Fabulously kill processes. Cross-platform.
7k
Stars
213
Forks
7
Open issues
11
Contributors
AI Analysis
fkill-cli is a cross-platform CLI tool for killing processes by PID, name, or port, with an interactive UI featuring fuzzy search and resource usage indicators. It serves developers and system administrators who need a more user-friendly alternative to native kill commands; it is not a general-purpose process manager but a specialized utility for quick process termination workflows.
Inferred from signals mentioned in the README (tests, CI, type safety) — not a review of the actual code.
AI's overall editorial judgment — not an average of the bars above, can weigh other factors too.
Cross-platform CLI tool to kill processes by name, PID, or port with an interactive fuzzy UI
fkill-cli is a Node.js command-line utility that lets developers kill OS processes by PID, process name, or port number across macOS, Linux, and Windows. Its standout feature is an interactive TUI with fuzzy search, CPU/memory indicators, and resource usage hints. It targets developers who find native kill/taskkill commands cumbersome, especially those who frequently need to free up ports or kill named processes without looking up PIDs. With ~7,000 stars and roots in the sindresorhus ecosystem, it occupies a small but durable niche in developer toolkits.
Created in June 2015 by prolific open-source developer Sindre Sorhus, it emerged alongside fkill (the underlying API package) and was part of a wave of cross-platform developer CLI tools built on Node.js during the npm golden era.
Growth was driven primarily by Sindre Sorhus's ecosystem reach, developer word-of-mouth, and the practical pain point of killing stubborn port-bound processes. Star accumulation has plateaued — zero stars gained in the last 7 days — consistent with a mature utility that solved a specific problem and settled into steady, undramatic usage rather than viral growth.
Stars (~7K) and its position in the sindresorhus ecosystem suggest genuine usage by developers, but direct production adoption evidence (download stats, dependent projects) is not documented in the README. npm weekly download counts would be the relevant metric but are not available here. Adoption appears limited to individual developer machines rather than production server automation.
Likely a thin CLI wrapper around the fkill npm package, using Node.js with an interactive prompt library (likely Inquirer or similar) for the TUI mode. Appears to delegate process management logic upstream to the fkill API package, keeping the CLI layer minimal.
not documented in README
Last push was November 2025, approximately 7 months before the current date. This indicates the project is still receiving maintenance, though infrequently. Given its feature-complete, narrow scope, slow push cadence is expected and does not indicate abandonment.
ADOPT IF: you frequently need to kill processes by port or name across platforms and want a zero-config, interactive tool installable via npm without writing shell scripts. AVOID IF: you prefer no Node.js runtime dependency, need this in automated CI scripts (where silent native commands are more predictable), or are on macOS-only and prefer native tooling. MONITOR IF: Node.js runtime requirements become a friction point in your environment or if maintenance slows further.
Independent dimensions
Mainstream potential
3/10
Technical importance
5/10
Adoption evidence
4/10
- Requires Node.js as a runtime, which is a friction point for users who want a standalone binary with no dependency.
- Feature scope is intentionally narrow and essentially complete — future relevance depends on continued compatibility with new OS versions rather than active feature development.
- Zero stars gained in recent days suggests community momentum has stalled; visibility among new developers may be declining.
- Upstream fkill package is a hard dependency — any maintenance lapse there propagates to this CLI.
- Cross-platform process management is OS-ABI-adjacent; OS-level changes (e.g., macOS security policies, Windows changes) could introduce breakage that requires timely fixes.
Likely to remain a stable, low-maintenance utility used by a durable but non-growing base of Node.js developers. Unlikely to expand significantly in scope or adoption.
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Languages
Information
- Language
- JavaScript
- License
- MIT
- Last updated
- 8mo ago
- Created
- 135mo ago
- Analyzed with
- anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5
Stars over time
Contributors over time
Top 100 contributors only — repos with more will plateau at 100.
Open issues
Top contributors
Recent releases
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kill-port focuses solely on killing by port number programmatically, no interactive UI. fkill-cli is broader (name, PID, port) and interactive, making it more useful as a developer tool rather than a scripting dependency.
port-killer (Swift, ~4.9K stars) targets macOS-native GUI or CLI users. fkill-cli is cross-platform via Node.js, but requires Node.js installed, whereas a Swift binary has no runtime dependency on macOS.
fzf is a general-purpose fuzzy finder that can be composed with kill commands in shell pipelines. It requires more shell scripting knowledge to replicate fkill's workflow but is far more powerful and has massive adoption. fkill-cli is the out-of-the-box, zero-config alternative.
htop/btop are full-featured process monitors with kill capability. They do more but require more navigation. fkill-cli is faster for the specific 'kill this named process or port' workflow.
npkill (~9.3K stars) solves a different problem — cleaning up node_modules directories. Both are sindresorhus-ecosystem-adjacent Node.js CLIs but do not overlap in function.
