I use Pi-Hole and works great. I’ve heard about AdGuard and seems the same thing as PiHole, but you have to install an app/extension. Everyone in this community recommend NextDNS. Whats the difference between them?

  • Vexz
    14•1 year ago

    I use Pi-Hole and works great. I’ve heard about AdGuard and seems the same thing as PiHole

    Only if you’re talking about AdGuard Home, then yes. When you talk about AdGuard you usually just mean the adblocker app which is something completely different.

    I used all three of them. While AdGuard Home has some nice features that Pi-hole doesn’t, it in my experience has much more problems and has been unstable on some updates. So since you prefer stability for your DNS server I’d recommend Pi-hole over AdGuard Home.
    NextDNS doesn’t need to be self-hosted because it’s a service on the internet. The disadvantage is that you are offered a list of blocklists from which you can choose but unlike Pi-hole or AdGuard Home you cannot add more lists. But they offer many lists so that’s not a big problem. If you need more than 300k queries a month you need to pay for their service. But since NextDNS is a service on the internet it means that you can use it on all of your devices no matter where you are.

    • DigitalDilemma
      5•1 year ago

      Strange we’ve had differing experiences. I’ve only been using Adguard for a couple of months, but the reason I left Pihol was because of its instability! Or at least, the database would constantly get chowned elsewhere when running in docker so I couldn’t whitelist any domains.

      Adguard’s been 100% stable so far for me.

      • Vexz
        4•1 year ago

        As long as it works fine for you I’m glad. :)
        If you’re interested here are my three bad experiences with AGH:

        • The “use AdGuard browsing security web service” option made all DNS queries so slow after a week to the point where nothing was resolved anymore. (That was 2 years ago, maybe fixed now)
        • They removed some library with an update which caused a panic when booting AGH so it wouldn’t start anymore. That library was needed to use the DoH encryption of one of my upstream DNS servers. I had to remove that one from my config.
        • The next update didn’t fix this issue but added another one: A few hours of running this version ( I don’t remember the version number) the AGH service suddenly crashed. I started it again but 5 minutes later it would crash again. That was the point where I stopped using AGH because it didn’t feel reliable anymore and updates only made it worse.
        • DigitalDilemma
          1•1 year ago

          Fair enough!

          It’s just worked out of the box for me - and TIL it actually existed two years ago, I hadn’t heard of it until about six months ago.

          But yes - it’s great to have choices and pihole deserves some extra credit for blazing the trail in this area.

    • @[email protected]
      4•1 year ago

      I currently selfhost AdGuard Home and it works very efficiently. I added custom lists plus personal filters, and as a plus, I exposed the DoT on the web, so I can use the device I “authorized” no matter where I am. Big plus for me

    • @[email protected]English
      3•1 year ago

      You are incorrect. You can add custom lists to NextDNS

      Edit: I am so sorry. Apparently I was completely misremembering my setup.

      The official docs contradict me directly.

      • @darklordcrouton
        2•1 year ago

        I too was under the impression that you couldn’t add custom lists to NextDNS. Last time I researched this everything I found said you couldn’t as well. I know you can build your deny list but that can be time consuming. I do it, but would love to be able to pull block lists that are already compiled. Can you share more info on how to add custom lists to NextDNS? Thanks!

          • @darklordcrouton
            2•1 year ago

            Ahh no worries mate! I do it all the time! 😅

            I have been intending to explore other options outside of NextDNS because I want custom block lists. Just means the plan remains the same! Thanks for the update!