balena-io/etcher
Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily. observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
83/100
- Activity 85
- Release rhythm 71
- Longevity 100
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-02. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 75.5
- age_days: 3963
- days_rel: 112
- days_push: 92
- n_releases_24m: 7
Adoption not part of the score
34237 stars · 2408 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
balenaEtcher is a free, open-source desktop application for flashing OS images to SD cards and USB drives, built with Electron. It validates every byte written, hides system drives to prevent accidental wipes, and can flash Raspberry Pi devices over USB device boot mode.
Use cases
- create a bootable USB installer from an ISO
- flash a Raspberry Pi OS image to an SD card
- write a Linux distro image to a flash drive
- safely burn an OS image without risking my hard drive
- flash a Raspberry Pi directly over USB device boot
- verify an SD card image was written correctly
When to choose
- you want a simple, cross-platform GUI for writing OS images to removable drives
- you need validated flashing to ensure the image isn't corrupted
- you want protection against accidentally overwriting system drives
- you're setting up Raspberry Pi or other single-board computer media
When to avoid
- you need to make Windows installation media, which requires special boot treatment
- you need persistent storage on live USB drives (use UNetbootin instead)
- you prefer a lightweight command-line tool like dd
- you need advanced partitioning or multi-boot USB features
Facets
application · maturity active
gui file-system developer-tools developer-tools cross-platform embedded-systems operating-systems windows cross-platform os-imaging usb-flashing sd-card bootable-usb raspberry-pi disk-imaging electron-app linux macos desktop electron
4 sources
- readme: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher · fetched 2026-08-28 · 21c1ec7bfddd
- homepage: https://etcher.io/ · fetched 2026-08-29 · 8f0e5d55f527
- site_page: https://etcher-docs.balena.io/ · fetched 2026-08-29 · b98ea68daae3
- site_page: https://etcher-docs.balena.io/FAQ · fetched 2026-08-29 · 6390b78b6871
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| balena-io/etcher | main | 83 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="balena-io/etcher")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem