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

General information

Name Developer / Publisher Current version Initial release date Latest release date License Cost Website / documentation Acronis OS SelectorAcronis International GmbHDiscontinued BareboxSascha Hauerthe barebox communityv2026.04.0 LTS BootManager BootX (Apple)Apple Inc. BootX (Linux)Benjamin Herrenschmidt Clover (fork of rEFIt) 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 (Windows NT 3.1) RedBootmod (eCos license) rEFInd (fork of rEFIt) Roderick W. Smith 0.14.4.2 /BSD-3-Clause rEFItChristoph Pfisterer0.14 /BSD-3-Clause SYSLINUX systemd-boot / Gummiboot TianoCore EDK II Windows Boot ManagerMicrosoft (Windows Vista) wolfBootwolfSSL2.9.0 XOSL

Technical information Note: The column MBR (Master Boot Record) refers to whether or not the boot loader can be stored in the first sector of a mass storage device. The column VBR (Volume Boot Record) 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 Name Can reside in Can boot from ESP (UEFI) MBR VBR Floppy Hard disk Second hard disk Logical partitions CD-ROM Floppy USB Zip LAN Acronis OS Selector Barebox BootKey BootManager BootX (Apple) BootX (Linux) Das U-Boot GRUB Legacy GNU GRUB GRUB4DOS iBoot LILO Limine loadlin NTLDR RedBoot rEFInd rEFIt (not maintained) SPFdisk SYSLINUX systemd-boot / Gummiboot Windows Boot Manager wolfBoot XOSL Name Can reside in Can boot from ESP (UEFI) MBR VBR Floppy Hard disk Second Hard disk Logical partitions CD-ROM Floppy USB Zip LAN

Operating system support

Name Can boot MS-DOS Windows 9x/Me Windows NT series before Vista Windows Vista/7/8/10 Linux ReactOS MenuetOS *BSD macOS Acronis OS Selector Barebox BootKey BootManager BootX (Apple) BootX (Linux) Das U-Boot (FreeBSD) GRUB Legacy and GRUB4DOS GNU GRUB iBoot LILO (FreeBSD, PC-BSD, ...) loadlin Limine NTLDR RedBoot rEFInd (fork of rEFIt) rEFIt (not maintained) SPFdisk SYSLINUX systemd-boot / Gummiboot Rod Smith, "Managing EFI Boot Loaders for Linux: Using gummiboot", 5 November 2012. Windows Boot Manager wolfBoot XOSL Name Can boot MS-DOS Windows 9x/Me Windows NT series before Vista Windows Vista/7/8/10 Linux ReactOS MenuetOS *BSD macOS

File-system support Non-journaled Name FAT Minix ext2 HFS AFFS F2FS YAFFS FAT12 FAT16 FAT32 exFAT YAFFS1 YAFFS2 Acronis OS Selector Barebox BootX (Apple) BootX (Linux) Das U-Boot FreeLoader (ReactOS) GNU GRUB 2 GRUB Legacy Grub2Win GRUB4DOS iBoot LILO Limine loader (FreeBSD) loadlin NTLDR RedBoot rEFInd colspan=3 rEFIt Syslinux systemd-boot / Gummiboot Windows Boot Manager XOSL yaboot

Journaled Name NTFS ext3 ext4 ReiserFS Reiser4 JFS XFS UFS UDF HFS+ BeFS AFS SFS UBIFS JFFS2Acronis OS Selector Barebox BootManager BootX (Apple) BootX (Linux) Das U-Boot FreeLoader (ReactOS)GNU GRUB 2GRUB Legacy Grub2Win GRUB4DOS iBoot LILO Limine loader (FreeBSD) loadlin NTLDR RedBoot rEFInd rEFIt Syslinux systemd-boot / Gummiboot Windows Boot Manager XOSL yaboot

