Vitals is a macOS system monitor that consolidates background helper processes under parent applications, tracking real-time and historical hardware metrics directly from the menu bar.
What the product does and how it is positioned
Vitals is a system monitoring utility for Mac designed as an alternative to the native Activity Monitor. It aggregates individual helper and background processes under their respective parent applications, presenting a consolidated view of resource consumption across CPU, memory, disk, and network activity.
The application integrates into the macOS menu bar with customizable readouts, provides historical performance tracking for up to 30 days, alerts users to misbehaving applications, and includes developer-focused features like project-level port tracking.
Source-supported ways to use the product
Users can view aggregated CPU, memory, and network usage by parent application rather than manually summing helper processes.
Developers can identify open network ports, view processes grouped by project folders, and safely terminate idle dev servers.
Users can monitor CPU and GPU temperatures, fan speeds, and battery charge levels for connected Bluetooth accessories.
Standard system tools list every individual background worker and helper process, making it difficult to pinpoint which overall application is responsible for system resource usage. Vitals restructures this data by grouping each subprocess under its primary parent application.
Beyond immediate real-time metrics, the tool records historical performance across multiple timeframes, allowing users to inspect previous resource spikes across CPU, memory, disk, and network interfaces.
Checks to run with your own material and workflow
What was checked and when
Answers based on the source-checked product record
Vitals runs on macOS 15 Sequoia or later, and supports both Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers.
Instead of displaying every individual subprocess or helper in separate rows, Vitals groups all related subprocesses under the parent application that launched them.
Vitals limits network requests to two specific functions: checking for application updates and validating the software license key.
The software groups active processes by their project folders, lists open ports, identifies idle development servers, and prompts for user confirmation before stopping any process.
Vitals displays CPU and GPU temperatures, fan speeds, and the battery percentages of connected Bluetooth accessories like AirPods, mice, and keyboards.
