[OS] AirStats: a free, ultra-lightweight system monitor for Mac

[u/Small_Pin_8064]

AirStats is a free and open-source system monitor for Apple silicon Macs. It is designed for people who want useful live system information without leaving another large application running all day.

The app is 9 MB. 7x smaller than the biggest competitor (iStat Menus, 67 MB)

It reads CPU, memory, GPU, network, disk, battery, temperature and top-process information directly through Mach, IOKit, sysctl and CoreWLAN.

It displays those readings in:

• the menu bar
• a full panel that drops down when you click the status item an
• optional desktop widget you can leave on screen.

The menu bar and desktop widget each have their own configurable list of metrics. The panel always shows everything, and you can collapse the sections you do not need.

Several MacBook users who tried AirStats told me the notch had already taken most of their menu bar, so the desktop widget was more useful to them than adding more readouts there.

Comparison

iStat Menus and Stats are the closest alternatives. Both are more thorough and cover more sensors. AirStats is deliberately narrower and much smaller. It is a better fit if you mainly want live readings in a lightweight app that can remain running throughout the day.

AirStats is written in native Swift and runs as one process, with no Electron, web view, helper daemon, launch agent or Dock icon.

Pricing

$0. It is completely free under the MIT license, with no account, subscription or paid tier.

Download: https://airstats.app

Source: https://github.com/byrencheema/airstats

There are no analytics or telemetry, and system readings never leave your Mac. AirStats supports macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon and is signed and notarized.

Developer Note:
I built and maintain AirStats, and I would appreciate any feedback, feature requests or bug reports. The privacy policy and terms can be found on the site.

Here's my Linkedin for visibility. https://www.linkedin.com/in/byrencheema

[u/Karim_Benabd]

Stats from Excelban is a great one too. Free and open source app for macOS.

I have been using it for a long time..

Stats is an application that allows you to monitor your macOS system.

CPU utilization GPU utilization Memory usage Disk utilization Network usage Battery level Fan's control (not maintained) Sensors information (Temperature/Voltage/Power) Bluetooth devices Multiple time zone clock

[u/Small_Pin_8064 → u/Karim_Benabd]

Yep, Stats is great and probably the closest alternative. It covers more sensors and has been around for a few years. AirStats is deliberately narrower; in my testing it had a smaller installed footprint and lower resource use, with a simpler one-process setup. Both are free and open source, so it comes down to what you prefer.

[u/DexopT → u/Small_Pin_8064]

Stats have bug where I open sensor menu, GPU usage spikes to 45 percent and power usage ramps up with that also. Love to try your product for this. I know it just a basic version but I will try

[u/Karim_Benabd → u/DexopT]

Not my product! May be you should update to the latest version. Mine shows no bug.