Alternatives

This page describes Python tools and modules that overlap with psutil, to help you pick the right tool for the job. See also Who uses psutil for notable projects that use psutil.

Python standard library

os module

The os module provides a handful of process-related functions: os.getpid(), os.getppid(), os.getuid(), os.cpu_count(), os.getloadavg() (UNIX only). These are cheap wrappers around POSIX syscalls and are perfectly fine when you only need information about the current process and don’t need cross-platform code.

psutil goes further in several directions. Its primary goal is to provide a single portable interface for concepts that are traditionally UNIX-only. Things like process CPU and memory usage, open file descriptors, network connections, signals, nice levels, and I/O counters exist as first-class OS primitives on Linux and macOS, but have no direct equivalent on Windows. psutil implements all of them on Windows too (using Win32 APIs, NtQuerySystemInformation and WMI) so that code written against psutil runs unmodified on every supported platform. Beyond portability, it also exposes the same information for any process (not just the current one), and returns structured named tuples instead of raw values.

resource module

resource (UNIX only) lets you read and set resource limits (RLIMIT_*) and get basic usage counters (user/system time, page faults, I/O ops) for the current process or its children via resource.getrusage(). It is the right tool when you specifically want to enforce or inspect ulimit-style limits.

psutil’s Process.rlimit() exposes the same interface but extends it to all processes, not just the caller.

subprocess module

Calling tools like ps, top, netstat, vmstat via subprocess and parsing their output is fragile: output formats differ across OS versions and locales, parsing is error-prone, and spawning a subprocess per sample is slow. psutil reads the same kernel data sources directly without spawning any external processes.

platform module

platform provides information about the OS and Python runtime, such as OS name, kernel version, architecture, and machine type. It is useful for identifying the environment, but does not expose runtime metrics or process information like psutil. Overlaps with psutil’s OS constants (LINUX, WINDOWS, MACOS, etc.).

/proc filesystem

On Linux, /proc exposes process and system information as virtual files. Reading /proc/pid/status or /proc/meminfo directly is fast and has no dependencies, which is why some minimal containers or scripts do this. The downsides are that it is Linux-only, the format may vary across kernel versions, and you have to parse raw text yourself. psutil parses /proc internally, exposes the same information through a consistent cross-platform API and handles edge cases (invalid format, compatibility with old kernels, graceful fallbacks, etc.).

Third-party libraries

Libraries that cover areas psutil does not, or that go deeper on a specific platform or subsystem.

Library	Focus
distro	Linux distro info (name, version, codename). psutil does not expose OS details.
GPUtil / pynvml	NVIDIA GPU utilization and VRAM usage.
ifaddr	Network interface address enumeration. Overlaps with `net_if_addrs()`.
libvirt-python	Manage KVM/QEMU/Xen VMs: enumerate guests, query CPU/memory allocation. Complements psutil’s host-level view.
prometheus_client	Export metrics to Prometheus. Use alongside psutil.
py-cpuinfo	CPU brand string, micro architecture, feature flags.
pyroute2	Linux netlink (interfaces, routes, connections). Overlaps with `net_if_addrs()`, `net_if_stats()`, `net_connections()`.
pywifi	WiFi scanning, signal strength, SSID. Exposes wireless details that `net_if_addrs()` does not.
pySMART	S.M.A.R.T. disk health data. Complements `disk_io_counters()`.
pywin32	Win32 API bindings (Windows only).
setproctitle	Set process title shown by `ps`/`top`. Writes what `Process.name()` reads.
wmi	WMI interface (Windows only).

Other languages

Equivalent libraries in other languages providing cross-platform system and process information.

Library	Language	Focus
gopsutil	Go	CPU, memory, disk, network, processes. Directly inspired by psutil and follows a similar API.
heim	Rust	Async-first library covering CPU, memory, disk, network, processes and sensors.
Hardware.Info	C# / .NET	CPU, RAM, GPU, disk, network, battery.
hwinfo	C++	CPU, RAM, GPU, disks, mainboard. More hardware-focused.
OSHI	Java	OS and hardware information: CPU, memory, disk, network, processes, sensors, USB devices.
rust-psutil	Rust	Directly inspired by psutil and follows a similar API.
sysinfo	Rust	CPU, memory, disk, network, processes, components.
systeminformation	Node.js	CPU, memory, disk, network, processes, battery, Docker.