Comparison of bootloaders


The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of available bootloaders.

General information

NameDeveloper / PublisherCurrent versionInitial release dateLatest release dateLicenseCostWebsite / documentation
Acronis OS SelectorAcronis International GmbH
BareboxSascha Hauer
the barebox community
BootManager
BootX Apple Inc.
BootX Benjamin Herrenschmidt
Clover https://github.com/CloverHackyColor/CloverBootloader/graphs/contributors Multi Contributors]5157/BSD-2-Clause
Das U-BootDENX Software Engineering
GRUB LegacyGNU Project
GNU GRUB1995
Grub2WinDrummerdp2.4.2.42010April 2, 2025
GRUB4DOS
iBootApple Inc.iBoot-11881.62.2~1June 29, 2007December 9, 2024
LILO
Liminemintsuki
loadlin
NTLDRMicrosoft
RedBootmod
rEFInd Roderick W. Smith0.14.4.2/BSD-3-Clause
rEFItChristoph Pfisterer0.14/BSD-3-Clause
SYSLINUX
systemd-boot / Gummiboot
TianoCore EDK II
Windows Boot ManagerMicrosoft
wolfBootwolfSSL
XOSL

Technical information

Note: The column MBR refers to whether or not the boot loader can be stored in the first sector of a mass storage device. The column VBR refers to the ability of the boot loader to be stored in the first sector of any partition on a mass storage device.

Storage medium support

Operating system support

File-system support

Non-journaled

Journaled

Copy-on-write

Read-only

Other features

NameAdvanced commandScriptableSupported architectureSupported executableSupported protocolSupported decompressionOthers
GRUB Legacyx86 Multiboot 1, Linux zImage, Linux bzImage and othersTFTPgzip
GRUB 2x86, IA-64, ARM, PowerPC, MIPS, SPARC Multiboot and othersTFTP, HTTPgzip, xz
LILOx86 Linux zImage, Linux bzImagebzip2, gzip
loader x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC v9 FreeBSD ELF kernel image, Multiboot TFTP, NFSgzip, bzip2
kexec x86, ARM, ARM64, PowerPC, PowerPC 64, IA-64, IBM Z, RISC-VLinux bzImage, Multiboot, other ELF imageThe kexec system call can start another kernel, replacing the current running Linux, thus turning a Linux-based operating system into a fancy bootloader.
loadlinx86 Linux zImage, Linux bzImagegzip
SYSLINUXx86 Linux zImage, Linux bzImage, Multiboot, MBR imageTFTPgzip, bzip2, lzo, zip, lzma, ?
YabootPowerPC Linux ELF imageTFTP
RedBootARM, ColdFire, H8300, x86, Freescale/Motorola 68000, MIPS, PowerPC, SH, SPARC, SPARCLiteELFTFTP, serial gzip
Das U-BootPowerPC, ARM, AVR32, Blackfin, ColdFire, IXP, Leon2, m68k, MicroBlaze, MIPS, NIOS, NIOS2, PXA, x86, RISC-V, StrongARM, SH2, SH3, SH4,...EFI, ELF, U-Boot image format, Linux zImage, rawTFTP, NFS, serial bzip2, gzip, lzma
BareboxARM, Blackfin, NIOS2, MIPS, x86, PowerPCELF, U-Boot image formatTFTP, NFS, serial bzip2, gzip, lz4, xz, lzo
NTLDRx86 Windows NT kernel image, MBR imagedefault bootloader on Windows NT
Windows Boot Managerx86, ARM Portable ExecutableSuccessor of NTLDR; used on Vista and up.
wolfBootARM Cortex-M, ARM Cortex-R, ARM Cortex-A, Intel x86, RISC-V RV32, PowerPC, Renesas RH, TriCoreRaw binary, ELF, UEFITPM 2.0, PKCS#11. SPI, I²C, UARTCustom delta-update based on Bentley-Mcilroy compression algorithm
FreeLoader x86, ARM, PowerPCclone of NTLDR
Liminex86, ARM, RISC-V, LoongArchMultiboot 1 and 2, Limine boot protocol, Linux zImage and bzImageTFTPgzip