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SPECIFICTION
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go-boot vs rEFInd

go-boot

github.com

rEFInd

rodsbooks.com

Side by side

Figurego-bootrEFInd
Price from—Free
Free plan—Yes
Free trial——
Open source—Yes
Windows—Yes
macOS—Yes
Linux—Yes
Self-hostedYesYes
Plans published01
Spec score · Boot Manager Software7.0 (#25)8.3 (#8)
Purposego-boot is a bare-metal Go UEFI boot manager implemented as a TamaGo unikernel for AMD64.rEFInd is a boot manager forked from rEFIt that scans for boot loaders and helps users choose an operating system or utility at startup.

Plans

go-boot

No plans published.

go-boot pricing →

rEFInd

  • rEFIndFree

rEFInd pricing →

In their own words

go-boot

go-boot has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.

Visit github.com

rEFInd

rEFInd is a free boot manager, forked from rEFIt, that scans for boot loaders and lets users select an operating system or utility at startup. It is intended for EFI-based computers, not older BIOS-based machines, and works with EFI 1.1 and UEFI 2.x. It can find EFI loaders, BIOS/CSM/legacy loaders, and boot options saved in firmware NVRAM. For Linux, rEFInd can detect kernels with EFI stub support, locate initrd files, and read kernel options from a refind_linux.conf file. It supports text and graphical operation, with configurable resolution, backgrounds, icons, and fonts. It can communicate with Shim to authenticate boot loaders using valid UEFI Secure Boot keys, Shim keys, or Machine Owner Keys. Included filesystem drivers cover ext2/3, ext4, Btrfs, ReiserFS, HFS+, and ISO-9660; the NTFS driver is not compiled by default. Downloads include ZIP, RPM, Debian, CD-R image, and USB flash drive image packages. Installation scripts and manual procedures cover Linux, macOS, and Windows. The maker describes it as beta-quality, with uneven testing across architectures.

Visit rodsbooks.com