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Win32 Disk Imager vs balenaEtcher: catalog facts
Win32 Disk Imager	balenaEtcher
Free Free and open source.	Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. Balena sells separate commercial device…
Windows	Windows, macOS, Linux
Writes and reads raw images on SD cards and USB drives Can back up a card or stick to an image file	Hides system drives, so the classic wrong-disk accident is much harder Verifies the write by reading the media back
Windows only Reported issues with USB floppy drives and some other devices	An Electron app doing a job a 200 KB tool could do No persistent storage or multi-boot; one image per stick
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0	License: Apache-2.0
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026

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