Has iStat Menus met its match?

iStat Menus has a lot going for it. It keeps track of what your system is doing with nifty little graphics in the menu bar: CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage and activity, network bandwidth, and temperature sensors. Configuration is neatly tucked away in a preference pane, and as a bonus you get highly configurable date and time for the menu bar. Best of all, it’s freeware.

Could anything be better?

We recently discovered a program called atMonitor, which covers pretty much everything iStat Menus does, then goes a lot further. The same system activities are monitored in the menu bar, plus a few others can be added. If you don’t like a cluttered menu bar, you can opt for a floating window, which nicely displays system activities in graphs that update horizontally. Icons for the three most active apps are shown on top.

But that’s not all. A “top” window lists all the process in order of activity — not just the apps you’re familiar with but also background stuff with arcane names such as fontd and pboard. When you click on one of the names, information is displayed in large area above — including a description from iusethis. A tool bar allows you to renice, signal, pause or kill the process.

So is atMonitor better than iStat Menus?

In some ways, yes. There are a lot more options and features, some of which I haven’t touched on here — priorities, triggers and logging among them. You can even download themes or change the colours. On the other hand, atMonitor is not quite as polished as iStat Menus, and you do need to have it running in the dock like any other program. In fact, this may be atMonitor’s greatest drawback — iStat Menus is more discreet. For example, while iStat Menus may not have a floating window, you can get a similar effect by clicking on its menu bar graphs to see more detail.

The verdict

Since both programs are free, why not use both? Keep iStat Menus running for your everyday needs. It’s unobtrusive, attractive and covers the basics. Fire up atMonitor when you really want to puzzle out those processes with your undivided attention.

Posted Wednesday, November 4, 2009 in Reviews