The best bootloaders, according to hackers
7 bootloaders were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one, and 2 earn the Hacker Approved badge.
Top picks
The two most recommended bootloaders with the badge. Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes One comment
Simple, minimal, concise configuration
People recommend systemd-boot as a simple, minimal EFI boot manager that needs only one short config file and just works.
Praised as easy and well liked
Recommended for snapshot rollback and recovery outside the main OS, though critics say it only boots Linux kernels.
All 7 bootloaders, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | systemd-boot | 14 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| 2 | ZFSBootMenu | 13 | 2 | 87% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Tied 3 | U-Boot | 9 | 3 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 3 | GNU GRUB | 9 | 24 | 27% | 5 | — | — |
| 5 | OpenCore | 8 | 1 | 89% | 7 | — | — |
| 6 | rEFInd boot manager | 7 | 2 | 78% | 3 | — | — |
| 7 | Limine | 5 | 1 | 83% | 5 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same bootloader in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to bootloaders that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.