Best Free DNS Blockers 2026: 6 Options Compared

A DNS blocker refuses to resolve the domains of ads, trackers and malware, so every device that uses it gets filtering without installing anything. There are two models and you should pick between them first. Self-hosted blockers, Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, Technitium DNS Server and Blocky, run on a Raspberry Pi, a NAS or a small server at home, are free with no query limits, and keep your lookups on your network. Hosted services, NextDNS and Control D, need no hardware and work away from home, but meter or limit the free plan: NextDNS allows 300,000 queries a month and then stops blocking while still resolving. Within the self-hosted group, Pi-hole and AdGuard Home are the best known, Technitium is also a full authoritative DNS server, and Blocky is a small config-file proxy for people who like containers. The trade-off is maintenance against reach. If your DNS box goes down, the household loses internet until you fix it, so keep a fallback resolver in your router. DNS blocking also cannot remove ads served from the same domain as the content, such as many video ads, so pair it with a browser blocker if that matters to you.

Pi-hole

Free network-wide DNS sinkhole for your own Linux hardware, with optional donations. Install it on a Raspberry Pi or a container.

Price: Free (Free; optional donations) (Pi-hole pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Linux, Docker. Open source (license named in the repository; not read on the page) (open source).

Project activity: 61.5k GitHub stars · latest release v6.5 (Oct 17, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: A household blocker for a household.

AdGuard Home

GPL-3.0 DNS server for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Docker, with Windows through a Chocolatey package. Blocks ads and trackers for every device on the network; router integrations for OpenWrt and GL.iNet are third-party.

Price: Free (Free and open source; no paid tier mentioned) (AdGuard Home pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Windows (Chocolatey package), Docker. GPL-3.0 (open source).

Project activity: 37.8k GitHub stars · latest release v0.107.79 (Aug 18, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Wide OS and router support.

Technitium DNS Server

GPL-3.0 and both an authoritative and recursive DNS server with a web console on Windows, Linux and macOS. Blocking uses list URLs, with regex lists per client in an add-on app.

Price: Free (Free open-source DNS server that acts as authoritative and recursive resolver) (Technitium DNS Server pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Windows, Linux, macOS, Raspberry Pi, Docker. GPL-3.0 (open source).

Project activity: 10.2k GitHub stars · latest release v15.6.2 (Oct 17, 2026) · last commit Oct 24, 2026

Best for: Home labs that want a full DNS server.

Blocky

Apache-2.0 Go proxy configured by file, for Linux, Raspberry Pi, OpenWrt and Docker. No web admin UI is mentioned on the page, so it suits people who manage config in git.

Price: Free (Free and open source; optional sponsorship) (Blocky pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Linux, Raspberry Pi, OpenWrt, Docker, Kubernetes (Helm chart). Apache-2.0 (open source).

Project activity: 7.1k GitHub stars · latest release v0.35.0 (Sep 5, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Container and config-file fans.

NextDNS

Hosted service with 300,000 free queries a month; past that, blocking stops but resolving continues. Pro is $1.99 a month. Blocks ads, trackers, malicious domains and has parental controls.

Price: Free (300,000 DNS requests per month; past that, queries still resolve but blocking stops); paid from $1.99 per month, Pro ($19.90 per year) (NextDNS pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Cloud DNS (any device). Proprietary.

Best for: No hardware, filtering on the move.

Control D

Hosted DNS with a free tier offering Quick Setups such as malware, ads and tracking, and family filtering. Check the pricing page for free-plan limits and paid prices.

Price: Free (Free DNS service with Quick Setups for malware, ads and tracking, social and family filtering; free-plan limits are not stated on the page) (Control D pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Cloud DNS (any device), Browser and OS DNS settings. Proprietary.

Best for: Quick hosted filtering by profile.

Which one to pick

• You have a Raspberry Pi and want the common choice: Pi-hole
• You want blocking plus encrypted DNS in one install: AdGuard Home
• You want filtering without any hardware: NextDNS
• You run a home lab and want authoritative DNS too: Technitium DNS Server
• You deploy everything with containers and config files: Blocky