A system monitor for Mac or Linux with per-app history
Pulse by Zaweba also comes for macOS and Linux, with the same Live, Temperatures, History, Alerts and Settings pages, mini meter and tray or menu bar icon.
Mac and Linux users can have the same kind of monitor that Windows users get. Pulse by Zaweba has a separate version for macOS and Linux with the same pages as on Windows: Live, Temperatures, History, Alerts and Settings. It has the mini meter too, and an icon in the tray or menu bar, and keeps the same minute-by-minute history so you can look back at what each app was doing.
Activity Monitor on a Mac and the usual Linux tools are good at showing the present. What they don't do out of the box is keep a record you can browse by day, ranked by app. That is what Pulse adds.
Where the readings come from
The Mac and Linux version is built with Avalonia, a toolkit that runs on both systems, and reads its figures from the operating system itself. On Linux it uses /proc for process figures and hwmon for sensors. On macOS it uses Mach for process figures and the SMC (the Mac's system management controller) for sensors.
There are some honest differences from Windows. On macOS only your own processes are listed. On Linux, per-app network covers your own apps' TCP traffic. Linux drive health needs an optional helper that asks for your password when you turn it on.
What you get
The Live page shows your apps with their CPU, memory and other figures, and graphs for the whole machine. Temperatures shows what the hardware reports. History lets you choose Today, Yesterday or This week, with graphs and the top users over the period, so you can answer questions like "what was busy overnight?". Alerts warns you when something goes wrong instead of waiting for you to look. The mini meter keeps a small window of live figures on screen while you work.
Getting started on each system
On a Mac, install Pulse, open it and look for its icon in the menu bar. On Linux, install it, start it and look for the tray icon. In both cases, leave it running for a day before judging the History page; it can only show what it has recorded.
Using it alongside Windows
If you have a Windows PC as well, you can run Pulse there too. Some details differ because each system reports different things, as described above, but the layout and the idea are the same on every machine, so moving between them feels familiar. The pages sit in the same order and the history answers the same kinds of question: what was busy, what used the data, and what was running when things got warm.
Privacy is the same everywhere
Pulse by Zaweba has no account, no cloud and no telemetry on any system. It measures the computer on the computer and keeps its history there. That matters more than it might seem, because a minute-by-minute record of every app you run is a fairly personal document.
Questions it helps you answer
The reason to want per-app history on any system is the same: problems are usually over by the time you look. A laptop that ran hot on the sofa last night, a machine that felt slow after lunch, a fan that roared while you were making tea. With Pulse running in the tray or menu bar, the History page can show you what was busy at the time and which app was doing the work. Leave it running for a few days, then use it the next time something odd happens; that is when it earns its place.
