Private and open-source alternatives to Media Creation Tool
11 OS downloaders and bootable USB tools rated against the same public privacy criteria as Media Creation Tool (Windows Media Creation Tool), with our picks first.
Why look for an alternative?
- Open source: no. Closed source.
- No trackers or telemetry: no. The Windows download page loads Microsoft Clarity and Bing ads tracking, and Microsoft collects diagnostic data from its software.
- No ads or data sales: partial. The tool has no ads. Microsoft websites use advertising cookies and tags to market Microsoft products.
- Independent audit: no. No independent audit is published.
See the full Media Creation Tool rating.
The alternatives
CrystalFetch Grade B
A macOS app from the makers of UTM that builds Windows 11 installer ISO images from Microsoft's update files, using UUP dump APIs and converter scripts.
CrystalFetch scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Impression Grade B
A GNOME app for writing disk images to USB drives, which can also download popular Linux distribution images directly.
Impression scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Mist Grade B
A macOS utility that lists and downloads macOS installers and Apple silicon firmware files from Apple's servers, and can build app bundles, disk images, bootable ISOs and installer packages.
Mist scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Quickemu Grade B
Command-line tools that download Windows, macOS and Linux images (quickget) and create and run QEMU virtual machines with preset configurations (quickemu).
Quickemu scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
WoeUSB Grade B
A Linux command-line tool that creates bootable Windows installation USB drives from an ISO file or DVD, with legacy BIOS and UEFI support.
WoeUSB scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Fedora Media Writer Grade C
The Fedora Project's tool for downloading Fedora images and writing them, or other ISO files, to USB drives, with a restore option to reformat the drive afterwards.
Fedora Media Writer scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
Raspberry Pi Imager Grade C
Raspberry Pi's official tool for downloading operating system images and writing them to SD cards and USB drives, with options to preconfigure hostname, Wi-Fi, users and SSH.
Based in the United Kingdom (Five Eyes). Raspberry Pi Imager scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
UUP dump Grade C
A website and set of scripts that fetch Windows update files (UUP) from Microsoft's servers and convert them into Windows installation ISO images.
UUP dump scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
balenaEtcher Grade D
A cross-platform app from balena that writes OS images to SD cards and USB drives and validates the written data.
Based in the United Kingdom (Five Eyes). balenaEtcher scores 40 out of 100 (grade D) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 1 of 4 criteria: open source.
Rufus Grade F
A Windows utility that formats USB drives and writes bootable USB media from ISO and disk images, and can download Windows ISOs.
Rufus scores 30 out of 100 (grade F) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 1 of 4 criteria: open source.
Ventoy Grade F
A tool that prepares a USB drive so ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD and EFI files copied onto it can be booted from a menu, without reformatting the drive for each image.
Ventoy scores 30 out of 100 (grade F) on the OS downloaders and bootable USB tools criteria. It meets 1 of 4 criteria: open source.