rEFInd vs Visor Boot Manager
rEFInd
rodsbooks.comVisor Boot Manager
github.comSide by side
| Figure | rEFInd | Visor Boot Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Boot Manager Software | 8.3 (#8) | 7.3 (#21) |
| Architectures | Binaries are available for x86, x86-64, and ARM64; the author says x86-64 is best tested and ARM64 is least tested. | The project builds for x86_64 and AArch64 from one source tree. |
| Automatic detection | It scans EFI loaders, legacy loaders and firmware boot entries without requiring every entry to be listed in a configuration file. | With no configuration, Visor detects Windows, UKIs, kernels, and BLS/OSTree deployments and derives a root command line automatically. |
| Documentation | The official documentation covers installation, usage, configuration, themes, Linux boot methods, EFI drivers, Secure Boot, revisions and support scripts. | Configuration, themes, encryption, LUKS, Secure Boot, snapshots, OSTree, filesystem drivers, CLI usage, architecture, and troubleshooting are documented in the project wiki. |
| Installation | The refind-install script automates installation under Linux and OS X, and manual installation procedures for Linux, macOS, and Windows are also available. | Visor can be built with gnu-efi, GCC, binutils, make, and git, or installed from the Arch User Repository. |
| Purpose | rEFInd is a boot manager forked from rEFIt that scans for boot loaders and helps users choose an operating system or utility at startup. | Visor is a minimal, fast graphical UEFI boot manager written in C. |
| Secure Boot | Secure Boot operation is supported through Shim, PreLoader or enrolled keys and signatures. | Secure Boot verification works through shim, and the installer supports sbctl signing. |
Plans
In their own words
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.
Visor Boot Manager
Visor Boot Manager is a graphical UEFI boot manager for Linux and Windows EFI programs. It can start Linux EFI-stub kernels and Unified Kernel Images, or chainload other EFI executables, including Windows. With no configuration, it detects Windows, kernels, UKIs, and BLS or OSTree deployments, and can derive a root command line automatically. Its menu supports themes, icons, animations, wallpaper accent colors, mouse and touch input, and live USB hotplug. For alternate boot states, it supports Btrfs, Snapper, Timeshift, and plain snapshots, along with OSTree deployment browsing and automatic rollback. Visor also supports encrypted boot artifacts and a single-password LUKS handoff. Secure Boot verification works through shim, and the installer supports sbctl signing. The bootloader is one approximately 340 KB EFI binary, without external dependencies or a scripting language. It builds for x86_64 and AArch64 and can be built from source or installed from the Arch User Repository. It uses the BSD 2-Clause license and is free at free. Visor requires UEFI hardware and does not support legacy BIOS.