both are free and open source. the difference is how many apps you run.
updated · by Anton Shakirov
Stats is free, open source, MIT-licensed, and one of the best system monitors on macOS — not a compromise anybody settles for. hop shows the same class of readings as one of eighteen tools behind a single menu bar icon. neither costs anything and both keep everything on your Mac, so the usual arguments on a comparison page have nothing to bite on here.
if what you want is a system monitor, install Stats and stop reading. this page is for the person who checks temperatures when the fans spin up, and would rather that live next to the other seventeen things they already open the menu bar for.
what Stats is built for
monitoring as the whole product, and it shows. a module per subsystem — cpu, gpu, memory, disk, network, battery, sensors, Bluetooth devices, even a multi-timezone clock — each with its own menu bar widget, its own display options and its own history.
every module can also notify you when a value crosses a line you set, from cpu load to how many gigabytes have gone to swap. none of that is switched on out of the box; you turn on the ones you care about.
is Stats really free?
yes, and there is no tier waiting behind it. the licence is MIT, the whole Xcode project is public, and the project takes sponsorship rather than payment.
licence, module list and release history are all in the open, and the project is moving: version 3.0.15 landed on 6 september 2026, with macOS 12 as the floor: exelban/stats on GitHub
the class of tool, rather than either product, is covered separately: the Mac system monitor page
what neither app gets from macOS
can macOS show cpu temperature at all?
not on Apple silicon, and not with anything Apple ships. `powermetrics` prints the samplers it supports — tasks, battery, network, disk, interrupts, cpu_power, thermal, sfi, gpu_power, ane_power — and there is no `smc` among them. `sysctl -a | grep -c therm` answers `0`. `ioreg` will list sensors by name and hand you no readings.
so both apps here are doing something the system does not offer. Stats reads the Apple vendor temperature page over the HID event system, and you can read the file that does it. that is common ground, not a difference between us: the whole category stands on the same undocumented ledge.
what you can and cannot get out of a Mac without installing anything, command by command: check cpu temperature on Apple silicon
what macOS does give you for free
one real number, and it is more useful than people expect. `notifyutil -g com.apple.system.thermalpressurelevel` returns the system's thermal pressure without sudo and without an app — on macOS 26.6.2 it answered straight away. it is the same value Apple documents for developers, on a four-step scale from nominal to critical.
if «is my Mac throttling right now» is the entire question, that command answers it and you need neither app. pressure, not degrees, is also the honest indicator: a temperature on Apple silicon is a number the system is actively managing.
the four thermal states are a documented API, not a private trick: ProcessInfo.ThermalState
on why degrees are the weaker measurement: «chip manufacturers including both Intel and Apple recommend using metrics such as thermal pressure as the best indicators of thermal strain»: The Eclectic Light Company
what the fans are actually reacting to, when they spin up for no visible reason: why your Mac fan is loud
so which of the two do you need
ask one question, and it is not about features: how many apps do you want running?
«one more is fine, and I want it to be a monitor» — that is Stats. it goes deeper than we do, it costs nothing, and nothing below changes that.
«my menu bar is already full of small utilities and I am tired of it» — then the interesting number is not the sensor count. it is eighteen versus one.
the same choice with money in it, if you were also weighing the paid end of this category: the iStat Menus comparison
where Stats is better than hop
code you can read and build yourself
Stats is a monitor whose source is a monitor. want to know how a temperature reaches your menu bar? open `Modules/Sensors`, read it, clone the project and build it. for anyone who will not put an undocumented sensor read on their machine without looking at it first, that is not a nice-to-have — it is the deciding factor, and Stats wins it outright. hop is open source too, but our sensor code sits inside an eighteen-tool app rather than a monitor you can audit on its own.
a module per sensor, shaped how you like
each Stats module is its own thing with its own widget: pick the type, pick what it shows, pick the colours, then put four of them side by side and read the machine without clicking anything. hop has one icon and one panel, and no amount of configuration turns that into four live widgets.
it also covers ground we simply do not: Bluetooth device batteries, per-sensor voltage and power, a second clock. if any of those is on your list, the list ends here.
