Task Manager's original creator launches TMOG, a native cross-platform system monitor

The developer who created the original Windows Task Manager has released the second beta of TMOG, a new system monitoring utility for macOS, Windows and Linux. The project reached the Hacker News front page on August 28, 2026, and as the discussion there frames it, the main draw is provenance: the tool comes from the person who wrote the utility millions of Windows users still open first when a machine misbehaves.

The TMOG project site positions the app as a middle path between the simple monitors bundled with operating systems and heavyweight consoles, arguing that users should not have to choose between an approachable tool and a capable one.

Three native apps, one shared core

TMOG is deliberately not one binary ported everywhere. According to the site, it ships as three genuinely separate applications — a Swift and AppKit build for the Mac, a native Win32 build for Windows, and a C++ with Qt 6 build for Linux — tied together by a shared C++ system metrics core, with live meters updating at sixty frames per second.

The Windows version receives particular emphasis: the site insists there is no embedded browser engine underneath, only native Windows controls, process and service actions, logical processor topology, and conventions Windows power users already know. The Mac version behaves like a proper Mac application, with native windows, tables and menus, launchd controls, an expandable in-app view of the System Report, and Apple silicon topology, plus power, thermal, GPU and Neural Engine figures where macOS exposes them. The Linux version is a Qt Widgets application that reads metrics directly from Linux system interfaces.

Supported targets, per the site: macOS 13 or later on Apple silicon and Intel x64, Windows 11 on x64, and Linux desktops running X11 or Wayland.

Subsystem depth

The entry point is a dense Summary screen combining CPU, clock speeds, thermals, GPU, memory, storage, network, energy and the processes driving the load. Beneath that:

• CPU views cover overall, per-logical-processor and NUMA layouts, with performance and efficiency cores color-coded and kernel time optional. The default per-core mode is meant to show how a workload actually spreads across the silicon rather than a single averaged number, with frequency, topology, cache, uptime and thread counts kept nearby.
• Memory pairs pressure readings with application, wired, compressed, cached, committed, available and swap figures, plus configurable scrolling history, distinguishing what is merely occupied from what is genuinely costly.
• Storage and network can be viewed as combined totals or per device and per interface, with adaptive live bandwidth graphs and link details.
• Energy surfaces instantaneous wattage, power state and per-process power impact.
• Processes get a tree view with filtering, sorting, a follow mode and native platform actions.

Retro display modes

Beyond following the system appearance in light or dark mode, TMOG offers full-console color treatments: classic green, warm amber and cool blue phosphor looks, plus a monochrome mode, with color and saturation adjustable to taste.

Beta caveats

This is the second beta, and the site warns that the binaries are not yet code-signed, so each operating system may ask for manual approval before first launch. Windows support is also currently limited to Windows 11 on x64.

Why it matters

A follow-up from the author of the original Task Manager matters because that utility became one of the most-used diagnostic tools ever shipped with Windows. Equally notable is the engineering stance: three truly native codebases wrapped around a shared C++ core, at a time when cross-platform desktop tools usually arrive inside a browser engine. If TMOG matures, it could give developers and administrators one serious monitoring option spanning all three desktop platforms, instead of juggling Activity Monitor, Task Manager and assorted Linux utilities. For now, with unsigned builds and an early beta label, it remains early-adopter territory.