Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups
Register | Login

Bosun.dev VS MacMonitor

Compare Bosun.dev VS MacMonitor and see what are their differences

ASocks
Clear, Fast & Unlimited. Residential & Mobile Proxies For Best Price. featured
Contents:
  1. ยป Base Details
  2. ยป Reviews
  3. ยป Alternatives

Bosun.dev logo Bosun.dev

See what's exposed. The macOS menu bar app that shows every open port, tunnel, VPN, and container โ€” before it's a problem.

MacMonitor logo MacMonitor

Real-time Apple Silicon system monitor for your menu bar
  • Bosun.dev Landing page
    Landing page //
    2026-07-17
  • Bosun.dev
    Image date //
    2026-07-18
  • Bosun.dev
    Image date //
    2026-07-18
  • Bosun.dev
    Image date //
    2026-07-18

Bosun is a native macOS menu bar app that shows you everything your Mac has open to the network, right when you need it, with no Terminal digging required.

It runs lsof in the background to list every listening port, then goes further than a simple port scanner: it maps each port to the process actually holding it, and adds context most tools miss.

What it shows you: - Every listening port, grouped by process, with PID, binary path, and working directory - Active ngrok and Cloudflare tunnels (named + quick), with the public URL inline - Native macOS VPN connection status - Docker containers, mapped by container name and image instead of a generic docker-proxy PID - SSH -L port forwards, parsed automatically - Per-process CPU, memory, and uptime on demand - Persistent port history with configurable retention

What it lets you do: - Kill any process with one click (graceful SIGTERM, SIGKILL fallback if it lingers) - Kill All with confirmation, for clearing out a cluttered dev environment fast - Copy localhost:PORT or open it in the browser instantly - Toggle everything from a configurable global hotkey

Bosun is built for developers running local dev servers, Docker containers, and tunnels day to day, who need to know instantly what's bound to which port, what's exposing their machine to the network, and what's safe to kill.

Pure Swift, no Electron, no third-party dependencies beyond Sparkle for auto-updates. One-time purchase, 14-day free trial, no subscription.

Not present

Bosun.dev features and specs

  • Port Scanning
    Detects all listening TCP/UDP ports in real time via lsof, no manual terminal digging.
  • One Click Kill
    Terminate any process by port with SIGTERMโ†’SIGKILL fallback; Kill All with confirmation.
  • Menubar Native App
    Lives in the macOS menu bar, zero dock clutter, instant popover access.
  • Port Range Filtering
    Monitor custom ranges (e.g. 3000-9999) and exclude noisy system ports.
  • Tunnel Detection
    Auto-detects ngrok and Cloudflare tunnels (named + quick), shows public URL inline.
  • Docker Awareness
    Maps docker-proxy PIDs to container name + image instead of generic process names.
  • VPN Status Indicator
    Shows active native macOS VPN connections (IKEv2/L2TP/IPSec) at a glance.
  • SSH Tunnel Detection
    Identifies -L port-forwarding rules and displays the remote target.
  • Port History
    Logs first-seen/last-seen per port with configurable retention.
  • Process Info Panel
    CPU, memory, uptime, full command args per process on expand.
  • Global hotkey
    Configurable shortcut to toggle the popover from anywhere.
  • New Port Notifications
    System alert when a new port opens (skips the first scan).
  • Copy and Open
    One click to copy localhost:PORT or open it in the browser.
  • Auto updates
    Sparkle-based updates, EdDSA-signed, no manual reinstalls.

MacMonitor features and specs

  • Native macOS Integration
    MacMonitor is designed specifically for macOS, leveraging native system APIs and tools to provide accurate and relevant system monitoring tailored to the Mac ecosystem.
  • Open Source
    The project is open source and hosted on GitHub, allowing users to inspect the code, contribute improvements, and customize the tool to their specific needs without licensing costs.
  • Lightweight System Monitoring
    MacMonitor provides a straightforward way to monitor system resources such as CPU, memory, and disk usage without the overhead of heavier commercial monitoring solutions.
  • Simple and Focused
    The tool appears to have a focused feature set aimed at essential system monitoring tasks, making it easy to understand and use without a steep learning curve.
  • Free to Use
    As an open-source project, MacMonitor is completely free, making it accessible to anyone who needs basic system monitoring on macOS without paying for premium tools.

Possible disadvantages of MacMonitor

  • Limited Community and Support
    The repository has a small community with limited stars, forks, and contributors, which means fewer resources for troubleshooting issues and slower response times for bug fixes or feature requests.
  • Limited Documentation
    The project appears to have minimal documentation, which can make it difficult for new users to understand all features, configuration options, and how to get started effectively.
  • Uncertain Maintenance Status
    With a small development team and limited activity, there is uncertainty about long-term maintenance, regular updates, and compatibility with future macOS versions.
  • Limited Feature Set Compared to Alternatives
    Compared to established monitoring tools like iStat Menus, htop, or Activity Monitor, MacMonitor may lack advanced features such as detailed network monitoring, GPU tracking, or historical data analysis.
  • macOS Only
    The tool is exclusively designed for macOS, meaning users who work across multiple operating systems cannot use a unified monitoring solution and must rely on different tools for other platforms.

