About auto-cpufreq
auto-cpufreq is an automatic CPU speed and power optimizer for Linux. It watches how charged the laptop battery is, as well as CPU usage, temperature and overall system load, and adjusts frequency governors and turbo behavior to extend battery life without sacrificing performance when it is needed.
It can be used from the command line, with modes such as monitor, live and daemon install, or through a GUI available since version 2.0. Settings can be overridden, for example by forcing a governor or turbo mode, and a config file lets you define behavior per power state. Installation options include an installer script, the Snap Store, an AUR package for Arch-based distributions and NixOS.
The project is written in Python and licensed under GPL-3.0, and the maintainers are looking for co-maintainers and developers via a Discord server. There is also a documentation chatbot for support questions. It suits laptop users on Linux who want automatic power management without hand-tuning governors.
Key features
- Automatic CPU governor adjustment
- Battery, load and temperature monitoring
- Turbo boost control
- Command-line and GUI interfaces
- Config file for custom behavior
- Snap, AUR and NixOS packages
Good fit for
- →Extending laptop battery life on Linux
- →Reducing heat and fan noise
- →Monitoring CPU frequency and power
- Built with
- Python
- Tags
- linux
- power-management
- cpu
- battery
- laptop
- daemon
- python
- monitoring
auto-cpufreq: questions and answers
- What is auto-cpufreq used for?
- auto-cpufreq is a Linux tool that automatically tunes CPU speed and power settings based on battery state, CPU load and temperature to improve battery life on laptops. It is a good fit for extending laptop battery life on Linux, reducing heat and fan noise, and monitoring CPU frequency and power.
- Is auto-cpufreq open source?
- Yes. auto-cpufreq is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq and is written mainly in Python.
- Is auto-cpufreq free?
- Yes. auto-cpufreq is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host auto-cpufreq?
- Yes. auto-cpufreq can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What are some alternatives to auto-cpufreq?
- Similar open-source tools in the Productivity category include Persepolis, Stats and Glance. SaaS products in the same category include DynamicRing, ManicTime and NoteValidator.
- Is auto-cpufreq actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to auto-cpufreq was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.1.0, published on 26 July 2026. The project has 7.8k stars on GitHub.
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