gives a more readable command-line process listing with search and tree views, but prints a listing rather than offering htop's interactive meters.

  • NeoHtop

    Inspect running processes in a desktop system monitor.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    NeoHtop moves process inspection into a desktop application on Windows, macOS and Linux, with CPU and memory views and process search instead of a terminal interface.

  • Mission Center

    A Linux system monitor that looks like the Windows Task Manager, which is exactly the point.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    Mission Center replaces the terminal view with a Task Manager style GTK4 desktop app with GPU usage, but runs only on Linux.

  • atop

    A full-screen Linux performance monitor that reports and logs system and per-process resource usage.

    FreeProprietaryLinuxCommand line

    atop is Linux only and adds daily logging for long-term analysis and processes that finished during the interval, unlike the history-free htop view.

  • nmon

    A terminal performance monitor for Linux and AIX showing CPU, memory, disks, network and processes.

    FreeProprietaryLinuxCommand line

    nmon shows many metrics on one terminal screen for Linux and AIX and records to CSV, though it uses keyboard toggles and is not open source.

Also worth comparing

These listings name htop as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.

  • below

    A Linux resource monitor that records system, cgroup and process statistics and replays them later.

    FreeOpen sourceLinuxCommand line

    htop gives an interactive live process view on Linux and macOS, but records nothing, so it cannot show what happened after the fact.

  • GNOME System Monitor

    GNOME's process viewer and resource monitor for checking CPU, memory, network and file system usage.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    htop moves process management to the terminal with per-core meters and tree view on Linux and macOS, dropping the graphical window and history graphs.

  • Plasma System Monitor

    KDE's desktop application for monitoring system sensors, running processes and resource usage on Linux.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    htop is a terminal process viewer for killing, renicing and filtering processes, with no historical graphing or sensor pages.

  • Stats

    See system resource use in the macOS menu bar.

    FreeOpen sourcemacOS

    htop is a terminal process viewer for macOS and Linux that lets you kill and renice processes, with per-core meters but no historical graphing.

  • Zenith

    A terminal system monitor like top or htop, with zoomable charts for CPU, memory, network and disk.

    FreeOpen sourceLinuxCommand line

    htop is a GPL-licensed interactive process viewer with per-core meters and tree view on Linux and macOS, but has no historical graphing.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.