btop vs Monit
btop
github.comMonit
mmonit.comSide by side
| Figure | btop | Monit |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Process Monitoring Software | 7.7 (#13) | 7.8 (#10) |
| Notable limit | The README says Windows support was not in the project plans at the time of that entry. | The maker says process I/O activity metrics normally require Monit to run as root. |
| Purpose | btop monitors processor, memory, disk, network, and process usage and stats. | Monit is an open-source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems, with automatic maintenance and repair actions for errors. |
| Support | The maintainer invites bug reports through GitHub Issues and lists GitHub Sponsors, PayPal, and Ko-fi as support options. | The maker directs questions to the community mailing list and says it does not have time to answer support questions sent directly to the company. |
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.
Monit
Monit is a free, open-source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems, available for Linux, macOS, and self-hosted deployment. It watches local daemon processes and can restart a stopped process or stop one using too many resources. It checks files, directories, and filesystems for timestamp, checksum, or size changes, and tests TCP, UDP, and Unix domain sockets using protocols such as HTTP and SMTP. Scheduled program or script checks can trigger actions or alerts based on exit values. Monit tracks CPU, memory, system load, and network interfaces, and sends customizable error alerts to syslog or its own log. Its HTTP(S) interface displays service status and allows process control and monitoring changes. It works with init, upstart, and systemd, can use existing run-level scripts, and can run as PID 1 in containers. The maker says it uses statically linked OpenSSL 3.5.7 and dynamically linked PAM support.