Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home: which should you choose for privacy?

What this comparison can help you decide

This article compares documented Pi-hole v6 and AdGuard Home features, checked on 2 October 2026. It is not a performance test conducted on our network: no throughput, latency or blocking rate was measured for this article. Recommendations are an assessment of those features and their administrative consequences.

AdGuard Home here means the software you host. It is distinct from the hosted AdGuard DNS service and AdGuard blocking applications. Pi-hole is also local DNS-filtering software. With either, you provide hosting and handle updates; free software does not eliminate electricity or maintenance work.

The differences, criterion by criterion

The table distinguishes built-in features from additional components. “Available” does not mean “enabled”, and HTTPS for administration does not mean DNS queries are encrypted. Logging rows describe documented controls, not a promise of private defaults.

Encrypted DNS gives AdGuard Home a practical advantage

If you want to send lookups to an external resolver over DoH or DoT, AdGuard Home reduces the number of components to install. A common Pi-hole arrangement adds a local proxy: Pi-hole forwards queries to it and the proxy encrypts the upstream connection. This can meet the same need with an additional configuration to maintain.

Consider three separate paths: device to filter, filter to upstream resolver, and device to website. Encrypting the second does not automatically encrypt the first. Opening administration over HTTPS changes neither DNS path. Pi-hole v6 does have an integrated HTTPS web server; repeating an older comparison’s blanket claim that it lacks HTTPS would be wrong.

AdGuard Home also includes protocols for serving encrypted DNS to your devices. You still need certificates, renewal and client configuration. A service does not become private merely because it responds over TLS. For household use, restrict access to the intended people and networks.

Local hosting changes who you trust

A local filter gives you control over rules and can keep logs at home. Allowed queries may still leave for a public resolver. Encryption prevents some intermediaries from reading that connection; the resolver still needs the names to answer. Choose that operator, its retention policy and its settings as carefully as the installed software.

Adding Unbound in recursive mode avoids handing every lookup to one public recursive resolver. It does not turn DNS into an anonymous network: servers in the hierarchy receive necessary queries, and ordinary recursion does not provide general encryption of those exchanges. DNSSEC concerns the authenticity of signed data, not confidentiality.

A preference for a simpler or more modular architecture is therefore not a universal privacy verdict. Inspect configured flows and retained data. Two installations of the same software can have very different properties.

Logs deserve as much attention as blocklists

Pi-hole documents a 91-day default for database.maxDBdays. Setting it to 0 disables that database; this is not a switch that erases every system log. Privacy levels can also reduce retained detail. Level 3 disables the query log and long-term database logging, among other details.

AdGuard Home separates query log settings from statistics. Their activation and associated retention or rotation are configurable. Read the effective values on your installation, especially after migration: a tutorial’s default may no longer describe your service.

Before declaring one better for household privacy, inspect what an administrator can retrieve: domain, device, time and retention period. A masked address combined with a distinctive domain may still reveal activity. Include old backups in the review; reducing future collection does not change their contents.

Groups or per-client settings

Pi-hole organises clients and rules through groups. You might apply an extra list to smart devices while keeping exceptions for a computer. AdGuard Home provides per-client settings, conditional rules and different upstream choices per client. Either approach avoids imposing one overly strict policy on the entire household.

The result depends on identification. If the router forwards everything under its own address, the filter does not directly observe each device. Changing addresses can also cause an IP-based rule to follow the wrong client if the address was not reserved. AdGuard Home’s MAC-based identification requires using its DHCP service.

A friendly dashboard name is not an authenticated identity. Network rules and administration access still matter. If a phone uses its VPN or another DNS provider, a perfectly written filter rule may never apply.

How many services will you need to maintain?

AdGuard Home is appealing when you want filtering and encrypted DNS together. Pi-hole suits people who want to choose a resolver or proxy and understand each connection. Additional components are not inherently a flaw: they add options, but also configurations, versions and potential failure points.

Either way, DNS becomes a network dependency. A sleeping machine, a disk filled by logs or a failed update can disrupt the household. Docker simplifies some replacements; it does not create backups or availability. Verify persistent volumes, listening interfaces and the recovery procedure.

A useful administration comparison is practical: can you find a rule created three months ago, explain why it exists and restore the service on another machine? Prepare the information someone else would need to reconnect the household in your absence.

Compare speed and reliability on your network

Latency figures only make sense with measurement conditions. Comparable hardware, domains, effective rules, upstreams and cache states are needed for a reasonably fair comparison. A locally cached response does not measure the same work as a lookup involving multiple servers.

Distinguish median response time, p95, errors and false positives. Here p95 is the duration within which 95% of measured queries complete. A tiny average difference may matter far less than recurring sign-in failures or DNS that does not recover after reboot.

The following is a proposed comparison procedure for your network, not results obtained by SecuFocus.

1. Record versions, hardware, lists, logging options and upstream resolvers. Keep the services on distinct addresses.
2. Use allowed domains and explicitly denied test domains. Check responses and the rule responsible.
3. Separate warm-cache and cold-cache tests; record median, p95 and errors over multiple runs. Do not treat one lookup as a benchmark.
4. Try actual household tasks and record false positives with the usual VPN and DNS settings.
5. Restart during an agreed maintenance window, then verify recovery, configuration restoration and the fallback procedure.

Our choice depends on the job

For a new household installation needing encrypted upstream DNS immediately, we would start with AdGuard Home: it combines the required functions without another proxy. That is an architectural preference, not a claim that it always blocks more trackers or retains less data.

For someone already administering Linux, comfortable with groups and wanting to choose Unbound or a DNS proxy separately, Pi-hole v6 remains a coherent choice. If your Pi-hole works, its logs are controlled and you can restore it, replacing it for a feature you do not need adds little.

With either, start on one device before changing household DNS. A setup you understand and maintain is more useful than a collection of enabled features whose actual traffic paths are unclear.

• The practical guide to setup and verification↗
• Why a firewall still matters alongside DNS↗