AdGuard Home is a free, open-source DNS sinkhole that blocks ads and trackers across every device on your LAN. Native encrypted upstream DNS, a clean dashboard, and a 30 MB Go binary — the modern Pi-hole alternative.
AdGuard Home is a free, open-source, network-wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server you self-host on a Raspberry Pi, NAS, or cheap VPS. We rate it 88/100 — it is the most polished modern alternative to Pi-hole, with native encrypted DNS, a clean dashboard, and zero monthly fees forever.
AdGuard Home is a DNS sinkhole maintained by Cyprus-based AdGuard Software Limited (the same team behind the AdGuard browser/desktop ad blocker). It first hit GitHub in and reached its v0.95 stable milestone in . As of the official repository sits at 31,200+ stars and has been pulled from Docker Hub more than 100 million times.
It runs as a single Go binary (under 30 MB) that intercepts every DNS query on your network and silently drops anything that matches its blocklists — ads, trackers, malware domains, phishing, and analytics. Anything passing the filter is forwarded to your chosen upstream over plain DNS, DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-QUIC, or DNSCrypt. There is no agent on each device — point your router at the server and every phone, smart TV, and IoT gadget on the LAN inherits the protection.
Sentiment in r/selfhosted and r/homelab has tilted firmly toward AdGuard Home over the past two years, with the most-upvoted recent thread arguing it is the "modernized replacement for Pi-hole." Users repeatedly praise the encrypted-DNS-without-fuss, the clean per-client UI, and the fact that the project ships pre-built binaries for ARM, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD — Pi-hole still requires Linux. On Hacker News, multiple commenters note that AdGuard Home's filter-syntax compatibility with browser AdGuard means a single subscription list can power both. Recurring complaints are real but minor: the official Docker image runs as root by default, group management is less granular than Pi-hole's, and a handful of advanced users miss conditional forwarding for split-horizon DNS at home.
AdGuard Home itself is completely free and open source (GPL-3.0). There is no paid tier, no upgrade prompts, and no telemetry. The only paid AdGuard products are the separate browser/desktop AdGuard Ad Blocker and the hosted AdGuard DNS service — both optional and unrelated to running AdGuard Home yourself.
| Plan | Price | Key Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted (AdGuard Home) | $0 forever | Unlimited devices, blocklists, and queries — limited only by your hardware. |
| Hosted AdGuard DNS Personal | $0 (free tier) / $1.99–$2.49/mo | Optional — only if you don't want to run a server. Free tier covers 300k queries/month. |
Best for: homelab users, privacy-conscious households, small offices, and anyone who already runs a Raspberry Pi, Synology NAS, or always-on mini-PC. Also a strong fit for OPNsense/pfSense users who want a friendlier UI than Unbound's config files.
Not ideal for: people who don't run any always-on machine on their LAN (a phone-only blocker is a better fit), enterprises that need split-horizon DNS with dozens of conditional forwards, or users who fundamentally don't trust Go binaries from a Cyprus-based vendor — review the source on GitHub if that is a concern.
Pros:
Cons:
The two main alternatives are Pi-hole — older, slightly more granular group/list management, but no native encrypted DNS — and Technitium DNS Server, which is more of a full-feature DNS suite with built-in resolver, DNSSEC validation, and conditional forwarding, but a heavier UI and Windows-first roots. NextDNS is the closest hosted equivalent if you don't want to self-host at all.
For any homelab in 2026, AdGuard Home is the default recommendation. The encrypted-DNS story alone — paste a DoH URL and you're done — beats every comparable free tool, and the per-client policy engine is more flexible than its reputation suggests. We rate it 88/100: a polished, actively maintained, completely free piece of infrastructure that has genuinely raised the bar for what a network-wide ad blocker should ship by default. Knock a few points off for the root-by-default container and the still-shallow group model, but for the vast majority of self-hosters, AdGuard Home is the easy pick.
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