Monitor only every $n$-th step in NDSolve

If only you need to reduce the number of printed lines, this Prints once every 10 instances.

n = 1;
NDSolve[
  {y'[x] == y[x], y[0] == 1}
  , y
  , {x, 0, 5}
  , StepMonitor :> If[
    Mod[++n, 10] === 0
    , Echo[
     TemplateApply[StringTemplate["n:``, x:``, y:``", {n, x, y[x]}]]
     , "Monitor"]]
  ] // Timing

But the idea of filling the screen with updates seems sub-optimal. You could use a Dynamic update of a single line. To reduce the overhead, this limits the update to once per second.

AbsoluteTiming[
 DynamicModule[{n = 1, status},
  Dynamic[Refresh[Row@status, UpdateInterval -> 1]];
  sol = NDSolve[{y'[x] == y[x], y[0] == 1}, y, {x, 0, 5}, 
    StepMonitor :> (status = {n += 1, x, y[x]})];]]

Obviously you could combine the two solutions.

EDIT

All that said, after a better answer by @george2079 it seems the correct tool to use is Monitor.

if you just want a status monitor you can do like this:

Monitor[NDSolve[{y'[x] == x, y[0] == 1}, y, {x, 0, 5}, 
  StepMonitor :> (p = x; ++n)], {n, p}]

this prints every step but wont clutter your screen.

There is inevitably an overhead, but typically in a real case where you care about monitoring results it will be small compared to the function eval.

this is useful sometimes too:

p = 0; ProgressIndicator[Dynamic[p], {0, 5}]
NDSolve[{y'[x] == f[x], y[0] == 1}, y, {x, 0, 5}, 
 StepMonitor :> (p = x)]

Note if NDSolve needs to do recursion then the -x- val wont accurately reflect progress however.