macmon – Mac Monitor

macmon is a sudoless performance monitor for Apple Silicon Macs. It reads real-time CPU / GPU / ANE power usage, temperatures, and memory stats through a private macOS API — the same data powermetrics exposes — without requiring root access.

🌟 Features

• 🚫 Runs without sudo
• ⚡ Real-time CPU / GPU / ANE power usage
• 📊 CPU frequency-scaled and active ratios per cluster
• 💾 RAM / Swap usage and memory pressure
• 📈 Historical charts with average and max values
• 🌡️ Average CPU / GPU temperature
• 📋 Process list with per-process CPU, memory, power and GPU usage
• 🎨 Follows your terminal's color scheme
• 🪟 Can be displayed in a small window
• 🦀 Written in Rust

📥 Installation

Install macmon using brew:

brew install macmon

Install using MacPorts:

sudo port install macmon

Install using Cargo:

cargo install macmon

Install using Nix:

nix-env -i macmon

Tested on macOS 14 and later; older versions may work too.

🚀 Usage

Usage: macmon [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  pipe    Output metrics in JSON format
  serve   Serve metrics over HTTP
  debug   Print debug information
  stress  Generate load for testing metrics
  help    Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -i, --interval <INTERVAL>  Update interval in milliseconds [default: 1000]
  -h, --help                 Print help
  -V, --version              Print version

Interactive mode

Run macmon without a subcommand to open the terminal UI: the metric boxes on top and the process list below. Press ? in the app to see the keys.

When the TUI runs as root, preference changes apply only to that session and are not saved. Run without sudo to persist settings.

Press / to filter the process list: commas separate alternatives, spaces combine words, ! negates a word. For example chrome, !helper, node mem:500m !user:root or app:safari, which shows the Safari app with its helpers. A plain word looks in the name or pid. Keys take a number, above it or below it with <: cpu:, gpu:, power:, mem: (k, m, g) and time: (s, m, h, d); or text: user:, path:, dir: (the working directory), cmd: (the command line, of your own processes) and app: (the name of the .app the process or its responsible process runs from); or an exact local TCP or UDP port, of your own processes: port:3000. Enter keeps the filter, Esc clears it.

Press Space to pause the process list: rows keep their order while values update, new processes wait until you resume, and the files list of i stops updating. Press f to turn the filter off and on without losing its text.

JSON output

You can use the pipe subcommand to output metrics in JSON format, which makes it suitable for piping into other tools or scripts. For example:

macmon pipe | jq

This command runs macmon in "pipe" mode and sends the output to jq for pretty-printing.

You can also specify the number of samples to collect using the -s or --samples parameter (default: 0, which runs indefinitely), and set the update interval in milliseconds using the -i or --interval parameter (default: 1000 ms). For example:

macmon pipe -s 10 -i 500 | jq

This will collect 10 samples with an update interval of 500 milliseconds.

HTTP server

You can use the serve subcommand to expose metrics over HTTP. This is useful for integrating with monitoring systems like Prometheus and Grafana.

macmon serve                   # default port 9090, interval 1000ms
macmon serve --host 127.0.0.1  # listen on localhost only
macmon serve -p 8080           # custom port
macmon serve -i 500            # sampling interval 500ms
macmon serve &                 # run in background

Two endpoints are available:

Endpoint	Format	Description
GET /json	JSON	Current metrics snapshot (same format as pipe --soc-info)
GET /metrics	Prometheus	Metrics in Prometheus text format

launchd service

To start macmon serve at boot, with nobody logged in, and keep it running:

sudo macmon serve --install                   # install and start (default port 9090)
sudo macmon serve --port 8080 --install       # with custom port
sudo macmon serve --host 127.0.0.1 --install  # listen on localhost only
sudo macmon serve --uninstall                 # stop and remove

--install needs sudo: it creates a LaunchDaemon at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.macmon.plist that restarts on crash. The daemon runs as the user who called sudo, not as root, and with FileVault on it starts after the disk is unlocked following a restart. If that user has the agent below, the daemon replaces it.

To start at login instead, without sudo:

macmon serve --install --agent  # install and start (takes --host and --port too)
macmon serve --uninstall        # stop and remove

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