Compare top and iotop

top is the default command-line utility that comes pre-installed on Linux distributions and Unix-like operating systems. It is used for displaying information about the system and its top CPU-consuming processes as well as RAM usage.

Iotop is like top but for monitoring disk I/O by processes. It lists running processes alongwith the disk bandwidth (read/write bytes per second) they are using in real-time. It is written in Python and requires Python >= 2.7 to run.

Let's see how top and iotop compare on various factors and features.

top

iotop

Overall

Type

Type
Interactive system-monitor, process-viewer and process-manager
Type
Disk I/O and bandwidth monitor

Author

Operating System

Operating System
Linux distributions, macOS
Operating System
Linux distributions, macOS

Installation

Installation
Built-in and is always there. Also has more adoption due to this fact.
Installation
Doesn't come preinstalled. Manual installation is needed

Release Date

Release Date
1984
Release Date
2010

License

License
BSD
License
GNU General Public License (GPL-2.0)

Website

Website
Unixtop.org
Features

Screenshot

Screenshot
top output on webserver
Output of top on a webserver
Screenshot
iotop output
Output of iotop

User Interface

User Interface
2.5 Stars
Basic text only
User Interface
2.5 Stars
Basic ASCII monochrome screen which refreshes automatically.

Scrolling Support

Scrolling Support
No
Scrolling Support
No

Mouse Support

Mouse Support
No
Mouse Support
No

Process utilization

Process utilization
Displays processes but not in tree format
Process utilization
No

Network Utilization

Network Utilization
No
Network Utilization
No

Disk Utilization

Disk Utilization
No
Disk Utilization
Yes

Comments

Comments
Has a learning curve for some advanced options like searching, sending messages to processes, etc. It is good to have some knowledge of top because it is the default process viewer on many systems.
Comments
Useful for monitoring disk I/O activity by process or threads. Use the -o flag to only display processes which are performing I/O. atop also displays disk usage.

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