At a glance
| Drippy | Activity Monitor | |
|---|---|---|
| Live speeds | In the menu bar, always visible | In a window, while it's open |
| Totals | Today, this week, this month | Since startup only |
| Usage by app | Kept after the app quits | Reset when the app quits |
| Usage by network | ✓ | — |
| Data cap alerts | Cap, reset day and free hours | — |
| Outage and IP change alerts | ✓ | — |
| Scheduled speed tests | ✓ | — |
| Block apps and domains | ✓ | — |
| CPU, memory, energy | — | ✓ |
| Price | Paid, see pricing | Built into macOS |
Where Activity Monitor is enough
If you just want to know what's downloading right now, open Activity Monitor's Network tab and sort by Rcvd Bytes. It's free, already installed, and shows every process. It also covers CPU, memory and energy, which Drippy doesn't try to do.
Where it falls short
- It forgets. Restart and every counter goes back to zero. Quit an app and its usage disappears.
- It doesn't know about networks. Usage on your home Wi-Fi and your phone's hotspot are one number.
- It can't warn you. There's no idea of a cap, so you find out you went over from your carrier.
- It's a window. You only see speeds while it's open in front of you.
What Drippy adds
Drippy runs in the menu bar and records usage all the time, kept by day, by app and by network. Set your cap, reset day and any free hours, and it warns you before you go over. It also pings your host to catch outages, runs scheduled speed tests and tells you when your public IP changes.
Questions
Does Activity Monitor show data usage history?
No. It shows totals since the Mac started and per-app totals since each app launched.
Is Drippy's per-app usage accurate?
Close. Per-app numbers won't always add up exactly to the day's total.
Can I use both?
Yes. Many people keep Drippy in the menu bar and open Activity Monitor when they need CPU or memory details.