Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Window Detective VS Process Hacker

Compare Window Detective VS Process Hacker and see what are their differences

Window Detective logo Window Detective

Window Detective is a programmer's tool used to "spy" on an application's windows...

Process Hacker logo Process Hacker

Process Hacker is a feature-packed tool for manipulating processes and services on your computer.
  • Window Detective Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-05-13
  • Process Hacker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-01

Window Detective features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Window Detective provides a straightforward and intuitive interface, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced users to explore window properties easily.
  • Detailed Window Information
    The tool offers comprehensive information about window properties, styles, and messages, which is useful for developers and users needing to troubleshoot or analyze software.
  • Real-Time Monitoring
    Allows for real-time monitoring and updates of window attributes, which is beneficial for dynamic analysis and understanding how applications behave over time.
  • Free and Open Source
    Being open source under the GPL license, Window Detective is free to use and modify, which encourages community collaboration and custom modifications.

Possible disadvantages of Window Detective

  • Limited Platform Support
    Window Detective is primarily designed for Windows operating systems, limiting its utility across different platforms like macOS or Linux.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic features are user-friendly, some advanced functionalities might require a learning curve or prior knowledge of Windows programming.
  • Possible Performance Overheads
    Running real-time monitoring and analysis on active windows could introduce some performance overheads, potentially slowing down the system, especially on less powerful machines.
  • Limited Community Support
    As a niche tool, it may not have a large active user community, which can make finding support and tutorials challenging for new users.

Process Hacker features and specs

  • Open Source
    Process Hacker is an open source project, which means that its source code is freely available for anyone to inspect, modify, and distribute. This enhances transparency and community involvement.
  • Feature-Rich
    The software offers a comprehensive set of features, including process management, memory viewing/editing, and system monitoring. These features can be particularly useful for advanced users and IT professionals.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The application has a clean and intuitive interface that allows users to navigate through various functionalities with ease. This makes it accessible even to less experienced users.
  • Customization
    Users have the ability to customize various aspects of the application, such as the appearance and behavior of the interface. This allows for a more personalized user experience.
  • Performance Monitoring
    Process Hacker provides detailed performance metrics for processes, which can help in diagnosing bottlenecks and resource-heavy applications. This is valuable for system optimization.

Possible disadvantages of Process Hacker

  • Security Concerns
    Because it provides advanced system-level capabilities, there is a risk that it could be used for malicious activities if it falls into the wrong hands. Users need to exercise caution.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Some users have reported compatibility issues with certain versions of Windows or specific hardware configurations. This can limit its effectiveness on those systems.
  • Resource Usage
    Running Process Hacker itself requires a fair amount of system resources, which may affect the performance of older or less powerful machines.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, the depth and breadth of features can be overwhelming to new users. A period of learning and acclimatization may be required.
  • Support
    As an open source project, Process Hacker relies heavily on community support. Users may find that official support options are limited compared to commercial software.

Analysis of Process Hacker

Overall verdict

  • Process Hacker is generally well-regarded in the tech community for its comprehensive set of features and its ability to provide insight into system performance and resource management. It is a valuable tool for diagnosing system issues and managing applications. However, because of its powerful capabilities, it requires a certain level of expertise to use effectively and safely. Users should exercise caution and ensure they understand the potential impacts of modifying system processes.

Why this product is good

  • Process Hacker, available at systeminformer.sourceforge.io, is considered a good tool for several reasons. It is an open-source, advanced task manager and system monitoring tool that provides detailed information about system processes. It offers more depth and functionality than the default task manager in Windows, allowing users to terminate processes, modify service properties, and even delve into detailed statistics about system resource usage. Its powerful features make it particularly attractive to power users, system administrators, and developers. The tool also supports various plugins, enhancing its capability to monitor and manage system resources.

Recommended for

    Process Hacker is recommended for advanced users such as IT professionals, system administrators, and developers who require an in-depth tool for system monitoring and process management. It is also suitable for tech-savvy users who need more control over their system’s performance than what the default task manager provides. Casual users may find the interface and functionality overwhelming and should use it carefully to avoid accidental system misconfigurations.

Window Detective videos

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Process Hacker videos

What is Process Hacker Explained

More videos:

  • Review - Detectando procesos con process hacker 2
  • Review - Using Process Hacker 2

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Window Detective and Process Hacker)
Monitoring Tools
29 29%
71% 71
Command Line Tools
28 28%
72% 72
Performance Monitoring
37 37%
63% 63
Utilities
16 16%
84% 84

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Window Detective and Process Hacker

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Process Hacker Reviews

8 Best WinPatrol Alternatives
Process Hacker is a free, open-source system monitoring, management, and security tool for PCs. The main service of this utility is like the Task Manager of Windows with some extra features. The tabbed interface shows a list of processes, a services list, a screen showing disk activity, and another that shows disk activity.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Process Hacker seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 40 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.

Window Detective mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Window Detective yet. Tracking of Window Detective recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Process Hacker mentions (40)

  • Show HN: Appstat – Process Monitor for Windows
    For advanced end users? Why would they ditch: https://systeminformer.sourceforge.io/ ? - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • System Informer
    System Informer is a versatile system management tool designed to seamlessly monitor and analyze system resources, troubleshoot software issues, and identify potential malware threats. Offers system activity overviews, intuitive graphs, real-time statistics, active network connection monitoring, detailed disk access information, intricate stack trace analysis, and much more. Evily2k describes it "like process... Source: over 1 year ago
  • Today I learned you can pause the Windows Task Manager moving apps around
    Or Process Hacker (https://processhacker.sourceforge.io/) which IMO is even better. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Windows Explorer memory leak (Windows 10)
    I can use Process Hacker and run "Reduce working set" on it, which makes explorer.exe instantly go down to ~100MB. However, it just starts leaking RAM again and it's a matter of hours until it grows back to several GB. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • FACEIT Anti-cheat - Secure boot requirement update!
    I can't have a task manager style tool installed? It's completely safe and does NOTHING in terms of cheating, no other game has ever flagged it as false positive. Is this AC so bad that it sees the word "h4Ck3R" and thinks it needs to be removed? What else is this thing needlessly scanning my computer for? Source: almost 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Window Detective and Process Hacker, you can also consider the following products

WinSpy - Retrieve window information.

Process Explorer - The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'l…

Winspector Spy - Have you ever used Spy++ that comes with MSVC?

TeraCopy - TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features.

WizTree - WizTree quickly finds the files and folders using the most space on your hard drive. It scans the MFT (Master File Table) instead of crawling the entire disk which makes it very fast.

htop - htop - an interactive process viewer for Unix. This is htop, an interactive process viewer for Unix systems. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses. Latest release: htop 2.