Hey folks, I just realized my pihole server, running on a Ras Pi 3 needs to be rebuilt from scratch. I’ve seen many mentions of AdGuard DNS here though. What’s your thinking on which is better now?
We’re a small family, looking for a basic ad blocking, set it and forget it, solution.
EDIT: I’d prefer the software be open source.
i switched from pihole to adguard because adguard is bsd compatible and runs on my opnsense router. for linux, the main benefit of adguard is that it is a self-contained app-image. pihole is a bit of a mess of packages that it installs (if installing on pc rather than a pi) , rather than being part of a distribution’s native ports. upgrading adguard is also trivial.
I’ve not used anything other than pihole (and browser adblocks), so I can’t speak on them. But pihole seems to do well for me. Granted I do have a bigger Blocklist than what ships. ~1.6 million domains. Some custom to my environment. Also using Wireguard so the blocking happens on smartphones while not at home.
I’ve got Wireguard set up too, for when I’m out of the house. Works really well.
Same; with Tasker tasks setup to automatically enable/disable when I join or leave the home WIFI. Literally set it and forget it.
With so many people complaining about installing/upgrading pihole… Does no-one else use Docker for pihole?
I did, but still encountered issues with the databases going read-only meaning I couldn’t whitelist without going into the container and chown/chmodding them before restarting it.
Yeah the issues are literally why containers are useful.
I’ve never used AdGuard, and I don’t know exactly what the ease-of-use is or how configurable it is, but I think that Pi-Hole is a better option nonetheless. It’s built by the community instead of a corporation, and likely has more/better documentation than its peers.
If you care about DoT or DoH Adguard Home will support it out of the box (which is why I use it)
you can make pi-hole also support DoH/DoT albeit little bit more complicated with an extra service like stubby/unboundotherwise it really doesn’t matter, both are open source and easy to setup for unencrypted dns requests
When I saw that there was a pihole update to a new major version I got so excited hoping it would finally support DoH or DoT - nope. So disappointed.
Sticking with Adguard then.
PiHole is a pain in the ass to install in x86 Arch Linux, so I installed Technitium on my old laptop to be my home DNS server.
I have a laptop at my home that I use as a VPN exit node from Tailscail, and I installed Technitium there, to works also as a ad blocker. Really sweet to my needs.
It works pretty well
Installing pihole on raspbian ‘just works’ but OK.
Does it include filter lists and do those get auto-updated like pihole? What about whitelists and blacklists?
Yes, it does.
Actually with Technitium you can add a list from the internet, so it’s always up-to-date with the deny list you want… And yes, it does have whitelist and blacklist. Is a pretty complete DNS server
AdguardHome has those features as well. What made you choose Technitium over AdguardHome?
I didn’t know AdGuardHome while back when I was looking for a PiHole alternative. That’s why I chose Technitium over AdGuardHome
+1 for the Technitium DNS server. I run it in Docker on a pi4 because I need a proper local dns server first that does DoH and ad and tracker blocking second. It does the latter just as well as pihole and adguard with support for many more list formats but pihole and adguard do dns just on a really basic level.
I’m using nextDNS so I can have it outside of home too. If you want someone to use on your phones when you’re away from home wifi, I’d give that or AdGuard a try. But PiHole is easy to do for home in an SBC or container.
I use PiHole away from home easily with a VPN…
Yup, you can do this pretty easily. But I didn’t want the added latency of another hop wherever I’m on cell service.
I ran Pihole for many years, but a few months ago moved my home to Adguard. Both as docker.
My main issue with Pihole was that the database get going readonly which prevented my from whitelisting domains. It got progressivly more irritating when a 10 second operation would take a quarter of an hour and this randomly happened over at least two of those years with seemingly increasing frequency. A secondary reason was curiosity - what does Adguard do differently?
Piece of cake to set Adguard up in docker - even though I have two servers running with primary/secondary failover. In terms of features, it “just works”. User experience is identical. The lists seem equally as effective. Adding a local dns entry was a little more complicated, but not difficult by any means.
Is pihole bad? No, it’s great. I don’t think many other people encounter my specific issues.
Is Adguard better? Not by any massive margin. Both do what they claim to do without fuss.
Is browsing the internet without either of them considerably more awful? Yes.
Adguard is a little more refined imho.
Ran pinhole for ages and used scripts to update it.
Adguard, everything is built into the UI. Although custom rules for certain clients are a little hard in Adguard.
Now I have a dual system.
Adguard is a secondary and DoH as my primary. That way I have DNS services regardless of if the internet is up or down.
Pihole for years on a Pi3. But it kept dying on me, taking the Internet down with it. I believe this was a micro SD card issue not the Pi or the software. When rebuilding it I took the chance to try AGH and honestly like the interface much better. Seems more logically laid out, at least to me. So now I run one instance on Pi3, another on my unRAID server, with Adguard sync to keep them identical. I’m very happy with this setup.
Is Adguard open source? Glancing at their web, it doesn’t seem to be.
What about nextdns?