XDA’s recent piece on ESP32 ad-blocking made a real point: for a lot of homes, a $8 ESP32-S3 board can front the household DNS traffic, drop the ad and tracker domains, and stay powered from a USB port under the router with a fraction of the wattage a Pi-hole draws. The catch is what the ESP32 doesn’t do. It handles one blocklist at a time. There’s no dashboard, no per-device policy, and no easy way to look at what got blocked last night. So the ESP32 stops being interesting on its own and starts being interesting as part of a stack.
Here are seven desktop-side apps we run alongside an ESP32-based DNS sinkhole, or in place of it when the household outgrows a single tiny board. Most are also good if you plan to swap the ESP32 for a proper Pi-hole or AdGuard Home box later.
What to look for in a desktop DNS ad-blocking stack
The pieces that make a network-wide DNS ad-blocker actually useful:
- A management UI that reports what got blocked and by whom, not just a running counter.
- Blocklist management that can pull, dedupe, and version-control multiple lists.
- Encrypted upstream (DoH or DoT) so the DNS traffic your sinkhole forwards isn’t visible to the ISP.
- Optional per-device or per-group policy (kids’ devices get one list, the TV gets another).
- A backup and restore path that survives an SD card death or an ESP32 flash rewrite.
- Metrics you can graph, ideally into an existing Prometheus/Grafana or InfluxDB stack.
A well-built stack combines a fast, low-power sinkhole (ESP32 or Pi-hole) with one or two of these apps on a desktop or NAS running the dashboard and metrics.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Runs on | License | Standout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pi-hole | The default UI, community, and blocklist ecosystem | Linux (Docker, Pi, NUC) | EUPL | Best dashboard on the list |
| ESP32_AdBlocker | The low-power sinkhole itself | ESP32-S3 flashed from a desktop toolchain | GPL | Watts, not tens of watts |
| AdGuard Home | Cleaner single-binary install with encrypted DNS built in | Linux, Windows, macOS | GPL | DoH/DoT/DoQ in the box |
| Technitium DNS | Full authoritative + recursive server with blocking | Windows, Linux, macOS | GPL | Real DNS server, not just a filter |
| NextDNS | Managed profile you can pair with a local sinkhole | Web, apps for all platforms | Proprietary (free tier) | Per-device profiles without homelab work |
| Blocky | Small footprint blocker for Kubernetes or Docker home labs | Linux (Docker, K8s) | Apache 2.0 | Cleanest Prometheus metrics |
| Unbound | Recursive resolver upstream to any of the above | Linux, macOS, Windows | BSD | Removes ISP DNS from the loop |
The apps
1. Pi-hole – Best dashboard and community
Pi-hole is the reference. Twelve years of documentation, hundreds of curated blocklists, per-client statistics, per-domain query logs, group-based policy, and an admin UI that non-technical people can read without help. Even if your sinkhole is an ESP32, running Pi-hole on a mini PC or a Docker host as the “brain” that manages lists and views what’s blocked is a common pairing.
Where it falls short: Higher power draw than an ESP32. Requires more disk than a bare micro. Encrypted upstream needs pairing with cloudflared or dnscrypt-proxy since Pi-hole itself doesn’t speak DoH natively.
Pricing:
- Free, EUPL-licensed
Platforms: Linux (Docker or bare-metal), Raspberry Pi, x86 mini PCs.
Download: Pi-hole
Bottom line: Install first. Run it as the dashboard even if the actual blocking happens on an ESP32 upstream.
2. ESP32_AdBlocker – Best low-power sinkhole
ESP32_AdBlocker is the firmware the XDA piece is really about. Flash an ESP32-S3-N16R8 board with the s60sc/ESP32_AdBlocker sketch, plug it in, and point your router at its IP as the DNS server. Lookups return in under 50 microseconds for cached domains, RAM stays inside the PSRAM budget, and the whole thing draws less power than the LED strip under your desk.
Where it falls short: One blocklist at a time. No dashboard beyond a basic web page. Manual firmware updates. Blocklists live in flash, so a big list means partition planning.
Pricing:
- Free, GPL. Hardware around $8 to $15 for a board plus PSRAM
Platforms: ESP32-S3 (flash from Arduino IDE or PlatformIO on Windows, macOS, Linux).
Download: ESP32_AdBlocker on GitHub
Bottom line: Best pick for a low-power household sinkhole. Pair it with Pi-hole or AdGuard Home upstream so you don’t lose the dashboard.
3. AdGuard Home – Best single-binary alternative to Pi-hole
AdGuard Home is a single Go binary that does most of what Pi-hole does with a lower setup budget. DoH, DoT, and DoQ are built in, per-client rules come out of the box, and the parental-controls surface is more polished than Pi-hole’s. Install it on the same Linux mini PC that runs everything else and it stays out of the way.
Where it falls short: Community is smaller than Pi-hole’s. Fewer curated third-party blocklists in the default browser.
