---
title: "htop"
category: "Desktop and system"
tagline: "The classic interactive process viewer for the terminal."
source: "pacman"
package: "htop"
command: "htop"
website: "https://htop.dev/"
code: "https://github.com/htop-dev/htop"
---

## What it is

htop is an interactive process viewer: a better `top`. It lists running processes with their CPU and memory use, shows meters for each CPU core and for memory and swap, and lets you sort, search, filter, show processes as a tree, and send signals to stop one, all from the keyboard.

## Why it's here

- **Everywhere.** It's on nearly every Linux server, so it's worth knowing.
- **Quick to drive.** The function keys along the bottom do the common jobs.
- **Light.** It starts instantly and uses almost nothing itself.

## On CoreDesktop

htop is installed from pacman, with nothing extra configured. Run `htop` in a terminal and press <kbd>F10</kbd> or <kbd>q</kbd> to quit. `update` keeps it current.