bottom
A customizable cross-platform graphical process and system monitor for the terminal.
What is bottom?
bottom (btm) is a terminal-based graphical system monitor that visualizes CPU, memory, network, disk, and process activity in real-time. It solves the need for a modern, customizable, and cross-platform alternative to traditional command-line monitoring tools like htop.
System administrators, developers, and power users who monitor system performance directly in the terminal across Linux, macOS, or Windows environments.
Developers choose bottom for its rich graphical visualizations, extensive customization options, and consistent cross-platform experience—all while remaining a lightweight terminal-native tool.
Overview
Yet another cross-platform graphical process/system monitor.
Use Cases
Best For
- Monitoring server resource usage in headless environments
- Debugging performance issues on local development machines
- Managing and killing processes interactively in the terminal
- Tracking real-time network and disk I/O on Linux systems
- Customizing system monitor layouts and color themes
- Comparing cross-platform system metrics with a unified tool
Not Ideal For
- Environments requiring web-based or remote monitoring dashboards
- Systems where ultra-low resource usage is critical over visual aesthetics
- Projects needing advanced historical data logging or analytics capabilities
- Users who prefer simple, text-only monitors without configuration overhead
Pros & Cons
Pros
Officially supports Linux, macOS, and Windows with consistent functionality, as detailed in the support section, ensuring a uniform experience across operating systems.
Provides real-time charts for CPU, memory, network, disk, temperature, and battery usage with zooming capabilities, enhancing data comprehension over text-only tools.
Configurable via command-line options or config files, including themes, layouts, and widget behavior, allowing users to tailor the monitor to their preferences.
Includes expansion mode for focusing on single widgets, htop-inspired basic mode, and process management with tree view and kill signals, as shown in the demo.
Cons
The graphical interface and real-time plotting likely consume more CPU and memory than minimal text-based monitors like top or htop, which could impact performance on low-power systems.
Unofficially supported platforms such as FreeBSD or certain ARM architectures may have missing features or bugs that aren't prioritized for fixes, as admitted in the support section.
While powerful, customization through config files requires manual setup and understanding of the syntax, which might be challenging for users seeking plug-and-play solutions.
Open Source Alternative To
bottom is an open-source alternative to the following products:
gtop is a terminal-based system monitoring dashboard for Linux and macOS that displays real-time information about CPU, memory, network, and processes in a graphical interface.
gotop is a terminal-based graphical activity monitor written in Go that displays system resource usage (CPU, memory, processes) in an interactive interface.
htop is an interactive process viewer and system monitor for Unix-like systems, providing a real-time, color-coded display of CPU and memory usage with a text-based interface.
Frequently Asked Questions
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