Every home network leaks. Your TV phones home. Your kids’ tablets load 40 trackers before the first YouTube video plays. Your ISP’s DNS logs every domain you’ve ever visited. And your browser’s "built-in ad blocker" does exactly nothing at the network level.
DNS-level blocking fixes all of that in one shot — you deploy one service, point your router at it, and every device on the network gets filtered without touching a single app. The two contenders that have dominated this space for years are Pi-hole and AdGuard Home.
The problem is, most comparisons you’ll find online are either outdated or written by someone who ran both for a weekend. This article is different. I’m going to tell you where each one actually hurts, which one wins for a small home network in 2026, and how to get either running with Docker Compose in under 15 minutes.
The Lay of the Land
Pi-hole (GitHub) has been the default answer since 2014. It started as a Raspberry Pi project, became the go-to answer on every homelab subreddit, and built a massive community around it. It’s mature, well-documented, and battle-tested.
AdGuard Home (GitHub) launched in 2018 as a proper DNS server from day one, not a wrapper. The team behind it also makes AdGuard’s commercial products, which means they have real incentives to keep the blocklist quality high and the software competitive.
Both are free, open-source, and self-hosted. The philosophical differences are what matter.
Architecture: Where They Actually Differ
Pi-hole is, at its core, a dnsmasq wrapper with a PHP/lighttpd web frontend bolted on. It works, but you’re carrying a bunch of Linux dependencies around with you. The Docker image has gotten better, but it still needs careful host-network configuration to work properly, especially on systems where port 53 is already grabbed by systemd-resolved.
AdGuard Home is a single statically-compiled Go binary. It ships its own DNS server implementation, its own DHCP server, and its own web UI — all in one executable. In Docker, this simplicity is a genuine advantage.
This isn’t a knock on Pi-hole. Dnsmasq is rock solid. But the architectural difference has real consequences for:
- Container portability
- Port conflict handling
- Upstream DNS protocol support
- Maintenance overhead
Feature Comparison, Straight Up
Upstream DNS Protocols
AdGuard Home supports DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), DNS-over-TLS (DoT), DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ), and plain DNS out of the box. You configure upstream resolvers in the UI, and that’s it — no extra packages, no stunnel, no unbound.
Pi-hole supports plain DNS natively. For DoH or DoT, you need to install unbound as a local recursive resolver, or run cloudflared as a DoH proxy, and wire them together yourself. It works, but it’s three moving parts instead of one.
Winner: AdGuard Home — unless you actually enjoy configuring unbound (which, honestly, some people do).
Blocklists and Filtering Rules
Pi-hole uses a gravity system — it pulls blocklists on a schedule and compiles them into a SQLite database. AdGuard Home uses its own filtering rule syntax that’s compatible with AdBlock syntax (the same format used by uBlock Origin). This means you can directly import virtually any blocklist from Filterlists.com or FilterLists without conversion.
AdGuard Home’s rule engine is also more expressive. You can write rules like:
||ads.example.com^$important
@@||cdn.example.com^
Pi-hole’s wildcard blocking is possible but clunkier — you’d use a custom regex or additional config files.
Winner: AdGuard Home for power users, tie for anyone just loading standard blocklists.
DHCP Server
Both have one. AdGuard Home’s is built-in and works out of the box. Pi-hole’s DHCP is also built-in via dnsmasq. Neither is better here — if you have a router that handles DHCP fine, you’ll never use this feature anyway.
Client Identification
This is where Pi-hole has historically lagged. AdGuard Home identifies clients by hostname (pulled from its DHCP table or reverse DNS) and lets you apply per-client filtering rules. You can whitelist a specific device from a particular blocklist, or block social media only on certain clients.
Pi-hole added per-client groups in v5, so the gap has closed. But AdGuard Home’s implementation is more intuitive.
Query Logging and Statistics
Both have dashboards with query logs, top blocked domains, and top clients. Pi-hole’s is more customizable and has better long-term retention options. AdGuard Home keeps it simple — solid filtering, but the analytics depth isn’t quite there for obsessive log-watchers.
Winner: Pi-hole if you like staring at graphs.
Docker Compose Setup
Here’s the production-grade setup for both. Pick one, not both — running two DNS servers on the same host is asking for confusion.
AdGuard Home
# docker-compose.yml
services:
adguardhome:
image: adguard/adguardhome:latest
container_name: adguardhome
restart: unless-stopped
# Required for proper DNS operation — AdGuard needs to
# bind on port 53 and see real client IPs
network_mode: host
volumes:
# Persistent config and work directories
- ./adguard/work:/opt/adguardhome/work
- ./adguard/conf:/opt/adguardhome/conf
# Only needed on first run (setup wizard)
# After setup, port 3000 is replaced by 80/443
# ports:
# - "3000:3000"
After docker compose up -d, navigate to http://<host-ip>:3000 for the initial setup wizard. It walks you through port selection and admin credentials. Takes about two minutes.
Once configured, AdGuard Home listens on port 53 for DNS and whatever port you chose for the web UI (default 80 or 3000).
Pi-hole
# docker-compose.yml
services:
pihole:
image: pihole/pihole:latest
container_name: pihole
restart: unless-stopped
# host network OR careful port mapping — see gotcha below
network_mode: host
environment:
# Change this
WEBPASSWORD: "changeme"
# Your local timezone for accurate log timestamps
TZ: "Europe/Berlin"
# Optional: upstream DNS (defaults to Google if unset)
PIHOLE_DNS_: "1.1.1.1;1.0.0.1"
volumes:
- ./pihole/etc-pihole:/etc/pihole
- ./pihole/etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d
Web UI is at http://<host-ip>/admin. Password is whatever you set in WEBPASSWORD.
