Best Vitals Alternatives for Mac in 2026
Short answer: Vitals is one of the nicest Activity Monitor replacements for the Mac: it groups processes by app, keeps 30 days of history and tells you when an app misbehaves. If it doesn’t fit (it needs macOS 15, has no trial, and costs $29 after its $5 launch run), the main alternatives are Activity Monitor (built in), Stats (free, open source), iStat Menus ($11.99 on the Mac App Store) and FavTray, whose free System screen puts CPU, memory, disk, network, battery and top processes in the menu bar next to its port manager.
TL;DR
- Want what Vitals does, exactly? Buy Vitals. Nothing else here groups processes by app with 30 days of per-app history.
- Free and open source: Stats.
- Deepest sensors, fans and menu bar readouts: iStat Menus.
- Already on your Mac: Activity Monitor, which still has process sampling that Vitals leaves out.
- Developer glance plus ports in one icon: FavTray. Free for the system glance; Pro is $4.99 once during launch ($9.99 after 8 October 2026).
How do the Vitals alternatives compare?
Prices and requirements checked on 28 September 2026 from each app’s own site or store listing.
| App | Price | Runs on | Stays local | Key features | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vitals | $5 launch, then $29 once. No trial, 14-day refund | macOS 15+ | Yes. Network use is an update check and a licence check | Processes grouped by app, 30-day history, alerts, per-app volume, dev servers by project, temperatures and fans | Finding which app slowed your Mac, and when |
| Activity Monitor | Free, built in | Every Mac | Yes | Every process, energy, disk, network, process sampling | Deep one-off investigation |
| Stats | Free, open source (MIT) | macOS 12+ | Yes | CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery, sensors, Bluetooth in the menu bar | A free, configurable menu bar monitor |
| iStat Menus 7 | $11.99 (Mac App Store), weather extra | macOS 14+ (App Store build) | Yes | Every metric, sensors, fans, weather, clocks, notification rules | The most detailed menu bar readouts |
| FavTray | Free; Pro $4.99 once at launch | macOS 14+ | No FavTray server stores your data | CPU, memory, disk, network, battery, top 5 processes; listening ports with one-click kill; the rest of FavTray | A developer glance and ports in one icon |
What is Vitals, and what is it good at?
Vitals is a Mac app from Fore Studio built around one idea: Activity Monitor shows you about a thousand processes, but you think in apps. Vitals folds every helper, renderer and daemon under the app it belongs to, so you see “Chrome” or “Slack” rather than forty lines of Helper (Renderer).
On top of that it keeps 30 days of history per metric (with 12-hour, 24-hour, 7-day and 30-day views), sends an alert when an app hogs the CPU, keeps growing in memory or hammers the disk or network, and lets you put each readout in the menu bar as a value, a graph or both. It reads GPU, battery, temperatures and fan speed, has per-app volume, and has a developer touch: it groups dev servers by project folder, shows their ports, spots idle ones and offers to stop them after asking.
It says it’s light, too: with no window open it samples every five seconds and uses “about a tenth of a percent of one core”. It runs on Apple silicon and Intel, and apart from an update check and a licence check it doesn’t use the network.
Its testimonials are glowing (“Best $5 I ever spent”), though we couldn’t find independent reviews yet. It’s new.
Why would you look for a Vitals alternative?
Four honest reasons, none of them “Vitals is bad”:
- You’re on macOS 14 Sonoma. Vitals needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.
- You want to try before you pay. There’s no trial or free tier, only a 14-day refund.
- You want free or open source. At $29 after the launch run, it’s a real purchase for a monitor.
- You don’t need app-level history. If you just want “is my Mac busy, and what’s using it”, a simpler glance will do.
Is Activity Monitor enough?
For investigating a problem, often yes. Activity Monitor shows every process with CPU, memory, energy, disk and network columns, and it can sample a process, which Vitals itself says it doesn’t do. What it lacks is everything around the investigation: it lists processes one by one (its hierarchical view shows parents and children, not apps), keeps no real history, sends no alerts, and only shows a live graph in its Dock icon. It’s the tool you open once something already feels slow.
Is Stats a good free alternative to Vitals?
Stats is the usual free answer, and for good reason. It’s free, MIT-licensed, actively updated (v3.0.18 shipped on 27 September 2026) and puts CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery, sensors and Bluetooth in the menu bar, each as its own item. It runs on macOS 12 and later.
The trade-offs: it’s a readout, not a diagnosis. It shows the top processes per module, but not processes grouped by app with 30 days of history, and no alerts for a runaway app. Fan control is marked as legacy and unmaintained. On macOS 26 you have to allow its icons under System Settings › Menu Bar before they show up. We compared it in detail in Stats vs iStat Menus vs FavTray.
