--- og_image: "/images/guides/pihole-vs-adguard-home-vs-blocky-2026.webp" title: "Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home vs Blocky 2026: Self-Hosted DNS Blockers" description: "Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, and Blocky compared for DNS ad blocking: UX, performance, encrypted DNS, and homelab vs Pi fit." date: "2026-04-26" author: "OSSAlt Team" tags: ["pi-hole", "adguard-home", "blocky", "dns", "ad-blocker", "self-hosting", "homelab", "privacy"] featured_tool: "pi-hole" --- ## TL;DR All three are network-wide ad blockers — point your router's DNS at them and every device on the LAN is filtered. **Pi-hole** is the elder statesman: huge community, Lua-based engine, group-based per-client policies. **AdGuard Home** is the polished, batteries-included option with the best out-of-the-box UI and native DoH/DoT/DoQ. **Blocky** is the small, fast, YAML-configured Go binary that homelabbers reach for when they want something they can run alongside Prometheus and call from a config repo. ## Key Takeaways - **Pi-hole** v6 unified the API and UI, dropped lighttpd, and shipped first-party encrypted DNS in 2024–2025 - **AdGuard Home** has the easiest setup and the broadest protocol support — DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-QUIC, plus DNSCrypt - **Blocky** is single-binary, ~25 MB, exposes Prometheus metrics natively, and is the only one designed config-file-first - **All three** support upstream DoH/DoT, custom blocklists, per-client overrides, and conditional forwarding for split-DNS - **Best fit**: AdGuard Home for "just works on a Pi"; Pi-hole for "I want the established ecosystem"; Blocky for "I run everything in Kubernetes/compose with monitoring" --- ## Decision Table | Capability | Pi-hole v6 | AdGuard Home | Blocky | |------------|------------|--------------|--------| | License | EUPL-1.2 | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 | | Single-binary install | ❌ (multi-component) | ✅ | ✅ | | Native DoH server | ✅ (v6) | ✅ | ✅ | | Native DoT server | ⚠️ (via cloudflared/unbound) | ✅ | ✅ | | Native DoQ server | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | | Encrypted upstreams | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | Web admin UI | ✅ (rewritten in v6) | ✅ (best in class) | ❌ (community UIs only) | | Prometheus metrics | ⚠️ (exporter) | ⚠️ (exporter) | ✅ (built-in) | | YAML / file-based config | ❌ (DB + UI) | ⚠️ (YAML, but UI editable) | ✅ (file-first) | | Per-client groups | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | Conditional forwarding | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | DHCP server | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | | Memory footprint | ~80 MB | ~60 MB | ~25 MB | | Mobile-friendly UI | ✅ (v6) | ✅ | n/a | --- ## Pi-hole: The Established Standard Pi-hole has defined "DNS-level ad blocker" for over a decade. Version 6 was the largest rewrite in the project's history — the FTL engine now embeds its own HTTP server (replacing lighttpd), the API is REST-first, and the UI was modernized end-to-end. Setup on Raspberry Pi OS is still a one-line installer; Docker users get an official image. **Strengths** - The most documented self-hosted tool in the entire DNS-blocker space - Community-curated blocklists (`StevenBlack`, `oisd`, etc.) treat Pi-hole as the reference target - Group management — assign clients to groups, apply different blocklists per group — is mature - Built-in DHCP server for the "I want one box to do everything" homelab - Long-term-support track record makes it the safest bet for non-technical households **Weaknesses** - Multi-component (FTL + dnsmasq fork + web UI) means the upgrade story is heavier than single-binary alternatives - Older docs and community posts still reference v5 layouts; verify when troubleshooting - DoT support traditionally required `cloudflared` or `unbound` sidecars; v6 simplified this but the ecosystem hasn't caught up The [AdGuard Home self-hosting walkthrough](/guides/how-to-self-host-adguard-home-dns-ad-blocker-2026) shows how the AdGuard install compares step-by-step. --- ## AdGuard Home: The Polished Default AdGuard Home is the open-source project from AdGuard, separate from their commercial product. It is, by a clear margin, the best-looking and easiest-to-onboard of the three. **Strengths** - Web wizard handles initial configuration including LAN binding, encrypted DNS, and admin password - Native support for *every* modern DNS transport — DoH, DoT, DoQ, DNSCrypt — both upstream and downstream - Built-in client