The short answer. These tools do four different things, so decide which one you want. If the goal is to stop the battery sitting at full while plugged in, that is a charge limiter and AlDente is the one here. If you want to find out what is draining the battery rather than read the percentage, Battery Hog measures per-app energy and live watts. If you want the charging numbers in the menu bar and nothing more, ChargeMonitor. If you want the batteries of your other devices in the same place as the Mac’s, AirBattery. If you want battery health history rather than live usage, coconutBattery. If battery is one of several things you monitor, iStat Menus covers it alongside CPU, memory, disks and network. And if the problem is the Mac sleeping rather than the battery, that is Amphetamine, which is a different job.
This guide covers 9 battery apps for macOS. Every fact below is drawn from the same verified records that back each app’s own page. The recommendations are our editorial judgment, not payment. Last verified 2026-10-05.
Quick comparison
| App | What it is | Pricing | Licence | Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adrafinil | battery and power utility | Open source | MIT | 1.8 |
| AirBattery | battery and power utility | Open source | AGPL-3.0 | 1.6.3 |
| AlDente | battery and power utility | Open source | not published | 1.39.4 |
| Amphetamine | battery and power utility | Free | not published | — |
| Battery Hog | battery and power utility | Open source | MIT | 1.5.0 |
| Belay | battery and power utility | Free | not published | 2.1.0 |
| ChargeMonitor | battery and power utility | Open source | MIT | 1.2.0 |
| coconutBattery | battery and power utility | not published | not published | 4.4.0 |
| iStat Menus | system monitor | One-time purchase | not published | 7.50.1 |
What actually decides this
- Limiting charge, or reporting it. A charge limiter changes what the machine does; a monitor only tells you what happened. They are advertised side by side and share almost no function, and the first question is which one you came for.
- Percentage, watts, or health. The battery percentage is what macOS already shows you. Instantaneous watts and per-application energy are what tell you why it is falling. Health is a third thing again, and it is a property of the cell rather than of this session.
- Where the reading lives. Menu bar, Dock, or a widget. This sounds cosmetic and is not: a menu bar item is glanceable and permanent, a window is neither, and a monitor you have to open is a monitor you stop opening.
- Whether it prevents sleep. Keeping the Mac awake is a power-management tool, not a battery tool. It belongs in this list because it is sold alongside these, and it answers a different question.
- What the record does and does not state. Several apps here have no published pricing model in the sources Nuanyue tracks, and the guide prints that rather than guessing. A blank is information; an invented figure is not.
Our picks
- AlDente — It is a charge limiter rather than a monitor, and its record describes setting charge limits as the product. Choose it when the goal is to stop the battery sitting at full while plugged in.
- Battery Hog — Its record describes live watts, per-application energy, charge history and drain insights, and states that the measurement is local. Choose it when you want to find out what is draining the battery rather than just read the percentage.
- ChargeMonitor — Its record describes a menu bar item with real-time charging statistics and energy impact, which is the narrowest scope here. Choose it when you want the charging numbers in the menu bar and nothing more.
- AirBattery — Its stated purpose is showing the battery usage of all your devices in the Dock, menu bar or widgets. Choose it when you want the batteries of your other devices in the same place as the Mac’s.
- coconutBattery — Its record describes it as battery information and statistics, which is the health side of the question. Choose it when you want battery health and history rather than live usage.
- iStat Menus — Its record covers CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors, battery and weather in one place. Note what its own record also says: it is closed source, and the vendor’s one-time price is not stated in the sources Nuanyue tracks. Choose it when battery is one of several things you monitor in the menu bar.
The apps
Adrafinil
Adrafinil is a battery and power utility for macOS. Keep your Mac awake only while AI agents are still working, then let it sleep normally. It is released under MIT.
