AppControl vs OpenProcMon

AppControl is a free historical Task Manager for Windows that records system activity and application behavior over time. It keeps approximately 72 hours of second-by-second history covering CPU, GPU, memory, disk, temperature, and app events. Executables are described in plain language with publisher, signature, and elevated-privilege information. Alerts can flag webcam, microphone, or location access, along with new or unsigned apps and silent updates. Users can disable an app, block a publisher, and create rules to stop software from returning. History is stored locally. An optional MCP server connects compatible AI clients after you enable it and approve data access; its nine tools are read-only and cannot change rules or configuration. A command-line tool shows live resource use and process events. AppControl supports modern Windows 10 and Windows 11, requires administrator privileges to install, and is not an antivirus replacement.

OpenProcMon is a free, open-source process monitor for 64-bit Windows. It tracks process, file system, registry, and network activity in real time, with filters for process name, PID, operation, path, result, or category. Its interface includes a process tree, activity summaries, and call-stack views with per-frame module resolution. The tool reads and writes Sysinternals Process Monitor .PML logs, including logs made with the original Process Monitor. Developers can use its Rust SDK to connect to the driver, choose monitored activity, set filters, and consume parsed events programmatically. For AI-assisted capture and analysis, the procmon-cli MCP server operates over stdio and has setup instructions for clients including Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, and Cursor. Capture tools can export filtered results as PML, CSV, or XML. The v0.5.0 release offers a Windows x64 ZIP with the GUI, CLI/MCP server, console example, skill, and guides. Live capture needs Administrator privileges to load the kernel driver; analyzing an existing .PML file does not. The project is MIT-licensed and its Rust rewrite is described as under active development.