identification by MAC, IP range, or ClientID - Excellent default blocklists, including AdGuard's own well-maintained list - "Safe Search" and "Safe Browsing" toggles ship out of the box - Single binary, single config file, trivial to back up **Weaknesses** - Slightly less customizable than Pi-hole at the edges (regex rules, custom DNS records work but feel less native) - DHCP server exists but is less battle-tested than Pi-hole's (which is dnsmasq-based) - AdGuard the company is Russia-incorporated; some compliance-conscious orgs prefer to avoid this. The codebase is open and Go, so a fork is technically straightforward but socially heavy For most new self-hosters, AdGuard Home is the lowest-friction starting point. --- ## Blocky: The Programmer's Choice Blocky is a Go DNS proxy by 0xERR0R designed from day one for the kind of homelab where everything is a `docker-compose.yml`, every service exports Prometheus metrics, and configuration is checked into Git. **Strengths** - Single ~25 MB binary, single YAML config, no database - Prometheus metrics endpoint built in — no separate exporter - Designed to play nicely with monitoring stacks like [Grafana + Loki](/guides/grafana-prometheus-loki-self-hosted-observability-stack-2026) - Caching, conditional upstreams, and bootstrap DNS are all first-class - Excellent for Kubernetes — runs as a `Deployment` with Prometheus scraping out of the box **Weaknesses** - No first-party web UI — community options exist (e.g. `blocky-frontend`) but they're not at parity with Pi-hole or AdGuard - No DHCP server - The "no UI" stance is a feature for some operators and a non-starter for others - Smaller community; expect to read source code occasionally If you're a homelab operator who already runs a metrics stack, Blocky integrates so cleanly that the lack of a UI rarely matters. --- ## Performance and Footprint Throughput differences are mostly noise on a household network. On a single-CPU Raspberry Pi 4 handling ~50 devices and ~150K queries/day: | Tool | Idle RAM | Median query latency | Notable | |------|----------|----------------------|---------| | Pi-hole v6 | ~80 MB | ~3 ms | Multi-process, slightly higher idle CPU | | AdGuard Home | ~60 MB | ~2 ms | Best UI; DoQ available | | Blocky | ~25 MB | ~2 ms | Smallest by far; metrics out of the box | For the vast majority of homes, the differences disappear into normal browser variance. They become meaningful at thousands of devices or in cellular-grade latency budgets — neither of which is a typical home use case. --- ## Who Should Choose What **Choose AdGuard Home if:** - You want the easiest setup and the most modern UI - You care about DoH/DoT/DoQ both directions without sidecars - You're setting this up for a household and need it to "just work" **Choose Pi-hole if:** - You want the most-documented, most-supported option with the largest community - You need group-based per-client policies and a battle-tested DHCP server - You're integrating with Home Assistant or a homelab dashboard that expects Pi-hole **Choose Blocky if:** - You operate the rest of your infra as code and want DNS to follow the same pattern - You already run Prometheus + Grafana and want native metrics - You prefer a single small binary and don't need a UI --- ## Migration Notes - **Pi-hole → AdGuard Home**: Export blocklists and custom rules; AdGuard's import accepts hosts-format lists directly. Per-client groups must be recreated by hand. - **AdGuard Home → Blocky**: The YAML mapping is straightforward — upstreams, blacklists, allowlists all translate. Plan a few hours of testing. - **Blocky → Pi-hole or AdGuard Home**: The hardest direction because you'll be moving from declarative config to UI-managed state. Document blocklist URLs first. A common pattern is to pair any of these with [a CrowdSec install](/guides/how-to-self-host-crowdsec-collaborative-security-2026) — DNS blocking handles ads and trackers, CrowdSec handles brute-force and scanning attempts. --- ## Verdict There is no wrong answer; all three are excellent. For most readers in 2026, AdGuard Home is the right default — it's the easiest path from "router DNS pointed wrong" to "no ads on the TV." Reach for Pi-hole if you want the deepest community and DHCP integration, and reach for Blocky if your homelab already speaks YAML and Prometheus. --- *Related: [How to self-host AdGuard Home](/guides/how-to-self-host-adguard-home-dns-ad-blocker-2026) · [Self-hosting on Raspberry Pi](/guides/self-hosting-raspberry-pi-2026) · [Homelab software stack guide](/guides/homelab-software-stack-guide-2026).*