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balenaEtcher vs ISO Image Writer: catalog facts
balenaEtcher	ISO Image Writer
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. Balena sells separate commercial device…	Free Free and open source under the GPL 3.0.
Windows, macOS, Linux	Linux
Hides system drives, so the classic wrong-disk accident is much harder Verifies the write by reading the media back	Single-purpose tool for writing ISO images to USB Graphical alternative to dd
An Electron app doing a job a 200 KB tool could do No persistent storage or multi-boot; one image per stick	Fewer options than full-featured USB writers Linux build on Flathub only, according to the research
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: GPL-3.0
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 1, 2026

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