Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home

Pi-hole — strengths

• Largest community and documentation of any DNS blocker — nearly every homelab guide covers it
• Battle-tested since 2015 with a huge production install base
• Efficient FTL engine with a long-tail query database for detailed historical stats
• Flexible blocking: adlists, regex, and groups, plus the canonical unbound recursive-DNS guide
• Rich third-party ecosystem — Grafana dashboards, mobile apps, and Teleporter backup/restore

Pi-hole — weaknesses

• No built-in encrypted DNS (upstream or server) — needs companion tools
• Per-client/group configuration is less intuitive
• Legacy dnsmasq/lighttpd/PHP heritage (simplified in v6 but still heavier than a single binary)

AdGuard Home — strengths

• Built-in DoH/DoT/DoQ both as an encrypted upstream client and as a server for your own devices
• Single Go binary — no PHP, lighttpd, or dnsmasq dependencies to manage
• Native per-client settings, parental controls, safe search, and scheduled blocking as UI toggles
• Cross-platform binaries (x86, ARM, MIPS) that run on many router firmwares
• Clean, modern web UI out of the box with no extra configuration

AdGuard Home — weaknesses

• Smaller ecosystem of third-party tooling and community dashboards
• Fewer people to ask when you hit an obscure edge case
• Single-vendor (AdGuard) governance versus Pi-hole's community organisation

When Pi-hole fits

• Homelab that wants the most documented, community-supported option: almost every network-ad-blocking tutorial targets Pi-hole, so when something breaks there's an answer within a search or two. For a first self-hosted service this reduces frustration dramatically.
• Privacy-focused user who wants recursive DNS instead of trusting an upstream resolver: Pi-hole's unbound integration is the most widely followed setup, letting you resolve queries yourself rather than forwarding to Google or Cloudflare.

When AdGuard Home fits

• Family that wants parental controls, enforced safe search, and different rules per device without editing blocklists: AdGuard Home exposes all of these as toggles, so a parent can restrict a kid's tablet in a couple of clicks.
• User who wants encrypted DNS for phones on cellular data: AdGuard Home can serve DoH/DoT with a certificate, so mobile devices keep using your filtering even when they leave the home network.

Pi-hole gotchas

• Encrypted upstream DNS (DoH) is not built in — you add cloudflared or unbound as an extra container/step
• Serving encrypted DNS to clients (so phones on cellular use your filtering) needs additional reverse-proxy setup
• Pi-hole v6 (2025) re-architected the web server and API — older guides and scripts that assume the v5 lighttpd/PHP stack or API break
• Per-client filtering via Groups is powerful but the UI is fiddly compared to AdGuard's per-client model

AdGuard Home gotchas

• Community is large but smaller than Pi-hole's — fewer niche third-party dashboards and edge-case guides
• The query log grows quickly on a busy network; set a sensible retention period or it eats disk
• Some DNS-rewrite and local-resolution behaviours differ from dnsmasq, so complex local-DNS setups may need relearning
• On a host running systemd-resolved you must free port 53 first, or AdGuard Home won't bind to it

Choose Pi-hole when

Pick Pi-hole if you want the most documented, community-backed option, you plan to pair it with unbound for recursive DNS, or you value a decade of battle-testing and a huge ecosystem of guides, dashboards, and add-ons.

Choose AdGuard Home when

Pick AdGuard Home if you want built-in encrypted DNS (DoH/DoT/DoQ) with no extra containers, native per-client parental controls and safe search, or a single dependency-free binary that also runs on router firmware.

Migration

Both are DNS sinkholes, so migration is mostly re-adding blocklists and re-pointing clients rather than moving data. Export your Pi-hole adlists (Settings → Teleporter) and re-add the same list URLs in AdGuard Home's filters — popular lists like StevenBlack and OISD work in both. Custom regex and exact-match entries need manual re-entry because AdGuard uses a broader filter syntax. Local DNS records and DHCP reservations must be recreated by hand. The cleanest cut-over is to stand up the new resolver on a different IP, point one test device at it for a day to watch for false positives, then change your router's DNS (or DHCP option 6) once you're satisfied. Keep the old server running until you've confirmed everything resolves.

Frequently asked questions

Can I run Pi-hole and AdGuard Home at the same time?

Technically yes on different IPs or ports, but there's little point — they do the same job and both want port 53. Pick one as your primary resolver. Some people run one on a second device purely as a DNS failover.

Which one blocks more ads?

Roughly the same. Both rely on the same community blocklists (StevenBlack, OISD, etc.), so blocking effectiveness comes from the lists you load, not the engine underneath.

Which is better for encrypted DNS?

AdGuard Home — DoH, DoT, and DoQ are built in, both as an upstream client and as a server for your devices. Pi-hole needs cloudflared or unbound to add an encrypted upstream, and extra proxying to serve encrypted DNS to clients.

Does either include a DHCP server?

Both ship an optional DHCP server so they can assign IPs and log clients by hostname. Only enable it if you first disable DHCP on your router to avoid conflicts.

Which uses fewer resources?

Both are very light. AdGuard Home's single Go binary is marginally leaner at idle, but either runs comfortably on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W or a small container.

What about parental controls and safe search?

AdGuard Home exposes these as built-in toggles — enforced safe search, adult-content filtering, scheduled blocking, and per-client rules. Pi-hole can approximate them with lists and groups but has no dedicated UI for it.

Can I use either with unbound for recursive DNS?

Yes. Both can forward to a local unbound instance so you don't rely on Google or Cloudflare upstreams. Pi-hole's unbound guide is the most widely followed, but the same setup works for AdGuard Home.