it runs on Macs we do not
Stats asks for macOS 12. hop needs 14. on a Mac that Apple stopped moving forward, this is not a preference — it is the whole decision, and we lose it.
a project you can watch
releases land regularly and the history is public going back years, so you can see what changed before you update. that is a different kind of reassurance from a changelog page.
how hop's monitor compares to Stats
hop's monitor shows cpu and gpu load with temperatures, memory, network, disk, battery health and cycles, power draw and uptime, with the last hour graphed. values stay calm and light up when they leave the range you set, and the warning can sit on the menu bar icon itself. the memory row warns when a lot has gone to disk, not only when macOS says memory is short.
read that as a description, not a claim about Stats: it does thresholds too, per module. the difference is one row down.
| what you want | Stats | with hop |
|---|---|---|
| a system monitor, and nothing else | built for exactly this, and better at it | not needed — keep Stats |
| four readings permanently in the menu bar | yes, a widget per module | one icon; warnings appear on it |
| to read the sensor code before trusting it | MIT, clone it and build it | open source, but not a standalone monitor |
| a look only when the fans spin up | open Stats, read it, close it | the same panel as the other seventeen tools |
| the menu bar already full, notch eating the rest | hide widgets, or add an app that hides them | one icon covers eighteen tools |
| to also convert a file, uninstall an app, time a task | a separate app for each | already in the panel you just opened |
why menu bar space stopped being free real estate, and what the notch did to it: menu bar icons behind the notch
the memory reading that sends people looking
memory pressure stays green while your Mac quietly moves gigabytes onto the disk, and by the time it turns yellow everything has been slow for a while. that gap is why «out of application memory» arrives on a machine with free memory in every monitor you own.
what the pressure graph is actually measuring, and why green is not the same as fine: what memory pressure actually measures
and the error itself, from the dialog to the thing that caused it: fix «out of application memory»
how to try it without deciding anything
- leave Stats installed — the two do not conflict, and nothing here is worth uninstalling something over
- install hop: around six megabytes, no account, macOS 14 or newer
- set what counts as normal for your machine before judging anything it tells you
- wait for the next time the fans spin up, and see which icon you reach for
- if it was the Stats widget, you have your answer and it cost you nothing
frequently asked questions
- both are free — why switch?
- not for the sensor list, and not for the price. the only honest reason is the app count: one icon covering eighteen tools instead of one more app that does one thing. if that does not bother you, there is no reason.
- is Stats better than hop at monitoring?
- at monitoring specifically, yes. deeper widget configuration, a module per sensor, subsystems we do not cover at all, and source you can read as a monitor rather than as part of a larger app.
- can macOS show cpu temperature without an app?
- no. `powermetrics` has no smc sampler on Apple silicon, `sysctl` has no thermal entries, and `ioreg` names sensors without giving values. what you can get free is the thermal pressure level, with `notifyutil -g com.apple.system.thermalpressurelevel`.
- can i keep numbers visible in the menu bar all the time?
- not with hop — it shows one icon and puts warnings on it. permanent live widgets are what Stats does, and it does them well.
- does hop warn when memory goes to disk?
- yes, the memory row warns on that and not only when macOS reports pressure. Stats can notify on swap too, with a threshold in gigabytes, so treat this as how hop behaves rather than as something only hop does.
- can i run both at once?
- yes. they read the same sensors and neither locks them. plenty of people keep a dedicated monitor and a toolbox and never think about it again.
- what macOS version does each one need?
- Stats runs on macOS 12 and newer, hop on 14 and newer. on an older Mac the comparison is settled before it starts.
- how much history does hop keep?
- the last hour — enough to answer «why did the fans just spin up», not enough for long-term analysis. Stats charts more, per module.
the hop side of this
system monitor — load, temperatures, memory and battery — quiet until something is wrong.
about the author
Anton Shakirovmakes hop
makes hop and every page on this site. eighteen tools under a single menu bar icon, MIT licensed and open source. reads and answers issues and email himself.