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Clonezilla

Free disk cloning and imaging solution

As of 30 August 2026, Clonezilla is free to use. Clonezilla is a free, open-source partition and disk imaging/cloning program. Softwr lists it under Backup. Clonezilla is made by NCHC, launched in 2004, available on Linux, Windows.

Overview

What Clonezilla does

Clonezilla is a free, open-source partition and disk imaging/cloning program. It supports multiple file systems, multicast deployment for mass cloning, and can be run from live CD/USB for bare metal deployment.

What people use it for

  • System backup and cloning
  • Disk imaging and restoration
  • Mass deployment scenarios
  • Enterprise-scale cloning operations

The honest half

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Clonezilla.

  • The destination partition must be equal to or larger than the source partition
  • Differential and incremental backup is not implemented
  • Online imaging and cloning is not implemented; the partition being imaged or cloned has to be unmounted first
  • The image format cannot be explored or mounted, so a single file cannot be recovered from an image
  • Recovery media spanning multiple CDs or DVDs is not implemented; the recovery ISO must fit on one disc
  • Clonezilla SE requires a DRBL server to be prepared in advance and the target machine to boot from the network
  • Runs only on x86 or x86-64 processors and needs at least 196 MB of RAM

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Clonezilla

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Pricing

What Clonezilla costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Free

Free

  • Disk cloning
  • Multicast
  • Multiple file systems

Capabilities

Features

  • Disk/partition imaging

  • Disk cloning

  • Multicast deployment

  • Multiple file systems

  • Encryption support

  • Unattended mode

  • PXE boot

    Integration with PXE boot

  • DRBL

    Integration with DRBL

  • Samba

    Integration with Samba

  • NFS

    Integration with NFS

  • SSH

    Integration with SSH

  • Linux support

    Available on linux

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Is Clonezilla free?

Yes, Clonezilla is completely free and open-source software licensed under GNU General Public License version 2. There are no paid versions, premium features, or subscription costs.

Source
What Clonezilla editions are available at no cost?

All three editions are free: Clonezilla Live for individual machine backups, Clonezilla Lite Server for mass deployment, and Clonezilla SE for large-scale enterprise cloning operations.

Source
Can I use Clonezilla commercially?

Yes, Clonezilla's GPL v2 license allows free commercial use. The software is open-source and requires no licensing fees for any deployment scenario.

Behind it

Who makes Clonezilla

Company
NCHC
Based in
Taiwan
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Where to go from Clonezilla

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Clonezilla, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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