The Port 53 Problem
This is the single most common reason people bounce off both products. On modern Ubuntu/Debian systems (and many others), systemd-resolved binds to 127.0.0.53:53. Your DNS server can’t start because the port is taken.
The fix:
# Disable the stub listener but keep name resolution working
sudo sed -i 's/#DNSStubListener=yes/DNSStubListener=no/' /etc/systemd/resolved.conf
# Create the symlink so /etc/resolv.conf points to the right place
sudo ln -sf /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
# Apply
sudo systemctl restart systemd-resolved
After this, port 53 is free and your Docker container can bind to it.
Gotcha: Don’t just disable systemd-resolved entirely (
systemctl disable --now systemd-resolved). It will break hostname resolution for the host itself until you manually configure/etc/resolv.conf. The stub listener toggle is the surgical fix.
Router Configuration
Once your DNS server is running, point your router’s DHCP settings to serve your server’s IP as the DNS server for all clients. Most home routers have this under LAN Settings → DHCP Server → Primary DNS.
For split-brain setups or networks where you can’t touch the router (rental, corporate VPN, etc.), you can run the DNS server with DHCP enabled and let it take over from the router’s DHCP.
Resource Usage
Both are light. On an idle system:
- AdGuard Home: ~30-50MB RAM, <1% CPU. Single binary, no extra processes.
- Pi-hole: ~80-120MB RAM (PHP, lighttpd, dnsmasq all resident). Still trivially small.
On a Raspberry Pi 2B or a $5 VPS, this difference doesn’t matter. On a shared homelab box running 20 other containers, AdGuard Home’s lighter footprint is mildly appreciated.
Gotchas
AdGuard Home resets its config on container recreation. The conf volume mount is critical. If you forget it and run docker compose down && docker compose up, you’re back at the setup wizard. Always back up /opt/adguardhome/conf/AdGuardHome.yaml.
Pi-hole’s gravity update needs a cron job. By default it doesn’t update blocklists automatically in Docker — you need to either exec into the container periodically or set up a cron:
# Run gravity update weekly from the host
echo "0 3 * * 0 docker exec pihole pihole -g" | crontab -
AdGuard Home on ARM64 (Raspberry Pi 4/5): The latest tag covers arm64, but pull the arm64v8 variant explicitly if you’re having issues:
image: adguard/adguardhome:arm64v8-latest
Upstream DNS choice matters more than the blocker. Both products are only as private as the upstream DNS you configure. Default Pi-hole uses Google. Default AdGuard Home uses AdGuard’s own resolvers. If privacy is your motivation, configure Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 with DoH), or better — run unbound as a local recursive resolver and point AdGuard/Pi-hole at 127.0.0.1:5335.
DNSSEC: AdGuard Home has a one-click DNSSEC toggle. Pi-hole needs unbound or a DNSSEC-validating upstream. If you care about response integrity, this is another point for AdGuard Home.
Blocked legitimate services: Both products will occasionally break something. The most common culprits are Microsoft telemetry lists blocking Windows Update-adjacent domains, and aggressive social media blocklists breaking login flows on other sites. Maintain a personal whitelist and add to it without guilt. The goal is practical filtering, not ideological purity.
Production-Ready Tips
Use a static IP for the DNS server. Sounds obvious, but I’ve watched people DHCP their Pi-hole and then wonder why the entire network loses DNS when the lease renews to a different IP. Assign it a static address either at the router level (DHCP reservation by MAC) or in the OS itself.
Don’t run only one DNS server. Configure your router to serve a secondary DNS. Many people use 8.8.8.8 as fallback, which defeats the purpose if the Pi-hole goes down — clients will silently bypass it. A better option: run two instances of AdGuard Home (primary and replica with synced config via AdGuard Home Sync), or run Pi-hole + AdGuard on two different physical hosts.
Log retention: For a home network, keep query logs for 24-72 hours. Longer than that and you’re building a surveillance database of your own household. AdGuard Home caps logs at 90 days by default — dial it down.
Test your setup before calling it done:
# Should return NXDOMAIN or 0.0.0.0 (blocked)
dig @<your-dns-server-ip> ads.google.com
# Should resolve normally
dig @<your-dns-server-ip> github.com
# Check what your machines are actually using
cat /etc/resolv.conf
So Which One Do You Run?
After running both on real home networks for years, here’s the honest take:
Choose AdGuard Home if:
- You want DoH/DoT without extra configuration
- You’re new to self-hosted DNS and want a smoother setup experience
- You’re running a minimal host (VPS, Pi Zero, embedded box)
- You care about DNSSEC out of the box
Choose Pi-hole if:
- You’re already running it and it works — don’t fix what isn’t broken
- You want deeper query analytics and long-term statistics
- Your network has complex conditional forwarding requirements (Pi-hole’s dnsmasq underpinning is more configurable)
- You have an existing homelab community using Pi-hole’s API integrations
For a fresh install in 2026 on a small home network, AdGuard Home is the better starting point. It’s simpler to deploy, handles modern DNS protocols natively, and the UI has matured to the point where it’s genuinely pleasant to use. The architectural cleanliness of a single Go binary also means fewer "why did this break at 3am" moments.
Pi-hole isn’t dead — it’s just showing its age compared to a project designed from the ground up with modern DNS in mind. If the Pi-hole team does a ground-up rewrite of the DNS engine (there have been rumblings), that calculation might shift again.
Either way, you’re blocking ads at the network level, you’re encrypting your DNS queries, and you’re not paying Cloudflare or Google to see every domain your household visits. That’s the win, regardless of which binary serves it.