# rEFInd boot manager

7 Hacker News commenters recommended rEFInd boot manager and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend rEFInd as a simple UEFI boot manager: one EFI entry and one plain text config file that needs no changes when the kernel updates.

## Why people recommend it

- Simple: one EFI entry, one text file (2 comments): "one efi entry, one text config file in the efi partition, nothing that needs to change when the kernel updates" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48048303)) "rEFInd is _so_ much simpler: one efi entry, one text config file in the efi partition" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48047183))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [systemd-boot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/systemd-boot.md): 14 recommend
- [GNU GRUB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grub.md): 9 recommend
- [Limine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/limine-bootloader.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "rEFInd boot manager", https://hackerapproved.com/p/refind/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).