Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home

Both tools block ads and trackers by acting as a DNS server for your network, so nothing has to be installed on each device. Both are free, open-source software and both include an optional built-in DHCP server and a REST API. Pi-hole's licence file says EUPL v1.2; AdGuard Home is GPL-3.0.

Pi-hole runs in Docker or on supported Linux distributions (Alpine, Armbian, Debian, CentOS Stream, Fedora, Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu) and needs a static IP address. Its feature list includes client groups, allow and deny lists, regex rules, a query log, and Teleporter for backing up configuration. AdGuard Home installs on Linux, Unix, macOS, FreeBSD and OpenBSD via a script, and also ships as a Snap and a Docker image; it can run without root privileges.

AdGuard Home's repository lists DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS and DNSCrypt upstream servers, serving DoH or DoT itself, parental control, safe search and per-client configuration. AdGuard's own comparison table says Pi-hole needs extra software for encrypted upstream DNS and non-default blocklists for parental control; that is AdGuard's claim, and the Pi-hole pages we read do not address it either way.

Both are funded differently: Pi-hole's docs say volunteers cover costs and ask for donations, while AdGuard Home's pages we read state no price or donation request. Either is a reasonable choice, so the decision mostly comes down to the platform you run it on and whether you want encrypted DNS built in.