UNetbootin Alternatives and Similar Software

UNetbootin makes it super easy to create live USB drives for Linux distributions. It even lets you download various distributions right from within the app. Some users have unfortunately reported issues running it on modern systems so alternatives are helpful to have.

Some alternatives focus on copying rather than creating ISOs. You can easily filter those out of the list with the burn-iso feature. Creating a live USB drive is typically a one-time affair so installing an app to use it just once isn't really optimal. You can filter the list for portable apps that don't need installation.

These apps are overwhelmingly free, most being open-source. They're all desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux.

The list of alternatives was last updated: 5/7/2020 8:44:00 AM

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Alternatives to UNetbootin for all platforms with any license

Rufus

Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.
- Easy to use. I used it with tails 2.10 when unetbootin wouldn't work. Guest • Feb 2017 • 18 agrees and 10 disagrees
Free Open Source Windows PortableApps.com
Create bootable USB Lightweight Windows To Go Burn iso ... Portable Bad Blocks checking Create BIOS bootable drive Create bootable Image Create UEFI bootable drive Install DOS to USB GNU/linux-libre Write ISO to SD card Optimal performance Support for UDF extension UEFI Support USB to FAT USB to NTFS USB to UDF Add a feature

1108 Like
balenaEtcher

balenaEtcher is a free and open-source image burner with support for Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux. It makes USB and SD card image burning as simple and fast as possible. FEATURES - Validated Burning - No more writing images on corrupted cards and wondering why your device isn't booting. - Hard Drive Friendly - Makes drive selection obvious to avoid wiping your entire hard-drive - Beautiful Interface - Who said burning SD cards has to be an eyesore.
- Very simple and effective, creates a bootable USB key almost in a single click (very unusual considering everyone is struggling with UNetbootin since many years!) Guest • Jun 2018 • 2 agrees and 2 disagrees
- I have a 64GB USB key, and UNetbootin kept insisting on creating an odd FAT32 partition that always failed to boot properly. Also, Windows and Mac had trouble identifying and/or reading it. Etcher worked the first time. No confusing setup options, just select the .iso and burn. Simple like it should be! Guest • Mar 2018 • 0 agrees and 1 disagrees
- Works on more operating systems. Better language support. Truly open source and free. onesnapp • Oct 2017 • 2 agrees and 0 disagrees
- Actually seems to work under OS X unlike Unetbootin now cemagr • Jan 2017 • 9 agrees and 4 disagrees
- Very simple, great interface, Awesome! :) bl4ckf4ll • Apr 2017 • 2 agrees and 1 disagrees
- Doing a Arch bootable key was a nightmare on a Mac with UNetbootin, no way to make it working. With Etcher one try and it was perfectly ok :) Guest • Jul 2016 • 6 agrees and 1 disagrees
- Etcher combines the universality of UNetbootin with the functionality of Rufus and adds an incredible and simple interface. ATShields934 • Aug 2016 • 5 agrees and 3 disagrees
Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux
Write ISO to SD card Create bootable USB Creating Bootable USB Gui ... Material design User friendly Beginner friendly Burn iso Validated Burning Create bootable Image Create bootable USB Electron based Convert installation CD/DVD to USB Persistent Storage Portable Support for S.M.A.R.T. data Add a feature

423 Like
YUMI

YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer), is the successor to MultibootISOs. It can be used to create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more. Contrary to MultiBootISO's which used grub to boot ISO files directly from USB, YUMI uses syslinux to boot extracted distributions stored on the USB device, and reverts to using grub to Boot Multiple ISO files from USB, if necessary.
- YUMI is the only app I've found that makes reliable USB installers for UEFI systems (GPT partition table, FAT32 partitions) and its multiboot features with persistence for the Ubuntu family of distributions is extremely useful. RogueScholar • Dec 2017 • 5 agrees and 1 disagrees
Free Open Source Windows PortableApps.com Wine WineBottler
Create Multiboot USB Multiboot USB Multi boot Can install to internal hard drives/ssds ... Create bootable USB Multi-windows Persistent Storage UEFI Support Add a feature

234 Like
Universal USB Installer

Universal USB Installer is a Live Linux USB Creator that allows you to choose from a selection of Linux Distributions to put on your USB Flash Drive. The Universal USB Installer is easy to use. Simply choose a Live Linux Distribution, the ISO file, your Flash Drive and, Click Install. Other features include; Persistence (if available), and the ability to fat32 format the flash drive (recommended) to ensure a clean install.

