Burst binding uses the same hot melt glue as perfect binding to hold the pages to the spine. The main difference is that text sections are folded with notches, instead of a perforation, at the spine which allows more glue into the pages at the spine giving a very strong bind.
Burst binding gives a very neat, professional finish. It is suitable for publications of around 48 pages or over as the spine needs to be of a minimum thickness to glue into. This makes it especially suitable for magazines and booklets with more pages, corporate brochures and product catalogues. We would tend to recommend burst binding over perfect binding for thicker publications or items that will see a lot of use.