Chromebook Recovery Utility vs USBImager
Chromebook Recovery Utility
support.google.comUSBImager
bztsrc.gitlab.ioSide by side
| Figure | Chromebook Recovery Utility | USBImager |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Bootable USB Software | 7.7 (#14) | 8.2 (#5) |
| Privacy | Google states that it processes no personal data as part of the service. | The maker says the app has no privacy concerns or advertisements and is fully GDPR compatible. |
| Purpose | Chromebook Recovery Utility burns a recovery image onto a separate device, such as a USB drive or SD card, for recovering a ChromeOS device. | USBImager writes compressed disk images to USB drives and creates backups. |
| Support | Google directs users to the ChromeOS Flex Help Community and says support for certified devices is available to Chrome Enterprise, Chrome Education, or Google Workspace customers, depending on subscription. | The README directs users to the GitLab issue tracker to report problems. |
Plans
In their own words
Chromebook Recovery Utility
Chromebook Recovery Utility has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
USBImager
USBImager is a free desktop utility for writing disk images to USB drives and creating backups. It reads raw images, compressed formats such as .gz, .bz2, .xz, and .zst, and archives including .zip, .tar, .cpio, and .pax. It can compare a written drive with the source image to verify the result, and create backups in raw or ZStandard compressed format. Images can also be sent to microcontrollers over a serial line. The app is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with a minimalist native interface and 18 language options. The maker says it is intended for people who may be uncomfortable with command-line tools, and that it tries to avoid overwriting the system disk. Synchronized writes are intended to ensure data is on disk when progress reaches 100%. The maker describes it as free of advertisements and privacy concerns and GDPR compatible. One stated limit is that xz compression dictionaries larger than 1 gigabyte are unsupported. The app is open source under the MIT license.