btop
btop++ is a modern, resource-efficient command-line system monitor for Linux, macOS, and BSD. Written in C++ with a terminal GUI framework, btop displays CPU, memory, disk, network, and GPU metrics in a highly customisable TUI with mouse support, true colour, and GPU stats. It is the spiritual successor to bpytop and bashtop, offering significantly better performance and a sleeker interface.
Key Features
- CPU monitoring — Per-core usage, frequency, temperature, and utilisation graphs
- Memory & swap — Real-time RAM and swap usage with detailed breakdowns
- Disk I/O — Per-disk read/write speeds and utilisation
- Network monitoring — Per-interface download/upload speeds and totals
- GPU monitoring — NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel GPU utilisation, memory, and temperature (Linux)
- Process management — Interactive process list with sorting, filtering, and signal sending
- Customisable themes — Built-in theme manager with preset and custom colour schemes
- Mouse support — Clickable interface elements for navigation and filtering
- Minimal dependencies — Standalone binary with no Python or Node.js runtime needed
Why Use It
btop is significantly faster than bpytop (its Python predecessor) while offering more features and a cleaner interface. It works over SSH, in tmux/screen sessions, and on headless servers. The GPU monitoring support is rare among TUI system monitors, making btop particularly useful for developers and data scientists who need to track GPU thermals and utilisation from the terminal.
Use Cases
- Server monitoring over SSH — Quick glance at resource usage on remote machines
- GPU workload tracking — Monitor GPU utilisation during ML training or rendering
- Desktop troubleshooting — Identify runaway processes or memory leaks
- Headless Raspberry Pi — Lightweight monitoring for ARM SBCs
Platform
Linux, macOS, BSD, Windows (via WSL)
Licence
Apache License 2.0