Rufus

pbatard/rufusReviewed by AI

What it does

Rufus is a small Windows program that writes an ISO or disk image onto a USB stick so you can boot a computer from it, for example to install Windows or a Linux system. It also formats USB sticks and memory cards, checks them for bad blocks and fake capacity, calculates checksums, can download official Microsoft Windows ISO files, and can build Windows To Go drives that run from the stick. It is a single 2 MB file with nothing to install, speaks 38 languages, and is free software under the GPL.

How easy it is to install

A · download and open · Windows

On Windows you download one file from the release (rufus-4.15.exe, 2 MB, with separate x86 and ARM64 builds) and open it; the README says 'Small footprint. No installation required. Portable.' There are no Mac or Linux builds.

Numbers on GitHub

Stars: 38,193on Oct 31, 2026
Downloads: 272,282,758700,505 this week
Growth: +65stars in 5 days

Stars over time

Facts

Runs on: Windows
You need to install: Nothing extra
Disk space: 5 MB–16 MB · from the installer
Accounts or keys: None
Cost: Free
License: GPL-3.0 (Copyleft)
Can replace: WinToUSB
Last update: Oct 30, 2026

Risk signals (4)

Attentionit erases the drive you point it at
The first feature in the README is 'Format USB, flash card and virtual drives to FAT/FAT32/NTFS/UDF/exFAT/ReFS/ext2/ext3' and the project calls itself 'The Reliable USB Formatting Utility'. Writing an image or formatting replaces everything on the chosen drive, so picking the wrong one destroys that data.
AI review
Infocan skip windows 11 hardware requirements
README features: 'Create Windows 11 installation drives for PCs that don't have TPM or Secure Boot' and 'Improve Windows installation experience by automatically setting up OOBE parameters (local account, privacy options, etc.)'. Those are checks and setup screens Microsoft puts in its installer, and a machine installed this way is outside what Microsoft supports.
AI review
Infodownloads windows images from microsoft
README features: 'Download official Microsoft Windows 8, Windows 10 or Windows 11 retail ISOs'. The files come from Microsoft, but using Windows still needs a licence from Microsoft.
AI review
Infono release for four months while code keeps moving
Check results: the last release is from 2026-06-30 while the last commit is from 2026-10-28, so the released 4.15 build is older than the current code. Only 10 issues are open.
AI review

Evidence is shown in its original language.

What Radar could not check

Whether a drive it creates really boots on your particular computer or firmware
Whether the downloaded Windows ISO matches what Microsoft publishes today
Whether the bad-block and fake-capacity checks catch every bad USB stick
What the program does on a machine where you are not an administrator
Real disk use while a large ISO is being written