Should you get iStat Menus instead?
If what you like about Vitals is the menu bar readouts, iStat Menus is the long-standing specialist: CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, battery and Bluetooth, sensors and fan control, weather, world clocks and rules that notify you. It’s $11.99 on the Mac App Store (weather is a small in-app subscription), comes with a 14-day trial from Bjango’s site, and is included in Setapp.
It isn’t built around “which app, over the last month” the way Vitals is. Some recent App Store reviews also call version 7 buggy. See iStat Menus alternatives for more on it.
Where does FavTray fit?
Full disclosure: FavTray is our app. It isn’t a Vitals clone, and it’s weaker at Vitals’ core job. Here’s where it overlaps.
The system glance, free. FavTray’s System screen shows CPU (user, system, idle), memory (app, wired, compressed and memory pressure), per-drive disk capacity, live network speeds, battery charge, cycle count and health, and the top 5 processes by CPU and by memory. It’s free with no limit. Pro adds battery health alerts.
Dev servers and ports. Vitals’ dev server feature is the one developers mention most. FavTray’s Ports tool lists every listening TCP port with the process behind it, sorted into types, and frees one in a click after a confirmation. Free includes 10 kills a day (the count resets at midnight), and past that the button copies kill <pid> for Terminal. For the manual way, see how to kill a port on Mac.
Everything else in the same icon. The same menu bar icon holds AI usage limits for Claude, Codex and Cursor, GitHub PRs and CI, eye-rest breaks, a menu bar organizer and Keep Alive. If you’re trying to run fewer menu bar apps, that’s the reason to pick it.
What it doesn’t do, today: group processes by app, keep 30 days of per-app history, alert on a specific runaway app, read temperatures or fans, or control per-app volume. If you want those, Vitals (or iStat Menus for sensors) is the right call.
It runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, needs no account, and every install gets 7 days of Pro free with no card. No FavTray server stores your data; the app talks to the services you connect, plus a licence check and an update check.
Isn’t there a free app called Vitals?
Yes, and it’s easy to mix them up. hmarr/vitals by Harry Marr is a tiny, free, open-source menu bar app that graphs the last 60 seconds of CPU for the busiest processes, which is handy for catching sporadic spikes. It dates from 2021, its last release was in April 2022, and it isn’t signed, so you install it with right-click › Open. It’s a different project from vitalsmac.com.
Which Vitals alternative should you pick?
| If you want | Pick |
|---|---|
| App-level grouping and 30 days of history | Vitals |
| Free and open source in the menu bar | Stats |
| Every sensor, fan and readout | iStat Menus |
| To investigate a problem right now | Activity Monitor |
| A system glance plus ports and developer tools in one icon | FavTray |
| A 60-second CPU graph, free | hmarr/vitals |
The honest summary: if Vitals runs on your Mac and you care about which app used what last Tuesday, it’s worth its price. If you’d rather not pay for a monitor, Stats is excellent. If your menu bar is already full of single-purpose utilities, that’s the problem FavTray is built for.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vitals for Mac?
Vitals (vitalsmac.com, by Fore Studio) is a paid Activity Monitor alternative. It groups every process under the app it belongs to, keeps 30 days of history per metric, alerts you when an app misbehaves, shows readouts in the menu bar, controls per-app volume and finds idle dev servers. It needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later and costs $29 once after a $5 launch price.
Is there a free alternative to Vitals for Mac?
Yes. Activity Monitor is built in and free, Stats is free and open source (MIT) with CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery and sensor readouts in the menu bar, and FavTray's System screen is free with CPU, memory, disk, network, battery and the top processes. None of them groups processes by app with 30 days of history the way Vitals does.
Is Vitals the same as Harry Marr's Vitals on GitHub?
No. hmarr/vitals is a small free, open-source menu bar app from 2021 that graphs the last 60 seconds of CPU for the busiest processes; its last release was in 2022. vitalsmac.com is a different, paid app from Fore Studio with app grouping, history, alerts and per-app volume.
Does Vitals work on macOS Sonoma?
No. Vitals requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later, according to its website. On macOS 14 Sonoma, Stats, iStat Menus and FavTray all run.
Can FavTray replace Vitals?
Partly. FavTray's free System screen shows CPU, memory, disk, network, battery and the top 5 processes by CPU and memory, and its Ports tool lists every listening port and frees one in a click (10 kills a day on Free). It doesn't group processes by app, keep 30 days of per-app history or read temperatures and fans. If those are what you want, Vitals is the better pick.
Does Vitals have a free trial?
No. Vitals has no free version or trial; it offers a 14-day refund instead.