Pi-hole
DNS
Blackhole for Internet advertisements with a GUI for management and monitoring.
Actively maintained
Real momentum
EUPL-1.2
User-friendly ads & trackers blocking DNS server.
AdGuard Home is an open-source dns project, with 36k GitHub stars and a health score of 81/100. It committed 237 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: GPL-3.0. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.
| Status | Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days. |
|---|---|
| Last commit | 2026-08-14 |
| Days since last commit | 3 |
| Commits, last 3 months | 69 |
| Commits, last 12 months | 237 |
| Months with activity | 12 of 12 |
| Last release | 2026-07-30 |
| Archived | No |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Category | DNS |
Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.
Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.
This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.
AdGuard Home is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.
Winnable, but differentiation is not optional. Pick one underserved segment and be visibly better for it rather than competing feature-for-feature with a free tool.
Actively maintained. AdGuard Home recorded 237 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 69 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-14. Last release: 2026-07-30. Committed within the last 45 days.
AdGuard Home is published under GPL-3.0. Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.
6 open-source implementations, 5 of them actively maintained, led by Pi-hole at 60k stars. Saturation score 42/100 — Contested. Several maintained alternatives exist, but no one owns the category.
DNS
Blackhole for Internet advertisements with a GUI for management and monitoring.
Authoritative/recursive DNS server with ad blocking functionality.
DNS
Fast and lightweight DNS proxy as ad-blocker for local network with many features (alternative to Pi-hole).
DNS
Local ad blocker. Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system.
DNS
Ad-blocking DNS resolver with DNSSEC-validating recursive resolution, DoH/DoT/Oblivious DoH, ephemeral overrides, and local service domains, in a single Rust binary (alternative to Pi-hole, AdGuard Ho
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