dstat

dstat [options] [delay] [count]

dstat is a versatile system resource statistics generator that unifies the functionality of vmstat, iostat, netstat, and ifstat in a single tool. It provides real-time monitoring of CPU, memory, disk I/O, network, processes, and other system resources with colorful, easy-to-read output.The tool's plugin architecture allows for extensible monitoring capabilities beyond the standard metrics. Users can display top CPU and memory consumers, battery information, and custom statistics through third-party plugins. Output updates at configurable intervals, making it suitable for both quick system checks and continuous monitoring.dstat's strength lies in its ability to correlate metrics across different subsystems in one view. For example, you can simultaneously monitor CPU usage, disk I/O, and network traffic to understand system bottlenecks.Important note: dstat is deprecated and no longer maintained. The Python 2 codebase has not been updated for modern systems. Users should consider alternatives like dool (a maintained fork), or use the traditional sysstat tools (vmstat, iostat, sar) which continue to be actively maintained.

-c, --cpu

CPU statistics

Memory statistics

Disk statistics

Network statistics

Process using most CPU

Process using most memory

List available plugins

Equivalent to -cdngy, the default set

Expand aggregated statistics into one column per CPU, disk, or interface

Also write the statistics to a CSV file

dstat is deprecated and unmaintained. It was written for Python 2, and while distributions carry patches to keep it importable under Python 3, it breaks on modern systems in ways nobody upstream is fixing. Some plugins fail outright, and a few crash on newer kernels.The direct replacement is dool, a maintained Python 3 fork that keeps the same command-line interface, so `dool -cdngy` behaves like the dstat you remember. Otherwise, the sysstat suite (`vmstat`, `iostat`, `sar`, `pidstat`) covers the same ground and is actively maintained, at the cost of needing several commands where dstat used one.Note also that the first line of output is an average since boot rather than a measurement of the interval, which is a trap it shares with `vmstat`: discard it, or use a count of at least two.

dstat was written by Dag Wieers in 2004, and its pitch was straightforward: `vmstat`, `iostat`, `netstat`, and `ifstat` each showed you one part of the picture, in a different format, on a different schedule, and correlating them by eye across four terminals was miserable. dstat put them in one aligned, colour-coded, plugin-extensible table with a shared timeline, which turned out to be exactly what people wanted when hunting a bottleneck. Its dependence on Python 2 eventually outlived Python 2 itself, and the project was retired in favour of the dool fork.

vmstat(8), iostat(1), sar(1), pidstat(1), htop(1)

Source code