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PCWattVault VS ShellNewHandler

Compare PCWattVault VS ShellNewHandler and see what are their differences

PCWattVault

A free real-time PC power consumption monitor for Windows: live watts and electricity cost, per-component breakdown, your own tariff and a permanent local history.

Rating
0 reviews
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Alternatives Is it good?
ShellNewHandler

SourceForge.net: ShellNewHandler details page

Rating
0 reviews
Promote on VibeVoted
Alternatives Is it good?
Cyclr
Powerful SaaS integration toolkit for SaaS developers - create, amplify, manage and publish native integrations from within your app with Cyclr's flexible Embedded iPaaS. sponsored

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, ShellNewHandler seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 2 times since March 2021.

social mentions
0 vs 2
System Information popularity
100% vs 0%

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

PCWattVault
ShellNewHandler
Website pcwattvault.com sourceforge.net
Listed in
Device Management System Information Monitoring Tools Utilities +1
Cloud Storage Monitoring Tools File Sharing Website Monitoring +1

About PCWattVault and ShellNewHandler

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

PCWattVault
ShellNewHandler

Watts are a number. Money is an answer. PCWattVault turns the power your Windows PC draws into what it adds to your electricity bill, priced the way your utility prices it. It records quietly in the background, so you see which hours, parts and apps cost the most, and where the month will land....

Read more about PCWattVault

No description of ShellNewHandler yet.

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

PCWattVault 10 features
ShellNewHandler 0 features
  • Priced like your bill
    Day/night and peak windows, tiers, seasons, solar hours and demand charges in any currency, or your country's average price to start.
  • Measured or estimated
    Every figure says where it comes from: a GPU sensor, LibreHardwareMonitor, the laptop battery, a smart plug, or an estimate marked "~".
  • Cost per app over time
    Which programs draw the power, what each one cost per day, and how that compares with the week before.
  • Permanent local history
    Hour, day, month and lifetime totals in kWh or money, kept as plain JSON files on your PC.
  • Month-end forecast
    Where this month will land, in ranges rather than fake precision, plus next-month and next-year predictions.
  • Budget and CO₂ alerts
    Windows notifications for power, temperature, daily cost, one app, a monthly budget or a monthly CO₂ limit.
  • Session cost tagging
    Start a session before a gaming night, a render or an AI training run and see exactly what it cost.
  • Smart-plug calibration
    Pair a TP-Link Tapo P110/P115, or a Kasa plug as an experiment, to record true wall power and calibrate the model with one click.
  • Always-on-top mini window
    The live watts and today's cost in a small box above your other windows, borderless and windowed games included. Three looks: solid, glass and text only.
  • Windows power settings
    The power mode, Energy Saver and plan Windows applies, read-only, with every change marked on the live chart and in History.

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

PCWattVault
ShellNewHandler

No analysis of PCWattVault yet.

Overall verdict

  • ShellNewHandler is a niche, lightweight utility hosted on SourceForge designed to give users more control over the Windows 'New' context menu (the ShellNew menu). It can be considered good for its specific narrow use case, but it is an older, minimally maintained tool that may not suit all users, especially those on modern Windows versions.

Why this product is good

  • Provides direct control over customizing the Windows right-click 'New' menu, allowing users to add or remove file type entries
  • Lightweight and free, without bundled bloatware typical of some other free utilities
  • Simple and focused in scope, making it easy to understand for its specific purpose
  • Open distribution via SourceForge allows transparency and no-cost access

Recommended for

  • Power users who want to declutter or customize the Windows New context menu
  • IT administrators managing standardized desktop environments across multiple machines
  • Users comfortable with older utility-style tools and Windows registry-related tweaks
  • Not recommended for casual users seeking modern, actively supported software with regular updates

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
PCWattVault
ShellNewHandler
100% 100%
System Information
0% 0%
0% 0%
Website Monitoring
100% 100%
55% 55%
Monitoring Tools
45% 45%
0% 0%
File Sharing
100% 100%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing PCWattVault and ShellNewHandler.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

PCWattVault's answer

  • Electron and Node.js for the app, with Chart.js for the charts
  • A .NET sensor bridge built on LibreHardwareMonitorLib for GPU, drive and component readings
  • The optional LibreHardwareMonitor web server for fully measured CPU power and temperatures
  • Windows' own per-process CPU and GPU time counters for power per app
  • The TP-Link local protocols for smart-plug readings on your own network (Tapo, and Kasa as an experiment)
  • MSIX packaging for the Microsoft Store, with history stored as plain JSON files
  • Windows' power APIs for the power mode, Energy Saver and plan, read-only

What makes your product unique?

PCWattVault's answer

Most power tools stop at watts. PCWattVault goes on to the bill: it prices every watt-hour with your own tariff, including night rates, tiers, seasons and solar hours, and keeps that history for months, per component and per app. Every figure also says how it was obtained (measured by a sensor, a smart plug or the laptop battery, or estimated and marked "~"), so you always know how far to trust it.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

PCWattVault's answer

Hardware monitors such as HWiNFO or AIDA64 are excellent at showing what every sensor reads right now, but they do not keep a priced history or tell you what last month cost. Per-app power tools show which program is drawing power, usually as a live view. PCWattVault records continuously and turns both into money over time: what each app cost per day, where the month will land, and an alert before you pass your budget. If you need every voltage and clock speed, keep your sensor tool; PCWattVault is the one that answers to your electricity bill. It installs from the Microsoft Store, updates itself and needs no account.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

PCWattVault's answer

People who pay their own electricity bill and want to know what their PC adds to it: gamers with power-hungry GPUs, creators who render or encode for hours, people running local AI models, homes on day/night or time-of-use tariffs, laptop users who want their real draw and battery wear, and anyone who leaves a PC or home server on around the clock. No technical knowledge is needed: it works out of the box, and deeper measurement is optional.

What's the story behind your product?

PCWattVault's answer

PCWattVault began with a simple question: what does this PC actually cost to run? Sensor tools gave watts, the electricity bill gave a monthly total, and nothing connected the two, least of all on a day/night tariff where the same watt costs a different amount at different hours. So tmnetworks.gr, an independent developer in Greece, built the missing link: a recorder that runs in the background, prices every hour with the real tariff, and was checked against smart plugs at the wall. It launched on the Microsoft Store in August 2026 and has been updated frequently since, now in 17 languages.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

PCWattVault's answer

  • Individual users: PCWattVault is a free consumer app, with no business customers to name
  • Gamers and PC builders with high-power GPUs
  • Video editors, 3D artists and streamers
  • People running local AI models on their own GPU
  • Households on time-of-use or day/night tariffs
  • Laptop users and home-server owners

User comments

Share your experience with using PCWattVault and ShellNewHandler. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

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Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

PCWattVault 0 mentions
ShellNewHandler 2 mentions

Tracking PCWattVault since Oct 2026.

  • I recently got libreoffice, but now the new option in right click looks like a mess. Can someone help me get rid of them please?
    Use Shell New Handler. Run the portable app and simply untick the items you don't want to appear in your new context menu. Source: about 4 years ago
  • This menu should be easy to add/remove programs to... Who is really creating Access Databases from this menu often enough to keep it here? (Not me!) Is there an easy way to edit this?
    I've always used ShellNewHandler for this. It's a really simple portable utility that allows you to remove most of the items from that menu. Tested it out on Windows 11 and it's still compatible. Source: over 5 years ago

Alternatives to PCWattVault and ShellNewHandler

When comparing PCWattVault and ShellNewHandler, you can also consider the following products.

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