Copy-on-write Name btrfs APFS ZFS NILFS ReFS Acronis OS Selector Barebox BootManager BootX (Apple) BootX (Linux) Das U-Boot FreeLoader (ReactOS) GNU GRUB 2 GRUB Legacy Grub2Win GRUB4DOS iBoot LILO Limine loader (FreeBSD) loadlin NTLDR RedBoot rEFInd rEFIt Syslinux systemd-boot / Gummiboot Windows Boot Manager XOSL yaboot

Read-only Name cpio tar ISO 9660 romfs SquashFS cramfs Acronis OS Selector Barebox BootManager BootX (Apple) BootX (Linux) Das U-Boot FreeLoader (ReactOS) GNU GRUB 2 GRUB Legacy Grub2Win GRUB4DOS iBoot LILO Limine loader (FreeBSD) loadlin NTLDR RedBoot rEFInd rEFIt Syslinux systemd-boot / Gummiboot Windows Boot Manager XOSL yaboot

Other features

Name Advanced command Scriptable Supported architecture Supported executable Supported protocol Supported decompression Others GRUB Legacy x86 (PC) Multiboot 1, Linux zImage, Linux bzImage and others TFTP gzip GRUB 2 x86 (PC, EFI, UEFI, coreboot, OLPC), IA-64, ARM (U-Boot, UEFI), PowerPC (OpenFirmware), MIPS, SPARC (OpenFirmware) Multiboot and others TFTP, HTTP gzip, xz LILO x86 (PC) Linux zImage, Linux bzImage bzip2, gzip loader (FreeBSD) x86 (PC, EFI, UEFI, coreboot, OLPC), ARM (U-Boot, UEFI), MIPS, PowerPC (OpenFirmware), SPARC v9 (OpenFirmware) FreeBSD ELF kernel image, Multiboot (incomplete, for Xen image only) TFTP, NFS gzip, bzip2kexec (Linux) x86, ARM, ARM64, PowerPC, PowerPC 64, IA-64, IBM Z, RISC-VLinux bzImage, Multiboot, other ELF image The kexec system call can start another kernel, replacing the current running Linux, thus turning a Linux-based operating system into a fancy bootloader. loadlin x86 (PC) Linux zImage, Linux bzImage gzip SYSLINUX x86 (PC) Linux zImage, Linux bzImage, Multiboot, MBR image TFTP gzip, bzip2, lzo, zip, lzma, ? Yaboot PowerPC (Open Firmware) Linux ELF image TFTP RedBoot ARM, ColdFire, H8300, x86, Freescale/Motorola 68000, MIPS, PowerPC, SH, SPARC, SPARCLite ELF TFTP, serial (X-modem) gzip Das U-Boot PowerPC, 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, raw TFTP, NFS, serial (S-Record, Y-Modem, Kermit binary protocol) bzip2, gzip, lzma Barebox ARM, Blackfin, NIOS2, MIPS, x86, PowerPC ELF, U-Boot image format TFTP, NFS, serial (S-Record, Y-Modem, Kermit binary protocol) bzip2, gzip, lz4, xz, lzo NTLDR x86 (PC) Windows NT kernel image (PE), MBR image default bootloader on Windows NT Windows Boot Manager x86 (PC), ARM (only on Windows Mobile remake) Portable Executable Successor of NTLDR; used on Vista and up. wolfBoot ARM Cortex-M, ARM Cortex-R, ARM Cortex-A, Intel x86, RISC-V RV32, PowerPC, Renesas RH, TriCore Raw binary, ELF, UEFI TPM 2.0, PKCS#11. SPI, I²C, UART Custom delta-update based on Bentley-Mcilroy compression algorithm FreeLoader (ReactOS) x86 (PC), ARM, PowerPC clone of NTLDR Limine x86 (PC, UEFI), ARM, RISC-V, LoongArch Multiboot 1 and 2, Limine boot protocol, Linux zImage and bzImage TFTP gzip

Notes