Most DNS guides gloss over the real differences between Pi hole, AdGuard Home, and NextDNS. This article cuts through the fluff and explains how local filtering, cloud DNS, blocklists, and threat intelligence actually work under the hood. If you need to understand what protects you, what logs are created, and what setup fits your threat model, start here.
People argue about these tools like they’re different religions. They’re not. They’re just different ways of doing the same core job, stop your devices from phoning home to places you never agreed to.
But there are differences. It’s about where the filtering happens, whose logs get created, and what “threat intelligence” actually means in practice. Here’s the straight breakdown so you stop guessing and pick the right tool for your own threat model.
The Real Decision Point
You just need to know the difference between local filtering vs cloud filtering vs hybrid filtering. Everything else is noise. Local means the decision is made inside your house and no one sees the request except you. Cloud means you’re routing DNS to someone else and trusting they’ll behave. Hybrid blends the two.
That’s the only real decision points that matter.
Pi hole
Local filtering. No middleman.
Pi hole is the old school choice. A Linux box running dnsmasq, gravity lists, and a giant blacklist of ad and telemetry domains. Every device on your network points its DNS at the Pi and the Pi decides yes or no. That’s it.
What it does well
- Full local control
- No external logs
- Massive blocklists
- Easy to extend with custom rules
- Great for static home networks
Where it fails
- No encrypted DNS by default
- Limited threat intelligence
- Device fingerprinting leaks still slip through
- Weak against fast changing ad networks
- Single point of failure
Who Pi hole protects
People who want a simple quiet network and don’t care about advanced analytics. It’s a good baseline but not a good choice if your threat model includes mobile surveillance, ISP level profiling, or travel. Pi hole has fewer features than AdGuard but that also means it has fewer things that can break. It’s the “do one thing and do it well” option, which is exactly why some people prefer it.
AdGuard Home
Local filtering plus better features. Same concept as Pi hole but built for modern networks.
What it does well
- Local control
- DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS
- Per device rules
- Built in safe search, parental controls, anonymized statistics
- Faster updates than Pi hole
- More flexible UI
Where it fails
- Still local only
- Blocklists aren’t as deep as cloud DNS filters
- Not as strong against evasive adtech
- Still a single point of failure on small hardware
Who AdGuard protects
People who want something stronger and more modern than Pi hole without sending DNS to a cloud provider. A OpenWrt router running AdGuard is a great middle ground. This is the normie everyman setup unless your threat model demands more.
NextDNS
Cloud filtering, but with threat intel weight behind it.
NextDNS is a cloud DNS provider with a full stack filtering engine using blocklists, telemetry signatures, device fingerprint patterns, CDN heuristics, and third party threat feeds. That depth and reach matters. Threat intelligence is about scale.
There are several other cloud DNS providers such as cloudflare, google, etc but NextDNS is a easy recommendation to make.
What it does well
- Industry grade threat intelligence
- Advanced blocklists
- Per device analytics
- Per device profiles
- Instant rule changes
- Automatic filtering for new trackers
- DNSSEC, DoT, DoH everywhere
- Works on hostile networks
Where it fails
- Trust problem
- It’s still a centralized cloud resolver
- Logs exist unless you disable them
- You’re depending on someone’s backend decisions
- Devices still leak if the VPN or DoH fails
Who NextDNS protects
People whose main threat is modern adtech, cross app trackers, mobile telemetry, and CDN based profiling. It’s one of the best cloud option for filtering but it trades autonomy for protection.
Adding a Recursive Resolver
Pi hole and AdGuard Home don’t include a recursive resolver by default. They act as DNS forwarders, passing your queries to an upstream resolver like Cloudflare, Quad9, or NextDNS. Adding your own resolver gives you full control over what happens before any DNS query ever hits the public internet. You validate DNSSEC yourself. You cut out third party resolvers. You eliminate silent rewrites from ISPs. And you remove the trust requirement from cloud filtering services. The downside is that it adds CPU load, requires tuning and updates, and you lose the benefit of large scale threat intelligence.
The Real Differences That Actually Matter
1. Where the logs live
- Pi hole: your house
- AdGuard Home: your house
- NextDNS: their servers unless you disable retention
If you don’t want your DNS logs in someone else’s jurisdiction, cloud filtering is out. Full stop.
2. Blocklist intelligence
- Pi hole: community lists
- AdGuard: curated but lighter
- NextDNS: massive global threat models
If you want cutting edge filtering NextDNS will do it.
3. Failure behavior
- Pi hole fails open if it crashes
- AdGuard Home usually fails open
- NextDNS fails closed only if you configure fallback rules correctly
Your privacy collapses the moment a device switches to a fallback resolver. That’s where most setups break.
4. Network type
Home networks love Pi hole or AdGuard because latency is low and stability is high. Travel, LTE, and hostile networks need NextDNS or a private resolver behind a WireGuard tunnel.
5. Threat model
This is the real decider.
If your threat is:
- ISPs rewriting DNS
- Carrier grade NAT
- Public WiFi manipulation
- Mobile OS telemetry
You need NextDNS or a private recursive resolver behind WireGuard.
If your threat is:
- Ads
- Tracking scripts
- Basic data brokers
Then Pi hole or AdGuard will do the job.
What I Actually Recommend
The practical stack that stops real leaks:
Baseline
AdGuard Home on a OpenWrt router for LAN devices. Great filtering, great speed, no external logs.
Mobile
NextDNS on your phone with logs disabled and threat protection dependent on need. Your phone leaks more than anything else you own. You need the latest intel there. Add WireGuard if you need access to your home network while away.
Level Up
Start with the baseline and then build your own recursive resolver on a separate device other than your router (i.e. ZeroSentinel) so that every DNS request goes through your node before hitting the internet. That’s maximum autonomy.
High security
This is when you start building a real network that can handle threats and start adding more powerful firewall and routing software like OPNSense network and analysis and threat detection software like Suricata. Out of scope for this article but will be covered in future guide.
Final Word
Pick the tool that matches your threat model. Pick the one that protects the signals you actually leak. Everything else is marketing.
Claw it back.
-GHOST
Written by GHOST, creator of the Untraceable Digital Dissident project.
This is part of the Untraceable Digital Dissident series — tactical privacy for creators and rebels.
Explore more privacy tactics at untraceabledigitaldissident.com.
- Network Privacy Hub – Kill DNS leaks, VPN failures, and ISP logging.