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balenaEtcher vs Fedora Media Writer: catalog facts
balenaEtcher	Fedora Media Writer
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. Balena sells separate commercial device…	Free Free and open source.
Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux
Hides system drives, so the classic wrong-disk accident is much harder Verifies the write by reading the media back	Downloads the Fedora image for you Restore feature returns the USB stick to normal use
An Electron app doing a job a 200 KB tool could do No persistent storage or multi-boot; one image per stick	Built around Fedora images Overwrites the whole drive when writing
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: GPL-2.0
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.