About
Cortex is a system monitor for macOS that groups the roughly thousand processes your Mac runs into the sixty apps you actually use. Instead of helpers, renderers and daemons, you see each app by name, with its CPU, memory and other usage, and can expand any app for more detail. It keeps 30 days of history for every app, so you can look back at what happened while you were away.
Cortex also covers Apple Silicon and local AI work. It shows Neural Engine power and estimated load alongside CPU, GPU and DRAM, detects local model tools such as Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, ComfyUI and MLX or PyTorch processes, and includes a Model Fit Advisor that compares a model's requirements with your available memory. On macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence, an on-device assistant can answer questions about your Mac's performance and battery.
Cortex is a one-time $5 purchase that requires macOS 15 or later and is built for Apple Silicon. It states that it has no accounts, analytics or telemetry. Its only network requests are an update check and a license check, which sends your license key, Mac name and an anonymous device ID.