# rfjakob/earlyoom

earlyoom - Early OOM Daemon for Linux

Repository: https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/earlyoom
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-20T16:30:31+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 70/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 16, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4616, "days_push": 13, "days_rel": 351, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4241, forks 207 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:40.283347+00:00)

## What it is
earlyoom is a small daemon written in pure C that monitors available memory and free swap on Linux and kills the largest process when both drop below a configurable threshold. It prevents the system from becoming unresponsive by acting earlier than the in-kernel OOM killer.

## Use cases
- prevent my linux desktop from freezing when memory runs out
- kill the biggest process before the system hangs due to low memory
- avoid waiting for the kernel oom-killer on an unresponsive machine
- monitor available memory and swap and act automatically
- protect a headless server from memory exhaustion
- configure a memory pressure threshold for process termination

## When to choose
- you run Linux and experience system freezes from memory exhaustion
- you want a tiny, dependency-free daemon with simple configuration
- you need predictable early intervention before the kernel OOM killer triggers

## When to avoid
- you need richer configuration and features (consider nohang)
- you are not on Linux
- you want per-cgroup or container-aware memory management

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: monitoring, developer-tools
- domain: operating-systems, developer-tools, performance
- platform: cli
- tags: oom-killer, memory-management, daemon, system-administration, c, linux

## Member repositories
- rfjakob/earlyoom (main) score 70

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:40.283347+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:22:15.336106+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:40.283347+00:00, sha 0b9ce521e5fa)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.