Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

API Monitor VS SystemTap

Compare API Monitor VS SystemTap and see what are their differences

API Monitor logo API Monitor

API Monitor is a software that monitors and displays API calls made by applications and services. Its a powerful tool for seeing how Windows and other applications work or tracking down problems that you have in your own applications

SystemTap logo SystemTap

SystemTap provides instrumentation for a live running kernel and user-space applications.
  • API Monitor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-20
  • SystemTap Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-05-11

API Monitor features and specs

  • Comprehensive Monitoring
    API Monitor provides a comprehensive toolset for monitoring API calls made by applications, allowing developers to capture details such as function calls, parameters, and return values.
  • Real-Time Surveillance
    It allows users to intercept and display API activity in real-time, which can be beneficial for debugging and understanding how applications interact with the operating system or other software components.
  • Customizable Filters
    Users can set up filters to monitor specific APIs or applications, enhancing the focus and efficiency of the monitoring process.
  • Ease of Use
    The interface and setup of API Monitor are user-friendly, making it accessible to a wide range of users, from beginners to advanced developers.
  • Detailed API Information
    Offers detailed information about API functions, including their parameters and modules, which helps in thorough analysis and development.

Possible disadvantages of API Monitor

  • Windows Exclusivity
    API Monitor is designed for Windows operating systems, limiting its use for applications or developers working on other platforms like macOS or Linux.
  • Resource Intensive
    Monitoring extensive API activity in real-time can be resource-intensive, potentially affecting the performance of the system being monitored.
  • No Source Code
    Being a proprietary tool, it does not provide access to its source code, which may be a downside for developers looking for open-source alternatives.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, users may still face a learning curve when understanding how to effectively use all the features and interpret the data provided.
  • Limited Documentation
    Some users report that the documentation is not as comprehensive as they would like, which can hinder new users from fully utilizing the tool's capabilities.

SystemTap features and specs

  • Powerful Kernel and User Space Tracing
    SystemTap provides comprehensive capabilities for tracing and monitoring both kernel and user space activities, enabling detailed insights into system behavior.
  • Script Language Flexibility
    SystemTap uses a custom scripting language, allowing users to write and customize their own probes and handlers for tailored performance analysis.
  • Dynamic Probes
    It allows dynamic insertion of probes into a running system, making it possible to analyze live systems without a reboot.
  • Open Source and Community Support
    As an open-source tool, SystemTap benefits from community contributions and support, ensuring regular updates and a wealth of shared scripts and examples.
  • Wide Range of Use Cases
    SystemTap can be used for profiling, debugging, and performance monitoring across various subsystems, making it versatile for different use cases.

Possible disadvantages of SystemTap

  • Complexity of Usage
    The learning curve for SystemTap can be steep, especially for users unfamiliar with its scripting language and kernel-level operations.
  • Potential for System Instability
    Mistakes in SystemTap scripts can potentially lead to system instability or crashes, given the tool's deep access to the kernel.
  • Limited Documentation
    Although there is community support, some users might find the existing documentation insufficient, particularly when handling complex scenarios.
  • Compatibility Issues
    SystemTap may face compatibility issues with newer or heavily customized kernels, requiring additional patches or configurations.
  • Performance Overhead
    While generally efficient, SystemTap may introduce noticeable performance overhead when conducting extensive tracing on production systems.

API Monitor videos

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SystemTap videos

Product Overviews: Using Systemtap

More videos:

  • Review - RHEL Developers: RHEL SystemTap Overview
  • Review - What is my system doing - Full System Observability with SystemTap

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to API Monitor and SystemTap)
Monitoring Tools
56 56%
44% 44
IDE
40 40%
60% 60
OS & Utilities
44 44%
56% 56
Software Development
40 40%
60% 60

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare API Monitor and SystemTap

API Monitor Reviews

The 5 Best Reverse Engineering Software for 2022
API Monitor includes individual versions for monitoring both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, with definitions for over 15,000 APIs, 1,800 COM interfaces, and almost 200 DLL files. The latest version supports breakpoints, structural decoding, arrays, unions, and enumerated data types. API Monitor runs on both Windows Desktop and Server and includes a portable version that...
Source: online.yu.edu

SystemTap Reviews

We have no reviews of SystemTap yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, SystemTap seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 3 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

API Monitor mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of API Monitor yet. Tracking of API Monitor recommendations started around Mar 2021.

SystemTap mentions (3)

  • What are some tools to create code diagrams/graphs/(static or dynamic) call graphs when analyzing c++ code? Any level of automation would be useful here, but manual editing is also preferred. I see Visual Studio Code Graph but this is an option for Windows mainly. Doxygen, perftools?
    Eclipse seems to have a Callgraph plug-in (for execution traces), although it is based on SystemTap, which is only for Linux. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Valve Did the IMPOSSIBLE... Anti-Cheat on Linux - WAN Show September 24, 2021
    They can use DKMS or their own version of systemtap so not they don't have to release the code. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Frozenbyte are now telling Linux users to use Proton, even for their older games
    Since these are kernel anticheats I don't know how they're going to make it work though. Maybe BE and EAC will ship signed code that Valve lets run outside of the Win32 environment, possibly just as the root user or with their own version of systemtap to get into the kernel. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing API Monitor and SystemTap, you can also consider the following products

Process Monitor - Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.

strace - Trace system calls and signals. A diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace utility.

WinAPIOverride - WinAPIOverride : This software allows you to monitor and/or modify any function of a process for any calling convention (stdcall or cdecl)

DTrace - DTrace is a performance analysis and troubleshooting tool for Solaris, Mac OS X and FreeBSD.

ftrace - A function tracer for the Linux kernel.

SpyStudio - SpyStudio is the best product to trace user-mode API calls on Windows.