BTOP - Monitor Linux system resources

btop is the successor to bashtop and bpytop and provides a modern, resource-efficient interface for monitoring system resources such as CPU, memory, network, and processes. The following sections describe the installation and some basic functions of the software.

Compatible Operating Systems

The package is available for the following operating systems:

Arch Linux
Debian / Ubuntu
Fedora
openSUSE
RHEL / CentOS
macOS
FreeBSD

The following example shows how to install and use btop on Debian 12.

Installation

Update the system

First, update the system:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install btop

Then install btop:

apt install btop

Additional packages may be installed automatically. On Debian 12 and Ubuntu 22.04 or newer, btop is already included in the standard repository.

On other distributions, the commands are for example:

Fedora: dnf install btop
Arch Linux / Manjaro: pacman -S btop
openSUSE: zypper install btop
macOS (via Homebrew): brew install btop
FreeBSD: pkg install btop

Using btop

btop is launched with the command btop.

A colorful, interactive terminal interface opens, displaying CPU, RAM, swap, network, and process information.

Main view of btop.

Process Management

Processes can be sorted, filtered, and terminated directly.
The search function allows quick lookup of specific programs.

Resource Display

CPU usage is shown per core in graphical form.
RAM and swap usage appear in charts.
Network throughput is displayed per interface.

Comparison with htop and top

btop shows more details in a clean, graphical format.
htop is lightweight but offers less visual presentation.
top is preinstalled on nearly all systems but purely text-based.

Menu and Settings

Pressing ESC opens a menu within btop where various options can be configured.

The following areas are available:

Color Schemes – Switch between different interface themes.
Display – Enable/disable animations, adjust graph size and detail level.
Processes – Configure sorting order (e.g. by CPU or memory usage) and filters.
Network – Select which interfaces to display.
System – Adjust update intervals, measurement refresh rate, and config paths.

The selected settings are stored in a configuration file and automatically loaded on the next start.

By default, this file is located at:

~/.config/btop/btop.conf

Main menu of btop.
Settings menu.

Notes

On very minimal systems (recovery mode, containers without extra packages), top is often the only available option.
btop consumes slightly more resources than htop but offers the most comprehensive display and a modern interface.

Further Information

Official repository: GitHub – btop

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