Master Real-Time Container Monitoring with ctop: Installation & Usage Guide

1. Introduction

ctop works like the Linux top command, but instead of processes it shows the real‑time status of containers.

You can see which containers are running via indicator lights and view important metrics such as CPU , memory , network and IO .

2. Installation

Linux installation method:

wget https://github.com/bcicen/ctop/releases/download/v0.5/ctop-0.5-linux-amd64 -O ctop
sudo mv ctop /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ctop

Run the command:

ctop

3. Usage

After starting ctop, the following keys provide different functions:

1) a – show only running containers

2) f – filter containers

Press f to open an input box; typing characters will list containers whose names contain the entered string.

3) h – display help information

4) s – select sorting column

5) r – reverse the sort order

6) q – quit

4. Summary

ctop conveniently displays container resource usage; it is lightweight and practical, and is recommended for frequent container users.