IStat Menus
IStat Menus is an advanced system monitor created to monitor your Mac. The goal of iStat Menus is to create customizable notifications, menu bars, and monitors to suit each individual Mac user's unique needs. iStat Menus has a huge variety of personalized data types that it can monitor. It's also gone through multiple upgrades, each upgrade improving upon the previous version and adding multiple new features. Right now, iStat Menus is on version 6. iStat Menus has a comprehensive notifications system that can notify you of a wide range of potential events. You can choose your notifications based on GPU, CPU, disks, memory, network connections, battery life, sensors, general power, and weather updates. You can receive notifications on things like a change in public IP, a spike in CPU usage, a lack of internet connection, or a near-infinite combination of other customizable data. iStat Menus has a new weather monitoring tool that allows you to view current weather conditions on your menu bar. You can also pull up a detailed weekly weather overview and hourly forecast. iStat Menus can pull up the weather on your current location or search the weather for nearly any city worldwide. Version 6 also boasts more color and theme options than ever before. There are unique ways to style the menu bar icons, menu drop down lists, and generated graphs. iStat Menus has a notification widget which allows you to tuck your tracked stats in the Notification Center. Information including CPU usage, top memory processes, memory storage, load averages, and disk space will all be stored one click away. The software offers detailed CPU info including statistics about the current usage. It also creates history graphs, records load averages, and creates a list of apps that use up a large percentage of CPU. In addition, the active GPU processor usage can be added to the menu bar. iStat Menus has a memory feature that keeps track of a huge variety of things including history, memory pressure, usage, compressed memory, and swaps. You can run basic analytics with this information if you need to make your Mac run more efficiently.
- Weather updates
- Customizable notifications
- Customizable color and theme options
- Notification Center widget puts important stats just one click or swipe away
- Comprehensive CPU and GPU monitoring
- Memory monitoring and statistics
- Broken-down stats and graphs regarding network connections and bandwidth usage
- Stats on disk usage and activity including free space, used space, and general disk activity
- A nearly infinite number of customization combinations
- Unique layouts and colors to suit your style
- Ability to set notifications for your specific needs
- Ability to delegate important statistics to the Notification Center
- Real-time monitoring of nearly every aspect of your Mac
- Cons
- Stat Menus has a notification widget which allows you to tuck your tracked stats in the Notification Center. Information including CPU usage, top memory processes, memory storage, load averages, and disk space will all be stored one click away.
- The software offers detailed CPU info including statistics about the current usage. It also creates history graphs, records load averages, and creates a list of apps that use up a large percentage of CPU. In addition, the active GPU processor usage can be added to the menu bar.
- Stat Menus has a memory feature that keeps track of a huge variety of things including history, memory pressure, usage, compressed memory, and swaps. You can run basic analytics with this information if you need to make your Mac run more efficiently.
- The program is optimized for Macs; it cannot run on Windows or other operating systems
- The displayed information is too technical for a beginner
Alternatives to IStat Menus
Activity Monitor
SpeedFan
BitBar
IPulse
Core Temp
Real Temp
Open Hardware Monitor
SmcFanControl
Fan Control