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Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home: Which DNS Ad Blocker Wins in 2026?

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• 6 min read

Browser extensions like uBlock Origin are great. Really, they are. But they only protect one browser on one device. Your smart TV? Still showing ads. Your phone apps? Tracking you constantly. Your kid's tablet? Good luck installing extensions on that.

Network-wide ad blocking solves this by filtering DNS requests at the source. Every device on your network, from your laptop to your smart fridge, gets ad blocking without installing anything. Set your router to use your ad-blocking DNS server, and you're done.

The two heavyweights in this space are Pi-hole and AdGuard Home. Both are free, open-source, and excellent at what they do. But they're not identical, and picking the right one depends on what you value.

I've run both extensively. Let me break down the differences so you can make an informed choice.

The Contenders

Pi-hole: The Veteran

Pi-hole launched in 2014 and quickly became the default recommendation for self-hosted ad blocking. Originally designed to run on a Raspberry Pi (hence the name), it's battle-tested software with a massive community behind it.

The project is built on established Linux tools like dnsmasq and lighttpd. It's reliable, well-documented, and has an answer for almost every problem you might encounter on forums and Reddit threads.

AdGuard Home: The Modern Challenger

AdGuard Home came along in 2018, built from scratch as a single Go binary. The AdGuard team already had years of experience with their commercial ad-blocking products, and they brought that knowledge to this open-source project.

It's designed with modern DNS privacy standards baked in from day one. No additional setup required for encrypted DNS, parental controls, or per-client settings.

Installation: Docker Setup for Both

Both options run beautifully in Docker, which is my recommended approach. If you're new to containers, check out my Docker for self-hosting beginners guide first.

You can run either on a spare Raspberry Pi, an old laptop, or a cheap VPS. For a VPS, I recommend Hetzner for their excellent price-to-performance ratio, or Vultr if you need more geographic options. My VPS setup guide covers the basics.

Pi-hole Docker Compose

version: "3"

services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      - "80:80/tcp"
    environment:
      TZ: 'Europe/London'
      WEBPASSWORD: 'your-secure-password-here'
      FTLCONF_LOCAL_IPV4: '192.168.1.100'  # Your server's IP
    volumes:
      - './etc-pihole:/etc/pihole'
      - './etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d'
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    restart: unless-stopped

After running docker compose up -d, access the web interface at http://your-server-ip/admin.

Important: If port 53 is already in use (common on Ubuntu with systemd-resolved), you'll need to disable it first:

sudo systemctl disable systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl stop systemd-resolved
sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf

AdGuard Home Docker Compose

version: "3"

services:
  adguardhome:
    container_name: adguardhome
    image: adguard/adguardhome:latest
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      - "3000:3000/tcp"  # Initial setup
      - "80:80/tcp"      # Web interface after setup
      - "443:443/tcp"    # HTTPS
      - "853:853/tcp"    # DNS-over-TLS
    volumes:
      - './workdir:/opt/adguardhome/work'
      - './confdir:/opt/adguardhome/conf'
    restart: unless-stopped

First run takes you to http://your-server-ip:3000 for initial setup. After that, the interface moves to port 80 (or 443 if you configure HTTPS).

Notice how AdGuard Home exposes more ports by default? That's because encrypted DNS support is built-in. With Pi-hole, you'd need additional containers and configuration to achieve the same thing.

Feature Comparison

UI and User Experience

Pi-hole has a functional dashboard that shows you what you need: queries over time, blocked percentages, top domains, and top clients. It's not going to win design awards, but it's clear and gets the job done. The interface feels a bit dated, like enterprise software from 2015.

AdGuard Home has a noticeably more modern interface. It's cleaner, more intuitive, and just feels nicer to use. Dark mode works well. The query log is easier to navigate, and client management is more straightforward. Small thing, but you'll be looking at this dashboard occasionally, and it's nice when it doesn't feel like a chore.

Winner: AdGuard Home

DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS

This is where the gap is most obvious.

Pi-hole doesn't support encrypted DNS out of the box. You need to set up additional software like cloudflared or dnscrypt-proxy as a companion container. It works, but it's extra complexity you have to manage.

AdGuard Home has native support for DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), DNS-over-TLS (DoT), and even DNSCrypt. Toggle it on in settings, point it at your SSL certificate, done. You can also use it as an encrypted DNS client to your upstream servers with zero additional setup.

If you're running this on a VPS and want your DNS queries encrypted between your devices and your server, AdGuard Home makes this trivially easy. With Pi-hole, you're looking at a more complex setup.

