Free & open-source CPU and memory limiter per-app for Windows.
Built as a companion to Bandwidth Governor. When Claude Code, builds, or background apps peg your CPU and eat all your RAM, Process Governor caps them so your machine stays usable.
Features
- Per-app CPU limits — Restrict which cores a process can use (processor affinity)
- Per-app memory limits — Cap working set size per process
- One-click presets — Claude Code Light/Strict, Build Tools, Background Apps
- Live system stats — Real-time CPU%, memory, and core count
- Process explorer — See top processes by CPU time, create rules directly
- Auto-reapply — Rules re-apply every 5 seconds to catch new process instances
- System tray — Runs in background with quick toggle
- Kill process — Stop any process from the dashboard
- Persistent rules — Rules survive app restarts
Presets
| Preset | What it does |
|---|---|
| Claude Code — Light | node.exe capped at 75% CPU |
| Claude Code — Strict | node.exe at 50% CPU + 2GB RAM, git at 50% CPU |
| Build Tools | node, msbuild, cl.exe at 60% CPU |
| Background Apps | OneDrive 25%, Teams 50%, Slack 50% |
Download
Grab the latest portable .exe from Releases.
No installation required — run as Administrator for best results.
Requirements
- Windows 10/11
- Administrator recommended (some processes require elevation to modify)
Build from source
npm install npm run build
The portable .exe appears in dist/.
Development
How it works
Process Governor uses Windows processor affinity (ProcessorAffinity) to restrict which CPU cores a process can use, effectively capping its CPU consumption. It also sets process priority to BelowNormal and can limit working set memory via MaxWorkingSet. Rules re-apply every 5 seconds to catch newly spawned instances.
License
BSL 1.1 — Converts to Apache 2.0 after four years per release.
Author: Cloud Nimbus LLC