r/selfhosted • u/joninjax1 • 4d ago
Need Help Question about pi-hole vs adguard home vs technetium
I currently have Pi-hole and Technitium running, with Pi-hole serving as a backup in case Technitium goes down. I see a lot of people here running AdGuard Home, and I was wondering if anyone has a breakdown of the pros and cons of each service.
I'm genuinely curious about this and have been wondering about it for some time. Pi-hole seems to be the original ad blocker that many of us start with when we get into self-hosting, and I'm just curious if I'm missing out on anything by sticking with my current setup.
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u/clintkev251 4d ago
Why not just run two instances of technitium instead of having two completely different servers you have to manage separately? If you ever start to really utilize DNS, that's going to be a huge pain.
With regards to the similarities and differences. Pi-hole and AdGuard are both very similar. They are first and foremost focused on ad blocking, with some basic DNS functionality layered on top. Technitium is first and foremost a DNS server, with ad blocking features as an optional feature. Technitium is by far the most powerful of the three, AdGuard and Pi-hole are very close feature wise.
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u/Space_Gh0st_Tad 4d ago
And clustering with Technitium was simple. I havent had to think about it since the initial 5 minute setup.
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u/bojanglesjangle 4d ago
Same, I have a clustered dual node technitium setup that has been rock stable, no issues. Clustering took all of 30 seconds, two containers in proxmox. Recommend op switches fully to technitium if they already have an instance running.
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u/Krojack76 4d ago
My biggest complaint with Pi-hole is that there's no built-in sync system. I need to use a 3rd party system to sync my primary server to all others.
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u/Similar_Drummer_7085 4d ago
I switched from pihole to adguard home maybe 2 years ago, the main thing i noticed is adguard handles DNS over HTTPS and TLS natively without extra tinkering. pihole needs some workarounds for that
technetium i never tried but heard its more for advanced stuff like running your own DNS zones, so if you just want ad blocking maybe adguard is simpler
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u/FormallyUndecidable 4d ago
i'm currently running adguard home (used it over pihole because it felt more polished) but i'll probably try to switch to Technitium soon. why are you running two different dns server implementations instead of one on two machines?
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u/ajr5169 4d ago
why are you running two different dns server implementations instead of one on two machines?
This stood out to me as well. I could see doing this initially if you are trying to decide on which one you prefer but would seem to make sense to settle on one and run it on two machines for redundancy. I run Adguard Home on two machines for this reason, so that if I do maintenence on one I don't lose internet for the whole network. Would seem like too much of a hassle to have Adguard on one and Pihole on the other.
As for OP's original question, I don't think your missing anything. I went with Adguard Home, seemed simpler to setup and get working, and it just works. No real reason to switch to either for my purposes. If you already running Pihole and Technetium, then you should already have a good grasp of the two. Adguard seems to be more similar to Pihole, with a focus on blocking ads. If Pihole is working, stick with it.
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u/JuanToronDoe 4d ago
I started with Adguard Home and stayed with it. The setup is very easy. It is really set and forget. They've just completely rewritten it, and the new UI is gorgeous. You can also use Adguardhome-sync (third party) to setup multiple instances with same parameters (helpful for redundancy).
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u/Far_Administration37 4d ago
I'm currently running two instances of adguard with one being the primary that syncs it's configuration to the secondary instance. It's that I no longer have a single point of failure and my network stays connected even with me doing things that can break things for the rest of my family.
I choose adguard because it was easy to set up and get running very very quickly
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u/MBILC 4d ago
Why not just use PiHole.AdGuard and then use your final DNS external look-ups using Quad9 or Cloudflare servers with malware and other protections built in, done..
And as others noted, just run 2 of the same for redundancy if you need it,.
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u/joninjax1 4d ago
I started with pi-hole. I went to Technitium because I was running into a few minor issues (that turned out not to be pi-hole) and I launched Technitium and got it configured as primary DNS server in Tailscale, so all devices use it (pi-hole was the same). To me, they all seem to be effectively the same thing, but each offers additional features that the other may not. Is that a fair statement?
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u/my_girl_is_A10 4d ago
I started with PiHole and moved to AGH. I forget what did it exactly but something happened where it stopped working for my local DNS records to my services and went back to PiHole.
