Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home: Which DNS Ad Blocker Should You Self-Host in 2026?

The Problem

You want to block ads on every device in your house. No more fighting with browser extensions. No more ads on your smart TV. No more tracking on your phone’s apps.

Two names keep coming up: Pi-hole and AdGuard Home.

I’ve been running both for six months — Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi 4 and AdGuard Home on a Docker instance. I switched my whole family’s DNS between them, watched the logs, annoyed them with “can you check if this page works now?” messages, and formed some strong opinions.

Here’s the truth: they’re not the same thing, and the right choice depends on what you actually want.

TL;DR

Pick Pi-hole if:

• You want something that sips resources on a Raspberry Pi Zero
• You like the idea of a tiny, focused tool that does one thing well
• You’re comfortable with the terminal for setup and occasional debugging
• You want a massive plugin ecosystem (yes, a DNS blocker has plugins)

Pick AdGuard Home if:

• You want a beautiful UI that you can hand to a non-technical family member
• You need DHCP server, DNS-over-HTTPS, and adblocking in one package
• You want out-of-the-box encrypted DNS (DoH/DoT/DNSCrypt)
• You prefer batteries-included over “install and configure this separately”

The Quick History

Pi-hole has been around since 2015. It started as a simple project on a Raspberry Pi (hence the name) and grew into the de-facto standard for network-level ad blocking. It’s written in C, uses a lightweight web server (lighttpd), and relies on dnsmasq under the hood.

AdGuard Home is newer — it hit v0.1 in 2019 and matured fast. It’s written in Go, comes with a full web dashboard, and includes DHCP server, DNS encryption, and parental controls out of the box. The company behind it also makes the excellent AdGuard browser extensions, so they’ve got serious adblocking pedigree.

I started with Pi-hole four years ago. I switched to AdGuard Home last year. Then I switched back to Pi-hole for a month just to write this honestly. Both are good. They’re just different.

Setup and First Impressions

Pi-hole

Installing Pi-hole is a one-liner:

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

Or you can run it in Docker. I’ve done both. The installer walks you through choosing your upstream DNS, setting up the web interface password, and configuring your network.

The web UI is functional. It’s not ugly, but it’s not winning design awards either. You get a dashboard with query volume, top blocked domains, and graphs. That’s about it.

The hardest part is configuring your router to use Pi-hole as the DNS server. Every router does it differently, and some consumer routers make it impossible without using DHCP from Pi-hole itself.

AdGuard Home

Same one-liner energy:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome/master/scripts/install.sh | bash

Or Docker (my preferred method):

services:
  adguardhome:
    image: adguard/adguardhome:latest
    container_name: adguardhome
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      - "3000:3000/tcp"
    volumes:
      - ./work:/opt/adguardhome/work
      - ./conf:/opt/adguardhome/conf
    restart: unless-stopped

The first-run wizard is the best onboarding I’ve seen in any self-hosted tool. It walks you through admin interface setup, DNS settings, encrypted DNS configuration, and even offers to set itself up as a DHCP server in case your router doesn’t let you change DNS.

Winner: AdGuard Home — The setup wizard is just better. If you’re not a networking nerd, this matters.

Blocking Performance

I ran both with their default configurations for a week. Then I added the same popular blocklists to both (OISD, StevenBlack’s Unified, EasyList) for another week.

Results: they blocked almost exactly the same number of queries. Like, within 1% of each other.

That makes sense — both can use the same blocklists. The blocking engine itself is just pattern matching. Pi-hole uses dnsmasq with a massive hosts file approach. AdGuard Home has its own filtering engine. Both catch the same stuff.

Where it gets interesting is beyond blocking. AdGuard Home’s filtering engine supports DNS rewrites, custom filtering rules with $dnsrewrite, and per-client rules. Pi-hole can do this too through configuration files, but AdGuard Home’s UI makes it trivial.

Winner: Tie — same blocklists, same results. The difference is in the extra features.

Features Face-off

That table tells the real story. Pi-hole is more minimalist, AdGuard Home is more feature-complete.

Performance and Resource Usage

I tested both on the exact same hardware: a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB RAM.

Pi-hole: ~80MB RAM idle, <1% CPU. It’s a ghost. You barely know it’s running.

AdGuard Home: ~120MB RAM idle, ~2% CPU during bursts. Still tiny by modern standards, but noticeably heavier.

On a Raspberry Pi Zero? Pi-hole runs fine with 40MB RAM. AdGuard Home will work but it’s pushing it — expect swap usage.

Winner: Pi-hole — if you’re running on ancient hardware or a Pi Zero, Pi-hole is the clear choice.

The Web UI

This is where opinions get spicy.

Pi-hole’s web interface has the energy of an intern project that shipped and never got a redesign. It works. It shows you the data. But it looks like it’s from 2015 because… it is.

AdGuard Home’s UI is clean, modern, and actually pleasant to use. Query logs are searchable and filterable. Stats are presented with real charts. You can manage everything from the UI — blocklists, rules, clients, upstream DNS, all of it.

I showed both to my partner (zero technical interest). Pi-hole got a “ok, cool I guess.” AdGuard Home got a “oh nice, this is actually pretty.”

That matters if you’re not the only person managing your network.

Winner: AdGuard Home — it’s not even close.

DNS Encryption

Pi-hole doesn’t do DoH, DoT, or DNSCrypt out of the box. You need to set up dnscrypt-proxy or stubby as a separate container, then point Pi-hole at it. I’ve done this. It works. But it’s extra complexity.

AdGuard Home has all of it built-in. You check a box in the setup wizard. Done.

If you care about encrypted DNS (and you should — it prevents your ISP from seeing every single domain you visit), this is a significant differentiator.

Winner: AdGuard Home — built-in, configurable in 2 clicks.

Community and Ecosystem

Pi-hole has been around for almost a decade. The community is massive. There are blocklists, tools, plugins, and documentation for everything. Pi-hole’s community repositories include things like “pihole-adlist-tool” and “pihole-updatelists” that make management easier.

AdGuard Home’s ecosystem is smaller but growing. The AdGuard team maintains excellent blocklists, and the built-in tools in the UI reduce the need for external scripts.

Winner: Pi-hole — time matters. A larger community means more solutions when something breaks.

What I Actually Use Now

After six months of switching back and forth, here’s my real setup:

I run AdGuard Home as my primary DNS blocker. The UI matters to me, and the built-in DNS encryption means I don’t need a separate container. My family’s devices all point to it.

But I keep a Pi-hole instance running on my backup Raspberry Pi Zero. It draws so little power that I just leave it on. If my main server goes down, I flip my router’s DNS to the Pi-hole and nothing changes. It’s a $15 insurance policy.

Honestly? You can’t go wrong with either. They both block ads. They both protect your privacy. They both let you take control of your network.

The real question is: do you want minimalist and lightweight, or polished and feature-rich?

Pick Pi-hole if you love tinkering and want something that runs on a potato.

Pick AdGuard Home if you want a beautiful, all-in-one solution that just works.

What’s Next

Whichever you pick, here’s what to do now:

1. Deploy it on your network (Docker or bare metal, both work)
2. Configure your router to use it as DNS
3. Watch your query logs for a week — you’ll be shocked at what your devices phone home to
4. Start adding blocklists and custom rules

I wrote about AdGuard Home setup in detail here if you want the step-by-step. And if you’re still figuring out your server setup, the beginners guide will get you sorted.

Your network, your rules. Pick one and start blocking.