Analysis of Bosun.dev

Overall verdict

  • Bosun is a solid, mature open-source monitoring and alerting system built by Stack Exchange, offering powerful and flexible alert definitions, but it has a steep learning curve and has seen slower development activity in recent years compared to newer observability tools.

Why this product is good

  • Highly expressive alert scripting language allowing complex, conditional alerting logic beyond simple threshold checks
  • Built-in support for reducing alert fatigue through smart notification handling, silencing, and templating of alert messages
  • Native integrations with Graphite, OpenTSDB, Elasticsearch, and other time-series backends
  • Includes a built-in expression testing and graphing UI to validate alert rules before deploying them
  • Proven at scale, having been developed and battle-tested internally at Stack Exchange/Stack Overflow
  • Open source and self-hostable, giving full control over data and infrastructure

Recommended for

  • Organizations already using OpenTSDB or Graphite as their metrics backend
  • Teams that need highly customized, condition-based alerting rules rather than simple threshold alerts
  • Engineers comfortable writing and maintaining alert logic in a domain-specific expression language
  • Companies wanting a self-hosted, open-source alternative to commercial alerting platforms
  • Ops teams who value alert deduplication and templating to reduce noise and false positives

Analysis of MacMonitor

Overall verdict

  • MacMonitor is a solid, open-source system monitoring tool for macOS that provides real-time visibility into system events, making it valuable for security research and endpoint observability, though as a community project it may lack the polish and support of commercial alternatives.

Why this product is good

  • Open-source and free to use, offering transparency into how it works
  • Provides real-time monitoring of system events on macOS, useful for detecting suspicious activity
  • Built around Apple's Endpoint Security framework, giving deep visibility into low-level system behavior
  • Helpful for security researchers and developers who want to understand malware or process behavior on macOS
  • Community-driven with the ability to inspect, modify, and contribute to the code

Recommended for

  • Security researchers analyzing macOS malware and system behavior
  • macOS developers who need visibility into low-level system events
  • Blue teams and incident responders investigating endpoint activity
  • Enthusiasts and power users who prefer open-source tooling over commercial solutions
  • Anyone learning about Apple's Endpoint Security framework

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Bosun.dev and MacMonitor)

Bosun.dev

MacMonitor

Developer Tools
26 26%
Developer Tools
74% 74
Productivity
100 100%
Productivity
0% 0
Monitoring Tools
28 28%
Monitoring Tools
72% 72
Web Development Tools
100 100%
Web Development Tools
0% 0

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Bosun.dev and MacMonitor.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Bosun.dev's answer

Swift 5.9+, SwiftUI + AppKit (NSStatusItem), lsof for port scanning, Sparkle for auto-updates, Polar for licensing/payments. No Electron, no third-party dependencies beyond Sparkle.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Bosun.dev's answer

Developers who run local dev servers, Docker containers, and tunnels (ngrok/Cloudflare) daily and need instant visibility into what's bound to which port, without opening Terminal or Activity Monitor.

What makes your product unique?

Bosun.dev's answer

Bosun is the only menu bar tool that unifies port scanning with network context: it maps ngrok/Cloudflare tunnels, native VPN status, Docker containers, and SSH -L forwards to the process actually holding each port, then lets you kill it in one click. Most alternatives only do one of those things.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Bosun.dev's answer

iStat Menus monitors the system but not tunnels or containers. Little Snitch blocks connections but doesn't show you what's already running. Seeports comes closest (port scanning for Docker/K8s/dev servers) but lacks tunnel and VPN detection. Bosun covers all of it natively, with zero third-party dependencies, no Electron overhead, and a one-time price instead of a subscription.

What's the story behind your product?

Bosun.dev's answer

Built out of a personal need: constantly losing track of which local dev server, Docker container, or forgotten tunnel was holding a port, and resorting to lsof in Terminal every time. Bosun turns that into a native, always-visible menu bar view.

User comments

Share your experience with using Bosun.dev and MacMonitor. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Bosun.dev and MacMonitor, you can also consider the following products

Port Monitor - Port Monitor is an easy tool that does website and server monitoring 24/7 every 60 seconds for free. It records uptime, performance and downtime causes

ActiveStat - High-fidelity Mac performance telemetry from your menu bar

Open Ports - Manage, browse and kill open ports on your Mac.

Device Monitor - Monitor, understand and control your Apple device quickly and easily. RAM, CPU, GPU, BATTERY, NETWORK, SENSORS and much more โ€” all at a glance.

Loading...