QEFI Entry Manager vs rEFInd

QEFI Entry Manager is a free, GPL-3.0 Qt application for managing EFI boot entries and EFI system partitions. On Linux and Windows, users can change boot order, add or import entries, and select the next boot entry for an immediate or later reboot. Entries can be enabled, disabled, deleted, or opened for detailed properties. EFI partitions can be mounted or unmounted, opened, and modified by moving, renaming, or copying files. Creating an entry from an EFI application file is available as a beta feature that may not work on every system. Release 0.5.0 adds a command-line tool for EFI entry manipulation. The app requires root or sudo on Linux and administrator privileges on Windows. Arch packages and downloads for other Linux distributions are listed, along with Windows downloads. The project also states native FreeBSD operation. Prebuilt binaries are unavailable for some older Ubuntu releases and architectures such as ARM and aarch64.

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.