# top

5 Hacker News commenters recommended top and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Built-in Unix tool that shows a live, updating list of the processes using the most CPU and memory. Critics say it can miss short latency spikes and its display is information-heavy.

## Why people recommend it

- Live list of top resource users (2 comments): ""top" or maybe "slabtop" will find the offending, very very broken, program that's leaking memory like crazy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49355269)) "there's no substitute for top to show you an updating list of top cpu consumers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47364672))

## What people warn about

- Misses short latency spikes (1 comments): "a latency spike that all the usual polling tools missed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45992604))
- Information overload, non-standard display (1 comments): "non-standard, information overload" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45911190))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Utilyze](https://hackerapproved.com/p/utilyze.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "top", https://hackerapproved.com/p/top/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).