What it does. Agent-aware, not always-on. Sleep is blocked only while ≥1 agent session holds an assertion. Zero sessions → normal sleep, including lid-close. Sub-50ms CLI. adrafinil acquire / release are called from agent hooks and round-trip to the daemon in under 50ms, so they never stall an agent’s workflow. Reference-counted assertions. Overlapping sessions stack cleanly; sleep unblocks only when the last one releases. Thermal cutout. If skin/CPU temperature crosses threshold while the lid is closed, all assertions are force-released so a bag-bound Mac can’t cook itself.
Adrafinil is listed with current version 1.8.
Full profile and verified facts for Adrafinil →
AirBattery
AirBattery is a battery and power utility for macOS. View all device batteries in the Dock, menu bar, or widgets. It is released under AGPL-3.0.
What it does. Get the battery usage of all your devices on your Mac and put them on the Dock / Menu Bar / Widget!
AirBattery is listed with current version 1.6.3.
Full profile and verified facts for AirBattery →
AlDente
AlDente is a battery and power utility for macOS. Battery charge limiter for MacBooks. It is open source.
What it does. Menubar Tool to set Charge Limits and Prolong Battery Lifespan - AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Battery_Care_and_Monitoring.
AlDente is listed with current version 1.39.4.
Full profile and verified facts for AlDente →
Amphetamine
Amphetamine is a battery and power utility for macOS. Keep your Mac awake. It is free.
Full profile and verified facts for Amphetamine →
Battery Hog
Battery Hog is a battery and power utility for macOS. Shows what is draining the battery: live watts, per-app energy, charge history, and drain insights. 100% local. It is released under MIT.
What it does. Battery — a charge-history chart (Last 24 Hours / Last 10 Days, built from the system power log) plus maximum capacity, condition, cycle count, and temperature. Sleep blockers — identifies apps holding long-running idle-sleep assertions and flags overly long battery display timeouts. Opt-in alerts — native notifications for low battery, full charge, runaway-CPU apps, and sustained macOS thermal pressure with likely workload attribution. Configurable menu bar — choose what the status item shows: battery %, watts, time remaining, and/or the top app.
Battery Hog is listed with current version 1.5.0.
Full profile and verified facts for Battery Hog →
Belay
Belay is a battery and power utility for macOS. Keeps your Mac awake only while a local AI coding agent is working, and lets it sleep the moment the work stops. It is free.
Belay is listed with current version 2.1.0.
Full profile and verified facts for Belay →
ChargeMonitor
ChargeMonitor is a battery and power utility for macOS. Menu bar battery monitor with real-time charging stats and energy impact insights. It is released under MIT.
What it does. Menu bar item with compact battery percentage. Popover with extended details. Quick actions.
ChargeMonitor is listed with current version 1.2.0.
Full profile and verified facts for ChargeMonitor →
coconutBattery
coconutBattery is a battery and power utility for macOS. Mac battery information and statistics. Its pricing is not published.
What it does. With coconutBattery you are always aware of your current battery health. It shows you live information about the battery in your Mac and iOS devices (iPhone, iPad).
coconutBattery is listed with current version 4.4.0.
Full profile and verified facts for coconutBattery →
iStat Menus
iStat Menus is a system monitor for macOS. Menu bar system monitor for macOS covering CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors, battery and weather, with rule-based notifications and fan control. It is one-time purchase.
Strengths. According to the developer, covers CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors, battery and weather from the menu bar. Rules can notify on a wide range of events, including a changed public IP, a dropped connection, sustained high CPU or low disk space. Fan speeds can be controlled and ramped gradually based on temperature and battery state.
Trade-offs. Closed source, so the monitoring implementation cannot be independently verified. The vendor’s own one-time price is not published in the sources Nuanyue tracks, so the cost has to be confirmed at purchase. Requires macOS 11 or later. Some readings, such as GPU details and certain sensors, are only available on supported Macs. Apple Silicon support is inferred from the mention of efficiency and performance cores rather than stated explicitly on the pages checked.
Not for. Anyone who wants an open-source monitoring tool they can inspect — iStat Menus is closed source. Users on macOS 10.15 or earlier, since the current version requires macOS 11 or later.
