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Add to SafariWhen comparing Etcher vs Fedora Media Writer, the Slant community recommends Etcher for most people. In the question“What is the best software for creating Live USB (from ISO files)?” Etcher is ranked 2nd while Fedora Media Writer is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Etcher is:
Supports Linux, Windows and Mac.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Cross platform
Supports Linux, Windows and Mac.
Pro Polished GUI
The gui looks great and is easy to use.
Pro Open source
Free to use and modify. Apache license. Repository link.
Pro Relatively fast
Flashes/burns images relatively fast.
Pro Extremely user friendly
By far, the most user friendly and straight-forward UI I've ever seen in an application like this
Pro Helps discover Fedora Spins and Fedora Labs images
Makes it easy to obtain niche software packages, such as Sugar On A Stick (SOAS), and Fedora Design Suite.
Pro Supports ARM v7 and AArch64 images of Fedora
Makes it easy for using Fedora Workstation or Fedora Server with Raspberry Pi or other hobby SOC boards.
Pro Uses dd, prevents nuking system disks.
While it uses dd as a backend, it only shows SD cards and USB devices. This helps prevent accidentally nuking system disks.
Pro Open Source
Licensed under the GNU General Public License v2
Pro Cross Platform
Binaries for Windows, macOS, and Flatpak are available. A traditional RPM package is also available in the Fedora repositories.
Pro Not limited to Fedora - Any ISO can be writen to a usb.
If you have an IMG or ISO, it can be writen to a disk. You are not forced to use any of the Fedora options.
Pro Automatic Live Disk Detection
Can automatically detect disks which already are formatted with live system images, and prompts you to see if you would like to restore it to factory default settings.
Cons
Con Lacking in settings
Compared to its competitors, while trying to keep the software as user-friendly and clean as possible, it also lacks the ability to perform more advanced tweaking, available in something like Rufus.
Con Sends data to balena by default
It is enabled by default, hidden in the settings and you have to turn it manually off.
Con Large file size
Much larger file size in comparison to something like Rufus.
Con Heavily Fedora-centric
Aside from you providing and using a custom image, the only other options present are for Fedora distributions. You won't find RedHat Enterprise Linux, or CentOS, or even Fedora Silverblue. Nor will you find any outside of the RedHat family, like Arch, Debian, or Ubuntu.