Pricing:
- Free, GPL. AdGuard’s cloud DNS is a separate paid product
Platforms: Linux (native or Docker), Windows, macOS.
Download: AdGuard Home
Bottom line: Best pick when you’d rather download one binary than shepherd a Pi-hole install.
4. Technitium DNS – Best for a full DNS server, not just a filter
Technitium DNS is a real DNS server with blocking bolted on top. It runs recursion, authoritative zones, DoH, DoT, and DoQ all in one process. On a homelab where the sinkhole is only part of the story (custom internal zones, split-horizon, or a self-hosted domain), Technitium removes an entire class of “why do I need a second DNS server” problems.
Where it falls short: More surface area than a blocker needs to expose. The learning curve punishes people who “just want ads gone”.
Pricing:
- Free, GPL
Platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, Docker.
Download: Technitium DNS
Bottom line: Best pick when the household needs a real DNS server, not just a filter.
5. NextDNS – Best managed layer to pair with a local sinkhole
NextDNS is a managed DNS profile you set up in a browser and point devices at. It handles blocklists, analytics, and per-device profiles without running any local server. Pair it with an ESP32 sinkhole and you get a two-layer defence: the local box blocks the loudest offenders at LAN speed, NextDNS handles the long tail and travels with your phone off the home Wi-Fi.
Where it falls short: Cloud-based, so a subset of DNS queries leaves the network. Free tier caps monthly queries.
Pricing:
- Free up to 300,000 queries a month
- Paid at $1.99/month personal, $2.99/month Pro
Platforms: Web configuration; native apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux.
Download: NextDNS
Bottom line: Best pick for the “block on the phone off Wi-Fi too” itch. Pair with a local sinkhole for the best of both.
6. Blocky – Best small-footprint blocker for a Docker home lab
Blocky is a single Go binary with a Prometheus endpoint out of the box. It’s what a lot of us reach for on a Kubernetes home lab where Pi-hole’s admin container feels heavy. Configure blocklists in YAML, get clean metrics into Grafana, and forget about it.
Where it falls short: No admin UI; configuration is YAML and reload. Analytics live in Grafana, not a bundled dashboard.
Pricing:
- Free, Apache 2.0
Platforms: Linux (Docker, Kubernetes), Windows, macOS.
Download: Blocky on GitHub
Bottom line: Best pick when the home lab already has Grafana and Prometheus and a UI would be redundant.
7. Unbound – Best recursive resolver upstream of the whole stack
Unbound is the recursive resolver the paranoid choose to sit between their sinkhole and the internet. It removes reliance on Cloudflare, Google, or the ISP DNS by walking the DNS tree itself. Small footprint, well documented, and the resolver of choice in the Pi-hole community for exactly the “no third-party DNS in the loop” reason.
Where it falls short: Doesn’t block anything on its own. First few queries per domain are slower than a resolver with a warm cache.
Pricing:
- Free, BSD-licensed
Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows, ships in most distro repos.
Download: Unbound
Bottom line: Install as the upstream from Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, or Blocky when a third-party DNS provider is a hard no.
How to pick the right one
If you just want ads gone: start with AdGuard Home on a mini PC. Simplest install, dashboard included, encrypted upstream in the box.
If you want the biggest community and the polished dashboard: run Pi-hole, add Unbound as its upstream, and treat the ESP32 as a redundant fallback.
If watts matter more than everything else: run ESP32_AdBlocker as the primary sinkhole and manage its blocklist from a mini PC.
If the phone needs blocking off home Wi-Fi too: pair a local sinkhole with NextDNS.
If the homelab already runs Prometheus and Grafana: Blocky slots in without another admin dashboard.
If the household needs internal DNS zones as well as filtering: Technitium DNS wins.
FAQ
Can an ESP32 really replace a Pi-hole?
For a single-list, single-household setup, yes. Lookups are fast, power draw is negligible, and the blocklist works. For per-device rules, dashboards, and multi-list management, pair the ESP32 with a Pi-hole or AdGuard Home upstream, or move to one of those directly.
What is the best DNS ad-blocker for a family with kids’ devices?
AdGuard Home for the built-in parental-control surface, or Pi-hole with group-based policy. NextDNS added if you want to enforce filtering on phones off home Wi-Fi.
Do I need encrypted DNS to my upstream?
Yes if you don’t trust the ISP DNS to stay untouched. AdGuard Home and Technitium DNS speak DoH and DoT natively. Pi-hole needs cloudflared or dnscrypt-proxy alongside. Unbound handles recursion end-to-end so the ISP DNS doesn’t see the queries at all.
Which of these are open source?
Pi-hole, ESP32_AdBlocker, AdGuard Home, Technitium DNS, Blocky, and Unbound are all open source. NextDNS is a managed service.
Can I combine multiple of these?
The typical homelab stack is a sinkhole (ESP32 or Pi-hole) with Unbound upstream and NextDNS on mobile devices for off-network filtering. Everything on this list is designed to compose.