Activity Monitor for macOS
Shares rank 5 of 8 system monitors by recommenders
Built-in macOS tool for seeing which processes are busy, and some keep it in the Dock. Critics say it shows limited information and its window cannot shrink much.
Built-in macOS tool for seeing which processes are busy, and some keep it in the Dock. Critics say it shows limited information and its window cannot shrink much.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 42%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Shows what is busy when overloaded
“Look at Activity Monitor report when it's overloaded to see what's busy.”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Newer macOS runs slower on Intel (undeniably) – on purpose or "accident"?” “I keep Activity Monitor in my dock for this reason.”
Comment from 27 Jun 2026 in “Apple increases MacBook and iPad prices by 20%”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Shows too little information
“it's activity monitor is pretty limited in what it shows me”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: MCP for Your Mac Hardware” “activity monitor wasn't showing me what I wanted”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork” Window cannot shrink; tabs hidden
“you can't have Activity Monitor take up less than about 2/5 of the width of the screen”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “Why TUIs Are Back” “Activity Monitor that doesn't show tabs until you nearly go full screen”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding”
Other system monitors people recommend
The four most recommended other system monitors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| btop | 38 | 11 | 78% | 7 | — | Approved |
| htop | 28 | 4 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Utilyze | 11 | 2 | 85% | 2 | — | — |
| Stats menu bar system monitor | 10 | 1 | 91% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Activity Monitor for macOSThis page | 5 | 7 | 42% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's activity monitor is pretty limited in what it shows me”
“Activity Monitor works well enough for me. But, damn, I'd rather visually parse top all day”
“activity monitor wasn't showing me what I wanted”
“I keep Activity Monitor in my dock for this reason.”
“Look at Activity Monitor report when it's overloaded to see what's busy.”
“you can't have Activity Monitor take up less than about 2/5 of the width of the screen”
“If I look at the Activity Manager in macOS”
“Activity Monitor feels stuck in 2005”
“Activity Monitor that doesn't show tabs until you nearly go full screen”
“I'm at still not sure that I like the inclusion of private compressed memory.”
“It takes ~5 seconds for activity monitor on my macbook pro to populate data”
“doesn't update charts when in background”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.