btop — Beautiful Resource Monitor for Linux, macOS, Windows

What it is

btop is a terminal-based resource monitor written in C++ that displays real-time usage and statistics for CPU, memory, disks, network, and processes. It features a polished TUI with mouse support, gradient visualizations, configurable themes, and a low memory footprint. btop is the modern successor to bashtop and bpytop.

Sysadmins, developers, and anyone who monitors system performance in a terminal will find btop more readable and feature-rich than top or htop while remaining lightweight.

How it saves time or tokens

btop replaces multiple monitoring commands (top, iotop, nethogs, df) with a single dashboard. The mouse-driven interface lets you sort, filter, and signal processes without memorizing keyboard shortcuts. Themes and layout presets mean you spend zero time configuring the display.

How to use

1. Install btop:

brew install btop                          # macOS
sudo apt install btop                       # Ubuntu/Debian
sudo dnf install btop                       # Fedora

1. Launch:

btop

1. Use mouse or keyboard to navigate. Press m to cycle through memory display modes, n for network, and Esc to open the menu.

Example

# Launch with a specific theme
btop --theme gruvbox_dark

# Launch with update interval of 500ms
btop -t 500

# Show only specific disks
btop --disk-filter sda

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Common pitfalls

• Running btop over SSH with a narrow terminal width causes layout breakage. Use at least 80 columns wide for a usable display.
• On older Linux kernels (pre-4.18), some per-process IO stats may be missing because btop reads from procfs entries that require newer kernels.
• Confusing btop with bpytop (Python) or bashtop (bash). btop is the C++ rewrite and the actively maintained version.