What it does. Menu bar items for CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors, battery and weather. Per-core CPU usage, history graphs, load averages and CPU frequency. Efficiency and performance cores can be styled differently. GPU processor, memory, temperature and frequency on supported Macs.
iStat Menus is listed with current version 7.50.1.
Full profile and verified facts for iStat Menus →
How to choose
- Free of charge. Amphetamine and Belay — no payment is required.
- No licence fee, source available. Adrafinil, AirBattery, AlDente, Battery Hog and ChargeMonitor — the source can be read and, under the terms of each licence, reused.
- One-time purchase. iStat Menus — you pay once.
- Pricing not published in our data. coconutBattery — check the developer’s own site before assuming anything about cost.
Open source: Adrafinil, AirBattery, AlDente, Battery Hog and ChargeMonitor (5 of 9).
Common mistakes
- Buying a keep-awake utility expecting battery insight. It answers “why did my Mac sleep”, not “why is my battery falling”.
- Watching the percentage instead of the watts. The percentage tells you where you are; the wattage tells you what is taking you there.
- Expecting a charge limiter to restore capacity already lost. It changes future behaviour and does not reverse past wear.
- Adding menu bar monitors until the monitoring is part of the drain. Several items here are menu bar apps, and menu bar apps are applications.
How this guide was put together
Each app’s facts come from its own record: the developer’s own pages and repository, the App Store listing where one exists, and the documentation, each with a source grade and an access date. Where a fact rests on the developer’s own statement rather than on something we verified independently, the sentence says so. Where our data has no value for something, the guide says “not published” instead of guessing.
A price appears here only where the record carries one from a stated source; the guide never estimates one, and it records the pricing model alongside so the two can be read together. Prices change and vary by region, so each app links to its own page for the current detail.
The facts and the recommendations are kept apart on purpose. Everything in the app entries, the comparison table and the answers above is composed from the records. The short answer, the criteria and the picks are our editorial judgment: they reflect what we would choose and why, and they are not paid for. Where we make a recommendation we name the condition it applies under, because we do not call anything “the best” without explaining the criteria.
Verified 2026-10-05.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose between these battery apps?
There is no single answer — it depends on what you need. This guide covers 9 battery apps: Adrafinil, AirBattery, AlDente, Amphetamine, Battery Hog, Belay, ChargeMonitor, coconutBattery and iStat Menus. They differ mainly in pricing model, licence and the trade-offs each one carries. Pick by the trade-off you care about rather than by rank.
Are these battery apps free?
Pricing across this group: open source (Adrafinil, AirBattery, AlDente, Battery Hog and ChargeMonitor), free (Amphetamine and Belay), not published (coconutBattery) and one-time purchase (iStat Menus). Where we list pricing as not published, the developer does not state a model we could verify — check their own site before assuming anything about cost. We quote a price only where the record carries one from a stated source, and we never estimate one. Prices change and vary by region and by store, so always check the developer’s own page for the current figure.
Which of these battery apps are open source?
Adrafinil (MIT), AirBattery (AGPL-3.0), AlDente (not published), Battery Hog (MIT) and ChargeMonitor (MIT) are open source.
Do these battery apps support Apple Silicon?
Apple Silicon support is explicitly stated for iStat Menus. For the others our data does not carry an explicit statement either way, so we do not infer one.
How do I choose between them?
Start with how you pay: the guide groups these apps by pricing model, because the budget is the constraint most people actually have. Then check the trade-offs listed for each app: the limitations are the part that decides most people’s choice, because they describe what the app will not do for you.
Who should not use these apps?
iStat Menus each list an audience they are explicitly not aimed at. Those notes come from the same verified records as the rest of this guide, and they are worth reading before you install anything.
When was this data last verified?
The facts in this guide were last confirmed on 2026-10-05. Every app page carries its own verification dates and source list, so you can check any individual claim.
