When managing Linux systems—whether a small web server or an enterprise-grade VM—real-time performance monitoring is critical. You want to know:

• What’s using your CPU?
• Why is memory spiking?
• Are there zombie processes slowing things down?

Enter htop — the beloved, colorful, interactive process viewer that every Linux admin swears by.

Forget the dull and clunky top command—htop is the modern, user-friendly alternative that gives you clear, live insights into your system’s health with just one command.

🔍 What is htop?

htop is an open-source interactive process monitor for Unix systems. It’s a powerful tool for viewing real-time system metrics like:

• CPU and RAM usage
• Running processes
• System load average
• Swap memory
• Uptime

Unlike the traditional top command, htop lets you navigate using the keyboard, search, sort, and even kill processes — all within its interactive dashboard.

🛠️ How to Install htop in Linux

Installation is super easy on most distributions.

✅ For Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install htop

✅ For CentOS/RHEL:

sudo yum install htop

✅ For Fedora:

sudo dnf install htop

✅ For Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S htop

🚀 Launching htop

Once installed, just type:

htop

You’ll see a beautifully color-coded dashboard with real-time system stats.

Press F10 to quit.

📊 What You See in htop

Here’s what the interface tells you:

✅ Top Section:

• CPU bars: Per-core CPU usage
• Memory bar: RAM usage
• Swap bar: Swap memory in use
• Load average: 1, 5, and 15-minute system load
• Uptime: How long your system has been running

✅ Bottom Section:

• A list of all running processes, sorted by CPU or memory usage (customizable)

You’ll see columns like:

• PID: Process ID
• USER: Process owner
• %CPU: CPU usage
• %MEM: Memory usage
• TIME+: Total processor time used
• COMMAND: The process/command running

🎮 Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

💡 Use Cases of htop

• 🔍 Debugging high CPU usage
• 🧠 Identifying memory leaks
• 🧹 Killing stuck or zombie processes
• 📊 Viewing system performance at a glance
• 👨‍💻 Tuning servers and improving application performance

🤝 htop vs top: Why Is htop Better?

📌 Bonus Tip: Monitor Remote Servers with htop

You can SSH into a remote server and run htop:

ssh user@your-server-ip
htop

Boom 💥 — live server stats in your terminal!