Winner: AdGuard Home, by a mile

Filtering Capabilities

Pi-hole uses blocklists (called "adlists") to filter domains. It comes with a default list and you can add community-maintained lists. Gravity (Pi-hole's update mechanism) downloads and compiles these lists. You can also add custom whitelist and blacklist entries.

AdGuard Home does all of this, plus it supports AdGuard's own filter syntax, which allows for more granular rules. You can block specific URL patterns, not just entire domains. It also has built-in "safe browsing" and "parental control" filters you can enable with a checkbox.

Both support regex filtering for power users. Both let you add custom rules. AdGuard Home just gives you more options out of the box.

Winner: AdGuard Home

Per-Client Settings

Pi-hole treats all clients the same by default. You can create groups and assign clients to different blocklists, but the interface for this isn't intuitive. It works, it's just clunky.

AdGuard Home has proper per-client configuration in the UI. Want to enable safe search for your kid's devices but not yours? Easy. Want stricter filtering on the smart TV? A few clicks. You can set different upstream DNS servers, different filtering rules, and different settings per device or client group.

Winner: AdGuard Home

Stats and Logging

Both offer solid query logging and statistics. Pi-hole's pihole -t command for live tail of queries is beloved by its users. The long-term statistics in both are good enough for most people.

AdGuard Home's query log feels slightly more useful with better filtering options, but Pi-hole's gravity database and FTL engine are rock solid. This one's close.

Winner: Tie

Resource Usage

Pi-hole is lightweight but runs multiple processes (FTL, lighttpd, PHP). On a Raspberry Pi Zero, you'll feel the constraints. Expect around 100-150MB of RAM usage in typical setups.

AdGuard Home is a single Go binary. It's generally lighter on resources, using around 50-100MB of RAM. On very constrained hardware, this matters.

Winner: AdGuard Home

Update Frequency and Development

Pi-hole has slower, more conservative updates. The project prioritizes stability over features. Major versions are years apart. This is either good (stable) or bad (stagnant) depending on your perspective.

AdGuard Home gets more frequent updates with new features. The team is actively developing it alongside their commercial products. Sometimes this means minor bugs in new releases, but issues get fixed quickly.

Winner: Depends on your preference

Community and Support

Pi-hole has been around longer and has a massive community. Whatever problem you encounter, someone has probably solved it and posted about it. The subreddit is active, the documentation is extensive, and tutorials are everywhere.

AdGuard Home has a smaller but growing community. Documentation is good, and the GitHub issues are responsive. You might occasionally hit a problem without an existing solution online.

Winner: Pi-hole

When to Choose Pi-hole

Pi-hole is still an excellent choice if:

  • You value stability over features. Pi-hole is battle-tested. It works, and it keeps working. Updates don't break things.
  • You already know it. If you've been running Pi-hole for years and it does everything you need, there's no compelling reason to migrate.
  • You need community support. The sheer volume of Pi-hole tutorials, forum posts, and Reddit threads means help is always available.
  • You want to learn. Setting up encrypted DNS alongside Pi-hole teaches you more about how these systems work. Sometimes the harder path is the more educational one.

When to Choose AdGuard Home

AdGuard Home makes more sense if:

  • You want encrypted DNS without the hassle. DoH and DoT just work. No companion containers, no complex configs.
  • You have multiple users with different needs. Per-client settings are genuinely useful for families or shared networks.
  • You're starting fresh. No existing setup to migrate means you might as well use the more modern option.
  • You're running on limited hardware. The lighter resource footprint matters on a Pi Zero or cheap VPS.
  • You want a nicer interface. You'll look at this dashboard regularly. Might as well enjoy it.

My Recommendation

For most people setting up network-wide ad blocking in 2024, I recommend AdGuard Home.

Here's why: the features that matter most for a good DNS filtering experience, encrypted DNS, per-client controls, and a usable interface, are all better in AdGuard Home out of the box. You don't have to configure additional software or learn workarounds.

Pi-hole is still solid software, and if you're already running it happily, there's no urgent reason to switch. But if you're starting fresh, AdGuard Home gives you a more complete solution with less friction.

The encrypted DNS support alone is worth it. Running your ad-blocking DNS on a Hetzner VPS or Vultr instance and connecting to it via DoT means your ISP can't see your DNS queries. With Pi-hole, achieving the same thing requires additional setup that most people skip.

Both are free. Both are open source. Both will block ads effectively. But AdGuard Home is the one I'd recommend to a friend setting this up for the first time.

Whichever you choose, you're making a good decision. Network-wide ad blocking is one of the highest-impact things you can self-host. Your network will be faster, cleaner, and more private. And unlike browser extensions, it just works for everything.

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