By Aaron Lee
If you don’t need all the data that iStat Menus (2017/8/21/istat-menus-serves-up-all-the-stats-you-could-want-and-more-about-your-mac) provides, you may be happy with Stater. It’s an $8.99 system-monitoring app for macOS (10.9 or later) that displays all information in one dock icon and a dock menu.
Stater — which is available at the Mac App Store — displays system parameters such as CPU, memory, and drive space usage charts in its dock icon. It has no windows or menubar icons. All control, including its settings, takes place via the dock icon and dock menu.
The four dock icon views contain all basic system parameter charts and even a top-process icon in multi-core view during high CPU usage. If you need more complete info, you can open (by right/clicking) the dock menu, which contains numerical data, top processes by CPU, and memory usage, as well as quick access to basic system tools. Stater is also customizable, as it includes six assorted color skins.
It’s a solid utility that does what it promises. However, if I’m going to use a stat monitoring tool on my Mac (and I do), I’d fork out the extra six bucks for iStats Menus so I’d have access to all its bells and whistles if/when I needed them.
Apple World Today Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★
