AdGuard Home
Network-wide ad/tracker blocking DNS
The Lens
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
Updated Oct 2026
AdGuard Home blocks ads, trackers and malware domains for every device on your network by acting as its DNS server, so smart TVs, phones and IoT gadgets get filtered with nothing installed on them. It's free under GPL-3.0 and it's the main rival to Pi-hole, with encrypted DNS, parental control, Safe Search and a DHCP server built in.
Setup is a one-line install script, Docker or Snap, then you point your router's DNS at it. A Raspberry Pi or NAS is plenty, and unlike Pi-hole it runs without root.
There's no paid tier for the self-hosted server. AdGuard's hosted AdGuard DNS is the paid cousin: free for 300,000 requests a month, Personal at $19.99 billed annually. Solo and small offices: free. Larger teams usually want managed DNS filtering with an SLA instead of one box.
The catch: 2026 brought two critical authentication bypasses, one hitting every version before v0.107.73 and one in GL.iNet router mode fixed in v0.107.77. Update, and keep the admin panel off the internet. DNS blocking also can't touch YouTube or Twitch ads served from the video's own domain. And the v1.0 beta adopts versioning where minor releases may break compatibility, so read release notes first.
Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid
fully freeFree: Everything in AdGuard Home: DNS blocking with custom blocklists and user rules, per-client (device) settings, access settings, encrypted DNS upstreams (DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, DNSCrypt), serving DoH/DoT/DoQ to your own devices, phishing and malware blocking, parental control, forced Safe Search, a built-in DHCP server, query log and a REST API. GPL-3.0, no telemetry unless you configure web services.
Self-hosted: The only way to run it. Install script for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and OpenBSD, the official adguard/adguardhome Docker image, a Snap package, or a manual binary install (Windows included). Can run without superuser privileges. Stable channel is v0.107.x (v0.107.79, August 18, 2026); v1.0 is in beta with a rebuilt UI and a versioning scheme where minor releases may include backwards-incompatible changes.
Paid: None for AdGuard Home. AdGuard sells a separate hosted service, AdGuard DNS: Starter free (300,000 monthly requests, 5 devices), Personal $19.99/year billed annually plus VAT (10M monthly requests, 20 devices), Team $239.99/year billed annually plus VAT (100M monthly requests, 200 devices), Enterprise on request. The other hosted option, NextDNS, is free for 300,000 queries/month, then Pro at $1.99/month or $19.90/year.
Free, with no paid tier for the self-hosted server. The only cost is hardware, or AdGuard DNS at $19.99/year billed annually if you'd rather not host anything.
What to do by team size
- Solo
- free; one install script on a Raspberry Pi or NAS
- Small team
- free; per-client rules cover an office network
- Medium team
- free, but run two instances for DNS redundancy and patch promptly
- Large team
- managed DNS filtering with an SLA (AdGuard DNS Enterprise or similar), not a single self-hosted box
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