USBImager vs YUMI
USBImager
bztsrc.gitlab.ioYUMI
yumiusb.comSide by side
| Figure | USBImager | YUMI |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Bootable USB Software | 8.2 (#5) | 7.4 (#28) |
| Audience | The maker says the app is intended for non-expert users who may be uncomfortable with the command line. | Pendrive Linux says its software serves home users, students, educators, repair technicians, system administrators, IT professionals, Linux enthusiasts, developers, and businesses. |
| Founded | 2020 | 2011 |
| Privacy | The maker says the app has no privacy concerns or advertisements and is fully GDPR compatible. | Information submitted through the contact form is intended for communication and is not sold or used for other purposes. |
| Purpose | USBImager writes compressed disk images to USB drives and creates backups. | YUMI creates multiboot USB drives containing multiple operating systems, installers, rescue disks, antivirus tools, and diagnostics. |
| Support | The README directs users to the GitLab issue tracker to report problems. | The maker provides a contact form for questions, suggestions, and constructive comments. |
Plans
In their own words
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.
YUMI
YUMI creates multiboot USB drives that can contain multiple operating systems, installers, rescue disks, antivirus tools, and diagnostics. It supports UEFI and legacy BIOS systems. Supported Linux distributions can preserve files, settings, and installed packages across reboots, and ISO files can be added or removed without reformatting the entire drive. YUMI Py is a Python rewrite that runs natively on Windows and Linux. It can test installed images with portable QEMU, test complete USB drives with VirtualBox, and stream an installed ISO to another device on a local network through a browser. That LAN Share feature has no login or access code and is intended only for trusted networks. YUMI Py requires Windows 10 or 11 or a modern 64-bit Linux distribution, an exFAT-capable USB drive, and administrator or root privileges. Preparing a drive can erase existing data, so the maker instructs users to back up files first. YUMI exFAT is described as free and open source, with source code included in released versions; it supports persistent storage up to 40GB for supported distributions. YUMI is free and supports Windows and Linux.