ULBar — the menu bar stats app you own

01cruising

Actually native.
Actually tiny.

ULBar is AppKit and direct syscalls — host_processor_info, IOKit, sysctl. No Electron, no helper daemons, no subprocesses, and not a single network call of its own.

The monitor costs less than what it monitors: one timer, four samplers, a rounding error of CPU, and under 60 MB of memory.

CPUtotal %, user/sys split, load averages in the dropdown
GPUdevice utilization straight from IOKit
MEMused/total gigs, Activity Monitor's exact formula
DN/UPlive throughput plus session transfer totals
LOGINstarts on reboot, toggleable from the menu

02working

ULBar — zsh — 80×20

$ unzip ULBar-1.1.0.zip && cd ULBar
$ bash install.sh
Built build/ULBar.app
Installed and launched /Applications/ULBar.app

// Every stat is a sampler. Add yours.
final class GPUSampler {
    func sample() -> Double? {
        // IOKit → "Device Utilization %"
    }
}

The source is the product.

Your $9.95 buys a zip of clean, commented Swift that builds with one command. No Xcode project. No package manager. One file.

Want disk usage? Temperatures? Battery? Point your AI agent at main.swift and ask. Each stat is a small, separate sampler class — adding one is adding a class and a row.

03busy

Color tells you before numbers do.

Load values band from green to red so a glance is enough. Download climbs through greens — muted at a trickle, vivid at full pipe, maximal in the gigabytes; upload stays a muted orange-to-red heat ramp.

Every threshold is a constant in the source — tune the bands to your machine in one line.

simulated load40%

0255075100

cruising < 25% working 25–50% busy 50–75% pegged > 75%

04pegged

One price. The whole thing.

Pay, download the zip, run bash install.sh. Your Mac compiles it locally, signs it, and it's in your menu bar starting at every login.

You can read every line of what runs on your machine — and change any of them.

$9.95 once, forever

Full Swift source — the whole app
One-command build & install scripts
App icon and brand assets included
Lifetime personal license, updates included
Modify it freely — by hand or by agent

Questions

What exactly do I get?

A zip: Sources/main.swift (the entire app), build.sh, install.sh, the app icon, a README, and your license. Pay, download, done.

What do I need to run it?

macOS 13 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel, and the free Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). Then bash install.sh builds and installs it.

Why source instead of a signed download?

Because owning the code is the feature. Your Mac builds and signs it locally, you can read every line of what runs on your machine, and you — or your AI agents — can change anything.

Can I use it on more than one Mac?

Yes — the license covers every machine you personally own or use. It just doesn't cover redistributing or reselling the code.

What if it doesn't work for me?

Reply to your Stripe receipt email within 14 days and we'll refund you.

Actually native.Actually tiny.

The source is the product.

Color tells you before numbers do.

One price. The whole thing.

Questions

Actually native.
Actually tiny.