Stats is the beloved free, open-source Mac monitor on GitHub. Pulse My Mac is the paid, App Store, M-series-tuned alternative. Here is the honest breakdown of when each one is the right call.
Stats wins if you want free, open-source, and you enjoy configuring every widget yourself. Pulse My Mac wins if you want a polished, supported product with integrated thermal and battery dashboards tuned for Apple Silicon, plus a menu-bar heartbeat that actually moves. Same problem, very different philosophy.
| Feature | Pulse My Mac | Stats (exelban) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | One-time purchase | Free, open-source |
| M-series thermal accuracy (per P/E cluster) | Pre-tuned dashboard | Raw sensors, DIY layout |
| UI polish | Consumer-grade | Dev-tool aesthetic |
| Integrated battery dashboard | One screen | Split across widgets |
| Animated menu-bar pulse | ECG + heartbeat | Static graphs |
| Setup time | Under 1 minute | 10-30 min to tune |
| Support | Email + App Store | GitHub issues |
| Distribution | Mac App Store (sandboxed) | GitHub / Homebrew |
| Source code | Closed | MIT licensed |
Yes. Stats is open-source under the MIT license on GitHub (exelban/stats) and free to use forever. There are no paid tiers. The trade-off is no commercial support and a UI that feels more like a developer tool than a consumer app.
Pulse reads per-cluster P-core and E-core temperatures and ties them into a single thermal dashboard tuned for M-series throttling behavior. Stats exposes raw sensors but leaves it to you to assemble a useful view from individual menu-bar widgets.
Stats support happens on GitHub issues and depends on the maintainer's availability. Pulse My Mac is a commercial product with email support, App Store review responses, and a public roadmap.
Pulse opts for sensible defaults out of the box: thermal, battery, P/E core load, and the heartbeat indicator are pre-configured. Stats lets you toggle every individual sensor as its own menu-bar item, which is powerful but takes time to tune.
Yes. Pulse ships a single battery pane with cycle count, design vs current capacity, charge rate, and thermal correlation. In Stats, battery info is split across the Battery widget and the Sensors widget and requires manual setup.
You are paying for the integration, the M-series-specific thermal model, the polished menu-bar pulse animation, and ongoing support. If your time tuning a dev tool is worth more than a one-time App Store purchase, Pulse is the better trade.
Try Pulse free for 30 days. If you would rather keep Stats, you have lost nothing.