btop vs Homebrew
btop
github.com
Homebrew
brew.shSide by side
| Figure | btop | Homebrew |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Cli Tools | 7.8 (#15) | 8.4 (#6) |
| Spec score · Command Line Tools | 7.8 (#16) | 8.4 (#8) |
| Purpose | btop monitors processor, memory, disk, network, and process usage and stats. | Homebrew installs command-line tools and applications across macOS, Linux and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). |
| Support | The maintainer invites bug reports through GitHub Issues and lists GitHub Sponsors, PayPal, and Ko-fi as support options. | Homebrew directs users to GitHub Discussions and its issue form for help; support coverage varies by system configuration tier. |
Plans
In their own words
btop
btop is a free resource monitor for Linux and macOS that displays processor, memory, disk, network, and process activity. Its game-inspired menus, mouse support, and responsive interface provide ways to navigate system views and process controls. Users can inspect process details, filter or sort the list, view it as a tree, send signals, or pause the process list. Network graphs scale automatically; other displays cover disk activity and speeds, plus a battery meter. Users can choose graph symbols, create presets, and use theme files shared with bpytop and bashtop or a custom themes directory. GPU monitoring is supported on Linux and on macOS with Apple Silicon GPUs when built with GPU support. NVIDIA monitoring needs the nvidia-ml library, AMD needs rocm_smi_lib, and Intel needs SYSFS read permission. The project documents Linux and macOS installation, package installation for FreeBSD and NetBSD, and Homebrew for macOS and Linux. It recommends a terminal with 24-bit truecolor and wide-character support, a UTF8 locale, and a font covering specified Unicode blocks. The repository lists the Apache-2.0 license.