Burning CDs and DVDs is a task that we seem to be doing less and less. With tools like Dropbox and the low cost of memory pens, CDs have become fairly redundant around the office.

On those rare occasion that we do need to make a disk (normally for backups or freebies) the tool of choice has been Toast (at least for the last few years). Toast is a great application but the version we have is three versions out of date and the cost of grabbing new copy cannot really be justified (it is a recession after all!). It was time to go find open source alternative.

Burn

Burn is a beautifully simple application (OSX 10.4+). The interface is uncluttered and making a disc is extremely straight forward. It supports all of the features you would expect: data discs, video discs, audio discs and also copying. We downloaded a copy of Burn a few months ago and they have already released an update… not only is it free and open source, it is also under active development. We cannot find a bad thing to say about this application and suggest you download a copy right now.

Simply Burns

Burn is not the only open source CD writing application we found for Mac, we also found Simply Burns. Unfortunately it does not have all the features of Burn and we had a hard time getting over the clunky interface too. It is worth a mention though as it does show some promise and it is always good to have options.

What is your favourite disc writing application?