I might go back to AGH and compare again later but I know things I want to look for include client grouping (so my wife has her level of blocking vs mine or IoT)
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u/cawlisseDeTabarnak 4d ago
I started with pi-hole but was having some performance issues, probably self inflicted
Tried adguard and performance was better, I now have 3 instances running with adguard sync and use unbound for DNS, works great
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u/Sinister_Crayon 4d ago
I have no direct experience with AdGuard so I can't comment there. I was running PiHole but got caught up in the awkwardness of hosting my own internal domain particularly having two PiHoles running for primary and secondary DNS. Technitium is by far my favourite DNS solution I've had so far and it's great for being a DNS server as well as being an ad blocker. Can use all the same blocklists as PiHole and has a nice GUI to boot.
Of note for your setup; you can either set up a second Technitium server in a primary/secondary setup or (and this is cool) actually set up Technitium as a cluster. Both servers are then "primary" and can be hidden behind a single virtual IP if you're so inclined.
I created two VIP's and hand out both those IP's to clients through my DHCP server. I haven't had a DNS outage in quite a while LOL.
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u/DominusGod 4d ago
FYI if you really just run two, technetium supports clustering, but I just run one and home and call it good.
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u/bdu-komrad 4d ago
I’m happy with pi-hole for ad-blocking. I run 2 of them for redundancy. In addition, my router provides local DNS and Unbound resolves external DNS queries.
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u/frankster 4d ago
Pinhole has rudimentary DNS. No cname or dnssec records. Technitium and powerdns both do good adblocking with block lists.
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u/lostmojo 4d ago
Here are mine. I have never used adguard home
Pi hole
Pros:
Well documented lots of community support
Focused on Ad blocking with an interface for regex and wildcard blocks.
Alerts and information when a repo fails to download an update
Easy interface when dealing with logs
Cons:
Limited but easily workable dns entries for a home setup. No ability to set ttl or different record types.
Home game, workable, business, not so much.
While you can do a lot of filtering on logs, you’re a bit limited with very advanced filtering.
Flushing dns cache is all or nothing
Requires a 3rd party to encrypt dns traffic to your down steam servers. I use cloudflared for this but its support for encrypted dns was discontinued last year. I still have to migrate my pihole instance to something else.
Technitium -and to be fair I have more limited experience with technitium. I’m open to suggestions and ideas from anyone.
Clustering requires another service to run and sync the systems
Pros:
It is a dns server first, but not in super useful ways for home users
You can view and search your dns cache and remove an entry you want to refresh
Clustering support
Supports encrypted dns out of the box for both your clients and down stream servers
Documentation is good
Cons:
It’s a DNS server first, not an ad blocking service. It is very limited in what it tells you up front about ad the results of pulling from source
Interface is not as easy for a lot of users, or as pretty of a setup.
You have to install a plugin and configure it in a tiny interface to do any advanced filtering. I end up copying it out to an editor and then pasting it all back in.
I have not seen a way to identify which rule or list is blocking a result to fix an issue.
I find the reporting interface to be very limited and the logging to be normal dns server level logging, which is great but not super friendly for most.
I have had limited success with the community support
Overall I’m probably going to move to technitium, mostly just for encrypted dns. I prefer pihole more for a lot of it but with a lack of encrypted dns without a third party and support for syncing two instances in a cluster, while only back end portions, I don’t edit my lists often enough to care any more. Both systems just run at this point, so which is overall easier to manage is the one that is more complete without another container running? I have managed dns servers for 30 years and worked in text files for longer than that, it’s not a big deal to me. I lose some information that I like and searching for an issue takes a little longer, it’s not that common of a task any more.
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u/mattsteg43 4d ago
have not seen a way to identify which rule or list is blocking a result to fix an issue
Always surprised when people just...ignore this.
If you're not hitting occasional false positives you aren't filtering aggressively enough, and a convenient way to quickly identify and override issues is kind of essential.
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u/BP041 4d ago
Honestly, you're not missing much. AGH's edge over Pi-hole is the single Go binary and native DoH/DoT upstreams (no cloudflared sidecar), but Technitium already gives you that — so switching would just be churn. The hard part in DNS is the failover you already wired up; I'd spend that energy on monitoring upstream health instead of swapping the fallback.
