I got frustrated with killing processes. Every time I needed to find what's using port 8080, I'd chain together lsof + grep + awk. Every time I wanted to kill something, I'd confirm it manually. Every time I monitored a process, I'd context-switch to htop.
So I built BLITZ. A process manager that actually works the way devs think.
The Speed Problem
Let me show you the actual time difference:
Finding what's on port 8080:
Old way:
$ time lsof -i :8080 | grep LISTEN | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9
real 0m0.847s
BLITZ:
$ time bz port 8080
real 0m0.089s
That's 9.5x faster.
But speed isn't the point. It's clarity. Here's what you get:
$ bz port 8080
Found: node (PID 1234)
Kill? [y/N]:
vs.
$ lsof -i :8080
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
node 1234 prince 45u IPv4 0x123abcd 0t0 TCP localhost:8080 (LISTEN)
One is a question. One is a puzzle.
Speed Comparison: All Methods
| Task | BLITZ | ps + grep | lsof | htop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Find process on port 8080 | 0.089s | 1.2s | 0.847s | N/A |
| Kill process safely | 1 command | Multiple | Multiple | N/A |
| List all processes | 0.034s | 0.041s | N/A | N/A |
| Top 10 by memory | 0.045s | 2.3s | N/A | 0.8s |
| Real-time monitor | Built-in | N/A | N/A | Yes |
(Tested on 500+ process systems, average of 10 runs)
Why BLITZ exists
The Unix philosophy is "do one thing well." But killing processes isn't one thing. It's:
- Finding the process (grep, awk, or lsof syntax)
- Confirming you got the right one (human check)
- Deciding how to kill it (kill vs kill -9)
- Executing without destroying critical processes
BLITZ combines all four into one intuitive command.
How to use it
bz # Show all processes (beautiful, colored)
bz top # Top 10 by memory
bz port 8080 # Find what's on that port
bz kill chrome # Kill by name (asks first)
bz kill chrome -f # Force kill without asking
bz watch java # Real-time monitoring
bz stats # CPU/RAM/disk
Install
git clone https://github.com/hunzo1/blitz.git
cd blitz
pip install -e .
bz # works from anywhere
Works on Linux, macOS, and Termux. Open source. No dependencies except psutil.
The Benchmark Details
If you want to reproduce these numbers:
Speed test: find process on random port
for i in {1..10}; do time bz port $((RANDOM + 2000)); done
Comparison with lsof chain
for i in {1..10}; do time (lsof -i :$((RANDOM + 2000)) | grep LISTEN); done
BLITZ wins on clarity, speed, and UX. The code is 320 lines of Python. Fully open source.
What's next
I'm open to feedback. If you use process management daily (and most developers do), try it out. Let me know what breaks.
Source: https://github.com/hunzo1/Blitz
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