Everyone knows top (the performance monitor and task manager). And, of course, htop… which is like top… but ever so much fancier and nicer looking.
But there are more — oh-so-many more — options for terminal-based system managers. Let’s look at six of them. With screenshots. (Because screenshots are important.)
ytop
ytop, while no longer maintained, is still quite excellent. And, like all software written in Rust, it tells you “I am written in Rust” right at the top of the Readme file.
Because, hey. What’s the point of writing software in Rust if you don’t tell anybody? That’d be like being a Vegan, Arch user… but keeping that information to yourself. Pointless.
bottom
Multiple themes. A number of visualizers and widgets. bottom is a fairly customizable htop alternative. Looks pretty clean, as well.
Plus, it gets brownie points for being named bottom. Because… you know… it’s not top. A good, solid, punny name right there.
Total side note: The only screenshot provided, by the developer, for bottom is in the form of an animated GIF. Ok. No problem. But it’s a 7.1 MB GIF. With thousands of frames. The only screenshot for bottom is literally larger than DOOM. That’s crazy. Above is an actual screenshot that is, you know, not as large as DOOM. You’re welcome.
vtop
vtop looks pretty nice. But… well… it’s written in Node.js. Javascript in the terminal? As the French would say, “le barf.” (I am mostly including it in this list so that I can say “le barf”.)
Seriously. It really does look great. Clean. Easy to understand. Easy on the eyes.
But. You know. Le barf.
glances
glances, besides being fairly cool looking, has one rather nifty feature: you can use it in the terminal… or via a web interface… that looks just like the terminal.
Why would you want to use it via a web browser, on a remote server, when you can just SSH into the server and use the terminal version? Who knows. But it’s cool that you can!
nmon
nmon (or “Nigel's performance Monitor”) has an absolute boat-load of features (including exporting performance data).
Bonus: Not written in Javascript using NodeJS. Pure C. So. Not le barf.
btop
btop looks like a terminal task manager… designed by a BBS ANSI artist from the mid-1990s. And… well… I rather dig that.
Lots of features. All in C++. Highly customizable look and feel. Will make you feel like a l33t 90s hAx0r in a jiffy.
Not gonna lie. Btop might be my favorite. Some of the others are pretty awsome too, though. It's a tough choice.
I recommend you install a few of these. Just to be sure.
