portrm vs kill-port

Quick Comparison

Why Developers Switch from kill-port

1. Safety

kill-port sends SIGKILL to any process without checking what it is. This means you can accidentally kill your database and lose data. portrm identifies services and has a 3-tier safety system that blocks killing system processes, warns about databases, and approves dev servers.

2. Intelligence

kill-port just kills. portrm shows you what is running: the service type (Next.js, PostgreSQL, Docker), memory usage, uptime, and project directory. You make informed decisions instead of guessing.

3. Graceful Shutdown

kill-port uses SIGKILL (force kill) which does not allow the process to clean up. portrm uses SIGTERM first, waits for the process to exit cleanly, and only escalates to SIGKILL if needed. This prevents data corruption, orphaned files, and socket leaks.

4. Auto-restart

kill-port kills the process and you manually restart. portrm can kill and restart in one step:

ptrm fix 3000 --run "npm run dev"

5. Size & Speed

kill-port requires Node.js (~50MB runtime overhead). portrm is a ~1.2MB native binary with zero dependencies. Instant startup, no node_modules.

Usage Comparison

# kill-port
npx kill-port 3000
# That's it. No output. No safety. No restart.

# portrm
ptrm fix 3000
# Shows what's running, checks safety, kills gracefully
# Optional: -y (skip prompt), --run "cmd" (restart)

Migration

Switching from kill-port to portrm is simple:

# Instead of:
npx kill-port 3000

# Use:
ptrm fix 3000 -y

# Install globally:
npm install -g portrm