balena-io/etcher
Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily. observed · 2026-10-08
Health v2 · maintenance only
93/100
- Activity 98
- Release rhythm 83
- Longevity 100
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-10-21. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 75.5
- age_days: 4011
- days_rel: 32
- days_push: 15
- n_releases_24m: 7
Adoption not part of the score
34481 stars · 2431 forks observed · 2026-10-08
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-09-28, confidence 0.97
balenaEtcher is an open‑source desktop application for safely flashing OS images onto SD cards and USB drives. It provides a simple three‑step UI, protects against accidental overwrites, and validates the write process.
Use cases
- Create a bootable USB stick from a Linux ISO for installation.
- Flash a Raspberry Pi OS image onto an SD card for IoT projects.
- Prepare a Windows installation media on a USB drive (with external tools).
- Deploy OS images to multiple devices in a classroom or lab setting.
- Validate that a flashed drive contains the exact image without corruption.
When to choose
- You need a cross‑platform graphical tool that prevents accidental overwriting of system drives.
- You prefer a simple, no‑command‑line workflow for creating bootable media.
- You want built‑in validation to ensure the image was written correctly.
- You are working on Raspberry Pi or other single‑board computers and need a reliable flasher.
When to avoid
- You require automated, scriptable flashing in CI/CD pipelines.
- You need advanced features like persistent storage or custom partitioning.
- You must flash images that need post‑processing (e.g., Windows ISOs) which Etcher does not support out of the box.
- You prefer a lightweight command‑line utility with minimal dependencies.
Facets
application · maturity active
gui file-upload image-processing developer-tools iot windows cross-platform sd-card usb-drive os-image flashing bootable-media raspberry-pi devops macos linux electron desktop
4 sources
- readme: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher · fetched 2026-10-08 · 21c1ec7bfddd
- homepage: https://etcher.io/ · fetched 2026-09-14 · 8f0e5d55f527
- site_page: https://etcher-docs.balena.io/FAQ · fetched 2026-09-14 · 6390b78b6871
- site_page: https://etcher-docs.balena.io/ · fetched 2026-09-14 · b98ea68daae3
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| balena-io/etcher | main | 93 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="balena-io/etcher")
Data as of 2026-10-19T08:05:51.212177+00:00 · Report a problem