top
Shares rank 5 of 8 system monitors by recommenders
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.
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.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not 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.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Live list of top resource users
“"top" or maybe "slabtop" will find the offending, very very broken, program that's leaking memory like crazy”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM” “there's no substitute for top to show you an updating list of top cpu consumers”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “TUI Studio – visual terminal UI design tool”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Misses short latency spikes
“a latency spike that all the usual polling tools missed”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Why "top" missed a cron job that was killing our API latency” Information overload, non-standard display
“non-standard, information overload”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Btop: A better modern alternative of htop with a gamified interface”
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 |
| topThis page | 5 | 3 | 63% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I'd rather visually parse top all day before I'd resign myself to gaze upon that hideous mess.”
“Yeah, and top is a crunch.”
“"top" or maybe "slabtop" will find the offending, very very broken, program that's leaking memory like crazy”
“there's no substitute for top to show you an updating list of top cpu consumers”
“The first good TUIs were things like top and elm.”
“a latency spike that all the usual polling tools missed”
“non-standard, information overload”
“Just press z in top for glorious colour.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.