atop vs OpenProcMon
atop
atoptool.nlOpenProcMon
github.comSide by side
| Figure | atop | OpenProcMon |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Process Monitoring Software | 7.7 (#12) | 7.9 (#9) |
| Intended users | The maintainer lectures a four-day Linux Performance Analysis and Tuning training course that covers atop and related tools. | The project describes its driver as a possible starting point for building EDR-style tooling and provides MCP tools for AI-assisted capture and analysis. |
| Purpose | Atop is an ASCII full-screen performance monitor for Linux that reports system and process activity. | OpenProcMon is an open-source Process Monitor implementation for Windows. |
Plans
In their own words
atop
atop is a free, GPL-licensed performance monitor for Linux. It uses a full-screen ASCII interface to report system and process activity at regular intervals. System-level views cover CPU, memory, swap, disk, and network activity. Process and thread views include CPU use, memory growth, disk use, and other statistics, including consumption by processes that finish during the interval. atop can save compressed raw counters for longer-term analysis, preserving daily logs for 28 days by default. The atopsar command turns those logs into system activity reports. It also reports CPU, memory, disk I/O utilization, and pressure for cgroup v2. An optional netatop kernel module adds per-process and per-thread TCP and UDP packet counts and bandwidth statistics. Displays can use bar graphs or detailed text, with columns adjusting to terminal width. Downloads list source and x86_64 RPM packages for version 2.13.0.
OpenProcMon
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.