htop

htop is an interactive process viewer for Linux. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses. htop is an interactive top replacement that runs in the terminal. The available columns are: PID, STATE, PPID, PGRP, SESSION, TTY_NR, TPGID, MINFLT, CMINFLT, MAJFLT, CMAJFLT, UTIME, STIME, CUTIME, CSTIME, PRIORITY, NICE, STARTTIME, PROCESSOR, M_SIZE, M_RESIDENT, M_SHARE, M_TRS, M_DRS, M_LRS, M_DT, ST_UID, PERCENT_CPU, PERCENT_MEM, USER, TIME, NLWP, TGID, CTID, VPID, VXID, RCHAR, WCHAR, SYSCR, SYSCW, RBYTES, WBYTES, CNCLWB, IO_READ_RATE, IO_WRITE_RATE, IO_RATE, CGROUP, OOM, IO_PRIORITY

Comparison between htop and top

• In 'htop' you can scroll the list vertically and horizontally to see all processes and complete command lines.
• In 'top' you are subject to a delay for each unassigned key you press (especially annoying when multi-key escape sequences are triggered by accident).
• 'htop' starts faster ('top' seems to collect data for a while before displaying anything).
• In 'htop' you don't need to type the process number to kill a process, in 'top' you do.
• In 'htop' you don't need to type the process number or the priority value to renice a process, in 'top' you do.
• 'htop' supports mouse operation, 'top' doesn't
• 'top' is older, hence, more used and tested.