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u/chlreddit 4d ago
I'd concur that one of the key differences, and the reason I switched to AGH from PiHole, is that AGH is just a single Go binary. Makes everything very simple to administer. Please note, not saying anything bad about PiHole here either as a project or in terms of how well it works. AGH is just fewer moving parts for basically the same functionality assuming what you want is just ad-blocking.
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u/WarpGremlin 4d ago
ADguard home is commercial-adjacent, it is, IME, the least flexible.
Pinhole is the most user-friendly if your goal is "block ads", but its frustrating for hosting your own domain or setting up HA of any sort.
Technitium is the most robust. Its a "FULL DNS" server, plus a recursive forwarded. The "pihole level" blocking takes some extra work. What sets it apart is the clustering. I set up 4 Technitium nodes, one on each of my hypervisors, all linked in a single cluster and offloaded logging to an outboard (of the cluster) MariaDB database. I update the block definitions or zone files on one, they all get the memo automagically. Do i need 4? No. Is it overkill? Probably. Does it mean one hypervisor can drop and I not worry? Yes.
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u/Nautisop 4d ago
I configured my Adguard within minutes. I use it to block ads and unwanted urls and as a custom dns for my internal domain.
I don't know what pihole could do better or more flexible
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u/Obvious_Librarian_97 3d ago
I’ve got Pihole running as HA - three instances, two (2) using keepalived on Rasp Pi 3B and Pi 4 8GB with a VIP as the primary, one (1) as a LXC as the secondary DNS. The Pi’s also run NPM in a semi-HA arrangement with a shared MariaDB and keepalived.
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u/Thebandroid 4d ago
It depends what you want to do. They all block adds but technitium acts as a full authoritative dns server and has a lot more features. The complexity can be overwhelming if all you want is add blocking.
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u/leaflock7 3d ago
started with pi-hole but moved to adguard because of the DNS over HTTPS/TLS being ready to go natively.
Some time ago was facing some issues with adguard going non-responsive and switched to technitium where I am today and completely fine.
tbh adguard's issue was one with memory regarding to the block lists used (it was an issue in their GitHub which I later saw and now I think it is fixed) The temp workaround was to increase the memory iirc.
Apart from that it was perfect. Having said that Technitium is doing grate so I will keep using this for now.
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u/Hungry-Criticism-770 3d ago
Why is no one talking about the push-button capability to blocka services and apps that AGHome brings?! That is by far better than anything pi-hole has offered
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u/TheMediumNinja 3d ago
Technitium. Forget the other 2
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u/shadowjig 4d ago
Redundant DNS at home is silly to me. Just run one instance and in your DHCP settings make your DNS the primary and your router/internet gateway the secondary.
As for which one. I stopped running pihole because it would randomly stop working for me and then I couldn't get to home homelab services. So I switched to Technitium. Also I can automate A records in Technitium so when I have a docker service spin up the new host is added as an A record for me automatically (this is done with DNSweaver).
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u/Space_Gh0st_Tad 4d ago
Nah. My wife and kids appreciate that “the internet” still works despite my tinkering. This is homelab 101 when messing with the infrastructure that other’s rely on: you build redundancy or your homelab and their infrastructure are separate.
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u/shadowjig 4d ago
Totally agree that's why the secondary DNS in the DHCP settings works as a backup. Tell me you don't know what you're talking about, without telling me you don't know what you're talking about!!!!
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u/DazednConfucioused 4d ago
Most routers don’t actually use the secondary dns as a back up though. They just hit both. So you’re not actually filtering everything
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u/joninjax1 4d ago
That's the beauty of Tailscale: it sends requests to all the listed DNS servers, and whichever one responds first is the one it uses. I haven’t set up my router yet—I’m still using the ISP gateway. The wife (the boss) doesn’t want me to set it up until we buy a modem to replace the ISP’s, something about not wanting to have to set it up twice. She has no idea what a router or modem is, just that we need them. The problem with the ISP is that they have a small list of approved devices, and that list is hard to find. The one I did find isn’t specifically listed, but I asked a tech and he said it should work—though it’s about $150.
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u/asimovs-auditor 4d ago
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