# balena-io/etcher

Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily.

Repository: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/etcher
Homepage: https://etcher.io/
Language: TypeScript
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: etcher, sd-cards, cross-platform, usb-drives
Last push: 2026-06-02T09:25:23+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 83/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 85, release rhythm 71, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3963, "days_push": 92, "days_rel": 112, "gap_med": 75.5, "n_releases_24m": 7}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 34237, forks 2408 (observed 2026-08-28T04:12:00.450114+00:00)

## What it is
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
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: gui, file-system, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, cross-platform, embedded-systems, operating-systems
- platform: windows, cross-platform
- tags: os-imaging, usb-flashing, sd-card, bootable-usb, raspberry-pi, disk-imaging, electron-app, linux, macos, desktop, electron

## Member repositories
- balena-io/etcher (main) score 83

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:12:00.450114+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 2026-08-29T16:27:42.875706+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher (fetched 2026-08-28T04:12:00.450114+00:00, sha 21c1ec7bfddd)
  - homepage: https://etcher.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T07:48:42.425999+00:00, sha 8f0e5d55f527)
  - site_page: https://etcher-docs.balena.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T07:48:42.435763+00:00, sha b98ea68daae3)
  - site_page: https://etcher-docs.balena.io/FAQ (fetched 2026-08-29T07:48:42.438121+00:00, sha 6390b78b6871)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.