Sensei - Do You Need It?
When it comes to Mac utilities, there are things that are helpful
to have, but that are not absolutely required. Many of the "nice to
have" features can be gained through installing various free, well
regarded applications. For people who don't want the hassle of
assembling a toolkit piece by piece, there are apps like Sensei by Cindori Software, for
optimization and information.
Sensei Features vs. Free Alternatives
- Hardware monitoring of CPU, GPU, RAM, temps, storage and battery. A free alternative is Stats
- Cleaning of old caches, logs, big downloads and leftover installation files. A free alternative is Onyx
- Uninstalling apps. If you just throw apps into the trash, which was once the accepted way to perform uninstallations, you can potentially leave behind GBs of files in ~/Library subfolders. Intelligent uninstallers locate and remove those files. Free alternatives are AppCleaner and Pear Cleaner
- Monitor hard drive health, Drive failures can sometimes be predicted, giving you time to back your data and replace your drive. A free alternative is Disk Drill.
- Battery Health. Batteries degrade over time and depending on how long you keep a laptop, may need to be replaced. Utilities like Sensei can tell you how much of your battery's orininal capacity is still viable. A free alternative is Coconut Battery.
- Drive benchmarking - measuring the speed of your hard drive isn't necessarily helpful for commercial software, but some special use cases require higher speeds. A free alternative is Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
- Startup analyzer - you may have more apps running in the background or at startup than your realize. I recently found five Microsoft remnants that didn't get uninstalled when I got rid of Microsoft 365. A fee alternative is Startup Manager.
Sensei is a subscription app that costs $29 a year for a license that covers three Macs. A similar product, CleanMyMac, by MacPaw, is included in Setapp.