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.
vmstat (virtual memory statistics) is a system monitor which provides activity information about processes, CPU, memory, block IO, paging and more. It is commonly used for displaying virtual memory statistics.
Let's see how top and vmstat compare on various factors and features.
top
vmstat
Overall
Type
Type
Interactive system-monitor, process-viewer and process-manager
Command line ASCII output that is produced once and never updated by default. To make it update at regular intervals pass a numeric argument which acts as delay in seconds e.g. vmstat 3 updates every 3 seconds.
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 with -d option
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
Though it is very basic, it is a very handy tool for monitoring memory I/O and block activity.
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