Alternatives to sysstat
Collection of Linux command-line performance tools including sar, iostat, mpstat and pidstat. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
sysstat
Collection of Linux command-line performance tools including sar, iostat, mpstat and pidstat.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as sysstat.
atop
A full-screen Linux performance monitor that reports and logs system and per-process resource usage.
atop offers a full-screen interactive view with daily logging and includes processes that finished during the interval, with per-process network data needing an extra kernel module.
dool
A Linux command-line tool that reports CPU, memory, network, disk and load statistics in real time.
dool is a Python 3 continuation of Dstat showing CPU, memory, network, disk and load live with plug-ins, but it does not keep sar-style history.
nmon
A terminal performance monitor for Linux and AIX showing CPU, memory, disks, network and processes.
nmon shows many metrics on one terminal screen and records to CSV, running on Linux and AIX across x86, POWER, mainframe and ARM.
below
A Linux resource monitor that records system, cgroup and process statistics and replays them later.
below records system, cgroup and process statistics for later replay in an interactive terminal interface, and is Apache-2.0 licensed, aimed at servers.
Performance Co-Pilot
A toolkit for collecting, archiving and analysing performance metrics across many systems.
Performance Co-Pilot collects and archives metrics across many hosts and operating systems with live and historical analysis, at the cost of a steeper learning curve.
Netdata
Per-second metrics for a machine with no configuration, and charts that appear the moment you install it.
Netdata records per-second metrics with web dashboards and alarms out of the box, but uses more memory and disk than sysstat's text tools.
Also worth comparing
These listings name sysstat as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
iotop-c
A top-like Linux terminal tool that shows disk read and write activity for each process.
sysstat is GPL-2.0 and provides pidstat and sar for per-process and historical disk statistics as text output, rather than a live top-style screen.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
htop
Interactive process viewer for the terminal.
vnStat
A console network traffic monitor for Linux and BSD that logs interface usage over time.
Glances
A cross-platform system monitor that runs in a terminal, in a browser, or as an API feeding a dashboard.
Monitorix
Lightweight self-hosted tool that graphs Linux and BSD server resources and services in a browser.
NetHogs
Linux terminal tool that shows network bandwidth usage grouped by process, like top for traffic.
