BTOP++: The Resource Monitor I Didn’t Know I Needed

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

Today is January 1st, 2026. The holidays are over, keyboards are warming up again, and it’s time to get back to building things.

2026 has been billed as “the year of Linux.” Steam even kicked off the year with a banner suggesting exactly that. Whether it lives up to the hype remains to be seen, but for me 2025 was the year of Linux. After four years of sporadic use, the penguin finally took over my workflow—and my wife can confirm it. Even with the Brazilian summer heat, we don’t use Windows at home. 😄

With that in mind, this post is both a small New Year wish and a quick, practical introduction to a resource monitor I genuinely didn’t know I needed: BTOP++.

Why BTOP++?

First of all, this is not an attack on htop. On the contrary, htop is an amazing tool created by Hisham Muhammad, written in C, and known for its efficiency. It earned its place in the Linux community and even in hacker pop culture for a reason. Many of the features I’ll mention for BTOP++ already exist in htop.

BTOP++ is the natural evolution of the htop idea. It is inspired by htop but written in C++, which allows:

• More information displayed at once in the same terminal
• Integrated graphs for CPU, memory, disk, and network
• A more modern and polished look
• Extra visual context without a noticeable performance hit

Those visuals make a real difference when you’re trying to understand resource‑usage patterns.

Comparison

Both tools can easily coexist.

Installation

Arch‑based systems

sudo pacman -Syu   # update the system
sudo pacman -S btop

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install btop

Snap

sudo snap install btop

After installation, just run:

btop

Using BTOP++

• ESC or M → open the menu
• ↑ / ↓ → navigate processes
• F → filter processes by name
• K → kill the selected process

You can find all available shortcuts under Help inside the menu.

Conclusion

BTOP++ offers a more complete, beautiful, and modern monitoring experience, especially suited for desktops and workstations, while htop remains the go‑to tool for minimal, fast, and reliable server monitoring.

Long live Linux — and happy hacking! 🐧