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iStat Menus vs Stats vs docktor
iStat Menus vs Stats comes down to polish versus price: one's paid and deep, the other's free and open-source. Here's that comparison, plus where docktor fits if you'd rather see the basics next to your Dock.
The short version
iStat Menus versus Stats is mostly whether you’ll pay for polish: iStat Menus goes deeper and costs money, Stats is free, open-source, and covers the essentials. Both live in the menu bar. docktor isn’t really in that fight — it shows the basic numbers in a native Liquid Glass widget by the Dock, alongside music, calendar, and weather. It’s here because “free Mac stats” is what usually sent people looking.
iStat Menus vs Stats vs docktor
| Feature | iStat Menus | Stats | docktor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Paid (license or Setapp) | Free, open-source | Free, notarized |
| CPU, memory, disk, network | Yesdetailed, with history | Yes | Yeslive glass widget |
| Temperature and fan sensors | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU monitoring | Yesdetailed | Yes | No |
| Where it lives | Menu bar | Menu bar | Glass widget beside the Dock |
| Beyond system stats | Menu-bar clock and calendar | Stats only | Music + lyrics, calendar, weather, Dock previews, switcher |
Which should you pick?
Go with iStat Menus if you want the deepest sensor and GPU data with history and you don’t mind paying. Go with Stats if you want that same menu-bar monitoring for free. Go with docktor if the numbers matter less than having them—plus your music, calendar, and weather—in one spot by the Dock. There’s more on that trade-off on the iStat Menus alternative page.
Frequently asked questions
- iStat Menus or Stats — what's the real difference?
- Price and polish. iStat Menus is paid and has years of refinement: every sensor, GPU detail, history graphs, deep menu-bar tuning. Stats is free and open-source and does most of the same day-to-day monitoring without the last 20% of polish. That's the whole trade.
- Is Stats good enough to skip iStat Menus?
- For a lot of people, yes. Stats shows CPU, memory, disk, network, and sensors in the menu bar and costs nothing. You'd move up to iStat Menus for the history, the GPU depth, and the fine-grained control.
- Where does docktor come into this?
- It's the odd one out. Both of those live in the menu bar and are about monitoring; docktor puts CPU, memory, disk, and network in a widget by the Dock and throws in music, calendar, weather, and Dock previews. It's free, but it doesn't read temperatures or fan speeds, so it's not a hardware-diagnostics tool.
- Which of the three is free?
- Stats and docktor are both free (Stats is open-source, docktor is notarized by Apple). iStat Menus is the paid one.