When comparing GKrellM vs atop, the Slant community recommends atop for most people. In the question“What are the best system monitors for UNIX-like systems?” atop is ranked 7th while GKrellM is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose atop is:
Better than top, htop and iotop
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Customize what to monitor
Users can easily set GKrellM to monitor what they like (depending on what monitors are supported by their PC) such as CPU usage (which can be set to monitor each core individually), as well as temperatures and fan speeds.
Pro Many available plugins
The uses of the monitor can be expanded with available plugins ranging from weather information to TIVO information.
Pro Set up alerts
Through the settings one can set alarms and warning for each monitor, which allows one to always stay informed if anything is getting above what their set limits are.
Pro All in one
Better than top, htop and iotop
Pro Better than htop, top, and iotop
Highlights bottlenecks, so you know what's creating wait states.
Pro Complete and flexibe
Has a ton of possible profiles to show exactly what you need to monitor.
Cons
Con Default theme is not that great looking
The theme that comes by default for GKrellM is not really appealing to the eye and sadly many of the available themes are not that much better with fuzzy text and bad color choices.