Free Open Source Windows
Create bootable USB Multiple languages No need to format Persistent Linux ... Portable Portable Linux Add a feature

166 Like
dd

dd, that stands for ‘data duplicator’, is a command-line utility for Unix mainly used for copying and converting data. This tool can be used for: • Backing up and restoring an entire hard drive or a partition. • Copy regions of raw device files like backing up MBR (master boot record). • Converting data formats like ASCII to EBCDIC. • Converting lowercase to uppercase and vice versa. • Creating files with fixed size.
- For the user who said that it's not for burning ISO, it's wrong. PERCE_NEIGE • Feb 2020
- There's more to creating a bootable USB drive than moving blocks of bits. Guest • Jul 2018 • 6 agrees and 7 disagrees
- its not a burning iso software.. Guest • Apr 2018 • 3 agrees and 5 disagrees
- It's easier than GUI if you won't deal with UEFI stuff Guest • May 2017 • 7 agrees and 6 disagrees
- Not a full-featured GUI-application like the rest, but way more flexible, versatile and reliable for more tech-savvy users. Guest • Sep 2016 • 5 agrees and 5 disagrees
Free Open Source Mac Linux BSD
Command line Utilities that Delete Files Burn iso Command line interface ... Create image Write ISO to SD card Add a feature

69 Like
LinuxLive USB Creator

LiLi USB Creator is a free software for Windows that allows you to create a bootable Live USB key with a Linux on it. This software also offers an exclusive option of automatic virtualization to directly run Linux in Windows without any configuration nor installation.
- Discontinued
  The program seems to be no longer updated. Last version, 2.9.4, released in September 2015, can be still downloaded from the official website.
Free Open Source Windows
Portable Linux Create bootable USB Create UEFI bootable drive USB to FAT Add a feature

120 Like
MultiBootUSB

MultiBootUSB is a software to create multi boot live Linux on a removable media i.e USB disk. It is similar to UNetbootin but many distros can be installed, provided you have enough space on the disk. MultiBootUSB also provides an option to uninstall distro(s) at any time, if you wish.
- Discontinued
  Last release is from April 2018.
Free Open Source Windows Linux
Multiboot USB Command line interface Command Line support Create Multiboot USB ... Multi OS Boot HDD Partition Create bootable USB Install Syslinux Add a feature

62 Like
Win32 Disk Imager

Create and restore image backups of disk drives. This program is designed to write a raw disk image to a removable device or backup a removable device to a raw image file. It is very useful for embedded development, namely Arm development projects (Android, Ubuntu on Arm, etc). Anyone is free to branch and modify this program. Patches are always welcome.

Free Open Source Windows
Backup Create bootable USB Disk Imaging Disk to image file conversion ... Portable Add a feature

70 Like
Know any more alternatives to UNetbootin?
Suggest an application to this list
MultiSystem

Multisystem is an awesome tool created by LiveUSB.info, that works similar to our Windows based MultiBootISOs USB creator, but was created for use within Linux. It also uses Grub2 instead of Grub Legacy, and can be run from within Ubuntu Linux to create a Custom Multiboot UFD containing your favorite Bootable Live Linux Distributions. (via http://www.pendrivelinux.com/multiboot-create-a-multiboot-usb-from-linux/ )
- MultiSystem is good alternative to UNetBootin and builds a menu of isos to allow you select which image to load. UNetBootin only allows the installation of one image/distro per pendrive. Guest • Dec 2018 • 1 agrees and 0 disagrees
Freemium Linux
Create bootable USB Create Multiboot USB Create multiple OS boot Multiple languages ... Multiboot USB Mutli-image handling Add a feature

34 Like
WinSetupFromUSB

WinSetupFromUSB is a Windows program, which prepares multiboot USB flash or fixed disk to install any Windows versions since 2000/XP, boot various Linux and *BSD flavors, as well as many Windows, Linux, DOS based and other utilities. Since version 1.1 program can create USB disk with Windows versions which support (U)EFI (Vista x64 SP1 and later x64 versions), which USB disk can be used in both (U)EFI and Legacy BIOS modes.

Free Windows
Code Quality Create bootable USB Install Syslinux Multiboot USB ... Preinstalled Environment builder Portable UEFI Support Add a feature

41 Like