I make Shiny, so you should know upfront where my interests lie. I've tried to write this the way I'd want it written if I were the buyer: honest about what Activity Monitor does well, honest about where Shiny adds something, and clear about when you don't need Shiny at all.
Different tools, different jobs
Activity Monitor is a diagnostic tool. Open it and you see a live table of every process running on your Mac, with columns for CPU usage, memory, energy impact, disk activity, and network. It's a window into what your Mac is actually doing at any moment. If your Mac is slow and you want to know why, Activity Monitor is the right place to start.
Shiny is an action tool. It lives in the menu bar, and when you click it, it closes orphaned helper processes (background tasks left running after you quit an app), releases inactive memory back to the system, and pauses idle apps. You see what it freed. That's it.
The distinction matters: Activity Monitor tells you a pipe is leaking. Shiny tightens the pipe. Both are useful, but they're doing fundamentally different things.
What Activity Monitor does well
Diagnosis. Activity Monitor gives you the full picture. Sort by memory and you can see at a glance which apps are using the most RAM. Sort by CPU and you'll find what's running hot. It surfaces information that Shiny never shows you, because Shiny doesn't need to show you anything to do its job.
Depth. Activity Monitor covers memory, CPU, disk, network, and energy all in one place. If you're troubleshooting a specific problem, having all of that in one view is genuinely useful. You can spot a runaway process, a disk thrashing in the background, or an app hammering the network.
Manual force-quit. You can select any process in Activity Monitor and force-quit it directly. This is useful if a specific app is the problem and you want to close that one thing without touching anything else. It gives you surgical control that a one-click tool like Shiny doesn't offer.
It's free and already there. Every Mac ships with Activity Monitor. There's nothing to buy, nothing to install. It's in your Applications folder right now, under Utilities. For many users, that's the whole answer.
Apple's own documentation on reading the memory tab in Activity Monitor is a good reference if you want to understand what terms like "memory pressure" and "swap used" actually mean: Check if your Mac needs more RAM.
What Shiny does that Activity Monitor doesn't
One-click action. Activity Monitor shows you the problem; it doesn't solve it for you. To free memory using Activity Monitor, you need to open the app, switch to the Memory tab, scan the list, decide which processes to close, select them, and force-quit them one at a time. With Shiny, you click once in the menu bar. That's the entire workflow.
Orphaned helpers. When you quit an app, it sometimes leaves background helper processes running. These don't show up as obvious culprits in Activity Monitor's memory list; they're often small processes with unfamiliar names. Shiny specifically hunts for and closes these, which Activity Monitor surfaces but doesn't identify as orphaned.
Inactive memory release. macOS holds onto memory from recently used apps in case you open them again. This is intentional behaviour, not a bug, and it's why your memory pressure bar might sit yellow even after you've closed things. Shiny releases that inactive memory back to the system so it's available for whatever you're working on now. Activity Monitor shows you this memory exists; it doesn't release it.
No investigation required. Sometimes you just want your Mac to feel faster and you don't care which app is responsible. Shiny handles that without you needing to become a diagnostician. It's the difference between a thermostat and a manual valve.
For a broader look at the different ways to free RAM on a Mac, see how to free up RAM on Mac.
At a glance
| Activity Monitor | Shiny | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Diagnose resource usage | Free memory in one click |
| Effort required | Manual investigation and action | One menu-bar click |
| Cost | Free (built into every Mac) | $4.99 once |
| Made by | Apple | Theodore Harding |
| Where it lives | Applications/Utilities folder | Menu bar, always available |
| Releases inactive memory | No | Yes |
| Closes orphaned helpers | No (shows them, won't identify them) | Yes |
| Shows CPU and network usage | Yes | No |
When Activity Monitor is enough
Activity Monitor is genuinely enough for a lot of users. You probably don't need Shiny if:
- Memory pressure is an occasional issue, not a daily one. You can open Activity Monitor, find the culprit, close it, and move on.
- You're technically comfortable. You know what a process is, you're not intimidated by a list of unfamiliar names, and you don't mind a bit of investigation.
- You want to understand your Mac, not just fix it. Activity Monitor teaches you things. If you're curious about what's running, it's a far richer tool.
- You'd rather not install anything else. Activity Monitor is already there. That's a valid preference.
There's no shame in using the free Apple tool. For a detailed walkthrough of how to use Activity Monitor to diagnose memory issues, see how to use Activity Monitor on Mac.
When Shiny adds value
Shiny starts to make sense when the manual process stops feeling worth it:
- You hit memory pressure regularly and you just want it gone quickly. Opening a separate app, sorting a list, and quitting things one at a time adds friction when you're trying to get work done.
- You don't want to investigate, you just want to act. Not everyone wants to become a Mac diagnostician. Shiny lets you skip straight to the outcome.
- You notice orphaned helper processes building up. Some apps are worse than others for leaving background tasks behind. If you've ever opened Activity Monitor and seen a dozen processes from apps you closed an hour ago, Shiny handles that automatically.
- You want something that's always one click away. Shiny lives in the menu bar. You don't have to find it or open it. It's just there.
Why some users keep both
The most common pattern I hear from Shiny users is that they still have Activity Monitor open occasionally. Not because Shiny isn't working, but because the two tools answer different questions.
When your Mac feels slow and you want to know why, Activity Monitor is the answer. When your Mac feels slow and you just want it to stop, Shiny is the answer. Those are different moments, and having the right tool for each makes sense.
A lot of people use Shiny as a daily habit, a quick click when they switch tasks or notice things getting sluggish, and keep Activity Monitor for the times when something specific is wrong and they want to investigate. The two coexist without any conflict.
For a broader look at whether memory cleaner apps are worth it at all, this honest review covers the question directly.
Bottom line
Activity Monitor is a powerful, free diagnostic tool that every Mac user should know how to open. Shiny is a $4.99 action tool that does one job well and asks nothing of you beyond a single click.
If Activity Monitor is already working for you: keep using it. You don't need Shiny.
If the investigation step feels like more friction than it's worth, or if you deal with memory pressure often enough that a one-click fix would genuinely save you time: Shiny is worth the $4.99.
If you want both: they play nicely together. Activity Monitor for diagnosis, Shiny for daily maintenance. That's a reasonable setup and a lot of people use it exactly that way.