Compare
Hedroom and Activity Monitor
Activity Monitor is a good tool. It is free, it comes with your Mac, and it shows exact numbers for every process. Hedroom does not replace it. Hedroom is for the questions Activity Monitor leaves to you.
What Activity Monitor does well
- It is already there. Nothing to install, nothing running in the background when it is closed, and nothing to trust beyond macOS itself.
- It is exact and complete. Every process, sortable by memory, CPU, energy, disk or network. You can inspect one process and take a sample of what it is doing, which is what you need when you are debugging.
- It shows the Memory Pressure graph. That is the right signal for memory, and we recommend you learn to read it. Our guide shows how.
- It does what you tell it. You pick the process, you quit it. There is no layer between.
What Hedroom adds
- Interpretation. Memory is Healthy, Strained or Critical, from pressure and how fast swap is growing, with the rules written down in How it works.
- Per-app baselines. Hedroom learns how big each app usually is on your Mac, so "Slack is 3.7 times its usual size" is possible, not just "Slack uses 4.1 GB".
- History and alerts. It keeps readings in the background, so you can see what happened while you were away, and it can tell you when something goes wrong.
- Plain-words explanations. For the names you do not recognize, and what is safe to leave alone: the process library.
- Fixes with consent and safety checks. Relaunch, move to efficiency cores, or pause, each explained first, each checked against a list of refusals.
- Receipts. After an action, readings before and after, and a verdict that includes "No measurable effect." when that is the truth. See Receipts.
Side by side
| Question | Activity Monitor | Hedroom |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, part of macOS. | Monitoring, explanations, alerts and the storage scan are free. Fixes, rules, new receipts and cleanup are Pro, a subscription (from $31.95 a year, or $7.95 a month) with a 7-day free trial. Pricing |
| Detail for every single process | Better. Every process, every column, sampling and inspection. | Groups helpers into apps and shows what matters. It does not replace the full process list. |
| Disk and network per process | Better. Dedicated tabs. | Not shown. Hedroom has a storage scan for caches and leftovers, which is a different job. |
| Nothing extra to install or trust | Better. It is part of macOS. | A separate app. It is signed and notarized when released, and its security notes list what it can do. |
| Cost of running | Better. Nothing runs when it is closed. | Always in the background. It is built to stay under 0.5% of one CPU core and 80 MB; the measured figures are from one Mac. |
| Says whether memory is a problem | Shows the pressure graph and the numbers. You read them. | Names the state and, if an app is the cause, the app. |
| What is normal for each app | Not tracked. | Learned from your last 7 days. |
| History | Graphs while it is open. | Keeps raw readings for 48 hours, and per-app summaries long enough to learn a 7-day usual size. |
| Tells you in the background | No alerts. | Menu bar summary and notifications for leaks, runaway CPU and critical pressure, with cooldowns. |
| Explains what a process is | Shows its name. | Plain-words library, refreshed about weekly from a signed list. |
| Quitting a process | Quit or force quit, whenever you choose. It leaves the judgment to you. | Asks first, checks the target is safe, refuses Apple's own processes, resumes anything it paused, and needs a second confirmation for force quit. |
| Proof that a change helped | Compare by eye. | A receipt: about 5 minutes before, 5 to 15 minutes after, and a verdict. |
| Privacy | Everything stays on the Mac. | Everything stays on the Mac. The only things that go online are the license check, update checks, a weekly download of the signed library, and feedback you send. Details |
Using them together
Most people who want an exact answer keep using Activity Monitor for it. Hedroom helps with the step before ("is anything wrong?") and the step after ("did that help?"). When Hedroom names an app, you can open Activity Monitor and check the figure yourself. They read the same numbers: Hedroom's memory figure per process is the footprint Activity Monitor shows as "Memory".
Which one fits? If you are comfortable reading the pressure graph and quitting the right app, Activity Monitor is enough. If you would rather be told, with the reasoning shown, and have the result checked, that is what Hedroom is for.