Process CPU Usage

The Process CPU Usage check measures how much CPU a specific process uses on the device and compares the value against percentage thresholds. Use it when you want to watch a single service such as sqlservr or w3wp instead of only monitoring overall CPU load. The check runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS (each in x64 and Arm64 builds) every 5 minutes by default.

Steps

1. Go to Devices and open the device.
2. Click the Checks tab → Add Check → Process CPU Usage.
3. Enter the Process name and adjust the thresholds if needed.
4. Click Add Check.

To assign the check to several devices, use a config package.

Settings

If Warning CPU (%) is set higher than Error CPU (%), the check swaps the two values before evaluation.

Results

The check reads the CPU time of every running process with this name at the start and end of the sample window. The sum across all instances is normalized to all logical processor cores: 100% means the processes fully use every core. Both thresholds also trigger on equality. The Error tier corresponds to the Critical status.

Metrics collected:

• Combined CPU usage of all matching instances (%, normalized to all cores)
• Number of instances measured

Notes

• If several instances of the same process run (e.g. multiple w3wp workers), the check adds up their CPU usage. Instances that exit during the measurement, or whose CPU time the agent cannot read, are not counted.
• Because the value is normalized to all cores, a process that fully uses one core on an 8-core device reaches only 12.5%. Choose thresholds that suit the device's core count.
• To check only whether a process is running, or to monitor its memory usage, use the Process Monitor check.

See also: Process Monitor · Set up alerts for a check