WhoIsCooking
Get the app, $5
WhoIsCooking vs Activity Monitor, iStat Menus and Stats
They overlap, but they answer different questions. Pick the one that matches yours.
At a glance
| Activity Monitor | Stats | iStat Menus | WhoIsCooking | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (built in) | Free, open source | Paid | $5 one time |
| Shows chip temperature | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Groups processes by AI agent session | No | No | No | Yes |
| Cools the Mac while work keeps running | No | No | No | Yes (efficiency cores) |
| Wide system dashboard (network, disk, battery, etc.) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No, focused on heat |
| Notch display | No | Menu bar | Menu bar | Notch or menu bar |
Details change as these apps update, so check each product's page for the latest feature list.
Activity Monitor
Built into macOS and free. It is accurate for per-process CPU, memory, energy and disk. It does not show temperature, and it lists processes individually, so one agent session appears as many unrelated names.
Stats
A free, open-source menu bar monitor with modules for CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery and sensors. A good choice when you want a general dashboard and do not want to pay.
iStat Menus
A long-established paid system monitor with detailed sensors, fans and many menu bar widgets. Best if you want the broadest and most polished system overview.
WhoIsCooking
Built for one situation: AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Aider, Copilot CLI, Ollama, LM Studio) making a MacBook hot. It groups each session with everything it started into one row, warns about runaway agents and left-behind dev servers, and has a Cool down my Mac button that moves busy processes to efficiency cores without stopping them. It does not try to be a full system dashboard.
Which should you pick?
- "What is using my CPU right now?" Activity Monitor.
- "I want everything about my Mac in the menu bar." Stats or iStat Menus.
- "My Mac gets hot when my agents run and I want to fix that." WhoIsCooking.
They can be used together. WhoIsCooking uses about 0% CPU and 14 MB of memory when idle.
Frequently asked questions
Is WhoIsCooking a replacement for iStat Menus or Stats?
No. Those are broad system dashboards. WhoIsCooking is focused on heat: it shows temperature, identifies which AI agent is causing it, and cools the Mac.
Does Activity Monitor show Mac temperature?
No. Activity Monitor shows CPU, memory, energy, disk and network use, but not chip temperature.
Can I use WhoIsCooking with other monitors?
Yes. It has very low overhead when idle, so it can run alongside Activity Monitor, Stats or iStat Menus.