Does Growl slow my Mac down?

[sebbesen]

I installed Growl and it's a nifty piece of software. However, I usually prefer my system to be fast over having a lot of small nice-to-have (rather than need-to-have) OS enhancements taking up CPU resources.

So question is: How does Growl affect the performance of my system?

I assume Growl must be constantly looking for stuff to notify me about, which somehow means that it constantly takes up CPU resources!? I know it's probably not a lot, I'm just interesting in knowing how much.

Best regards,
sebbesen
Zurich, Switzerland

 

[iMeowbot]

Growl is very well behaved, it uses essentially no CPU while it's waiting for events. You can verify this with Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, or top. (look for GrowlHelperApp).

By the way, a new version just came out the other day, resource usage when programs are first registered is supposed to be one of the improvements.

 

[majorp]

growl uses minimal resources. pretty much no cpu (apart from when it's notifying) and minimal memory (usually about 30mb)

 

[Aniej]

Anyone have some good sites to get themes and downloads for growl??

 

[sebbesen]

Very good. Thank you for your useful answers! As for themes and extensions, I haven't seen any other sites apart from those linked from the growl home-page.