GoKawiilDeveloper releases siltop, an open-source terminal monitor for Apple Silicon Macs
A developer built siltop, a terminal-based system monitor designed specifically for Apple Silicon Macs, after finding that btop could not read chip-level data like watts, GPU usage or cluster clocks. Siltop reports CPU, GPU and ANE power draw, per-cluster clock speeds, temperatures and fans without requiring sudo access, pulling data from macOS's SMC, IOReport, Mach and sysctl interfaces. The tool reportedly uses about 1.3% of one CPU core at a 1-second refresh interval, less overhead than btop and comparable to macmon.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The release highlights a gap in existing terminal monitoring tools, which were largely built for Linux systems and don't natively expose Apple Silicon's unified chip architecture. By avoiding sudo requirements and offering machine-readable output formats like JSON and Prometheus, siltop could appeal to developers wanting lightweight, scriptable monitoring on Macs without relying on Apple's own powermetrics tool. Its adoption will likely depend on whether the open-source community finds its accuracy and low overhead claims hold up in broader use.
- siltop is a new open-source terminal monitor built specifically for Apple Silicon's M1 through M5 chips.
- It reads power, clock speed and temperature data directly from macOS system interfaces without needing sudo privileges.
- The tool claims roughly 1.3% CPU overhead, lower than btop and similar to the existing macmon utility.
Apple MacBook Pro M4 — Since siltop is built specifically to expose Apple Silicon's real watts, clocks, and temps, it pairs perfectly with a machine like the MacBook Pro M4. You'll get the most out of this terminal monitor by watching live power and thermal behavior across E/P cores and GPU during real workloads like builds and inference.
See Apple MacBook Pro M4 on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: github.com, 2026-10-17
Published there as: “Show HN: I got tired of btop not seeing my Mac's chip, so I built siltop”
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