Run Your Own DNS Server at Home

TL;DR: Tools like AdGuard Home and Pi-hole let you block ads and trackers across your entire home network — including smart TVs, phones, and game consoles — without installing anything on each device. It takes some initial setup and a spare device to run it on, but once it's working, it works quietly in the background for everything. This is an advanced project, not a quick fix.

⚠️ This guide is for people comfortable with basic networking and tinkering with tech. If that's not you, that's completely okay — a good browser extension covers most of the same ground with almost no effort.

What Is DNS?

Before diving into what AdGuard Home and Pi-hole do, it helps to understand a bit about how the internet works at a basic level.

Every website has a numerical address (called an IP address) — something like 142.250.74.46. But you don't type numbers into your browser; you type names like google.com. Something has to translate the human-readable name into the number your device can actually connect to.

That translator is called DNS — short for Domain Name System. Think of it like a giant phone book for the internet: you look up a name, it returns the address.

Every time you open a website, your device silently asks a DNS server: "What's the address for this name?" Normally, that DNS server is run by your internet provider or a company like Google.

What Does a Local DNS Server Do?

When you install AdGuard Home or Pi-hole on your home network, they become your home's own DNS server. Instead of passing every lookup straight through, they check first: is this a known advertising or tracking domain?

If a request is for an ad network or tracker — like the company that serves pop-up ads or the script that follows you around the web — the DNS server simply returns a blank response. The device never even connects to it. The ad or tracker is blocked before the connection is ever made.

This is powerful for a few reasons:

• It works on every device on your network — smart TVs, game consoles, phones, tablets, laptops. You don't need to install anything on each one.
• It blocks things browser extensions can't reach — apps on your phone or TV that show ads don't use a web browser, so extensions don't apply. A DNS-level block works regardless.
• It's network-wide and always on — once it's set up, every device benefits automatically, including guests who connect to your Wi-Fi.

What You'll Need

This setup requires a device that stays on all the time, sitting quietly on your home network. Common options:

• A Raspberry Pi — A small, inexpensive single-board computer (roughly the size of a deck of cards). The Raspberry Pi 4 or Pi 5 is more than powerful enough and runs on very little electricity. This is the most popular choice.
• An old laptop or desktop computer — If you have a spare machine you're not using, you can repurpose it. Bear in mind it will consume more power than a Raspberry Pi.
• A NAS (Network Attached Storage) device — If you already own a Synology or similar NAS, both AdGuard Home and Pi-hole can often run on it directly alongside your other services.
• A spare mini PC — Compact, fanless mini PCs (like an Intel NUC or similar) are another good option and generally very power-efficient.

The device needs to be connected to your home router (ideally via an ethernet cable) and left running continuously.

AdGuard Home vs Pi-hole

Both tools do the same core thing — DNS-level blocking — but they differ in interface and approach.

AdGuard Home

AdGuard Home is the newer of the two and generally considered easier to set up and use. It has a clean, modern web interface and handles everything (DNS server, DHCP, filtering) in a single application.

Best if:

• You prefer a polished, all-in-one interface
• You want something that's relatively straightforward to configure
• You like having filtering statistics and per-device breakdowns in one place

Pi-hole

Pi-hole has been around longer and has a very large community behind it. It's well-documented and there are tutorials for almost every edge case. It uses a slightly simpler DNS-only approach and pairs well with Unbound, a separate tool that lets your setup resolve domain names directly without relying on a third-party DNS provider at all.

Best if:

• You want the most community support and documentation
• You're interested in pairing it with Unbound for full DNS independence
• You're already familiar with it or have set it up before

💡 There's no wrong answer here. Both are free, open-source, and actively maintained. If you're starting fresh, AdGuard Home is a smooth first experience. If you've heard of Pi-hole before and it's what drew you to this guide, go for Pi-hole.

What to Be Aware Of

This is genuinely useful technology — but it comes with responsibilities worth knowing about upfront.

You become your own DNS provider. If the device running AdGuard Home or Pi-hole goes down, your whole network loses its ability to resolve domain names — in plain terms, nothing can look up websites. You'll want to configure a fallback DNS in your router settings just in case.

Maintenance is required. Blocklists need to be updated, occasionally a legitimate website gets incorrectly blocked, and updates to the software itself should be applied. It's not a lot of work, but it's not zero.

Breakage is possible. Aggressive blocking can occasionally prevent something from working correctly — an app, a smart home device, a streaming service. You'll need to be comfortable diagnosing and whitelisting things when that happens.

It doesn't protect you outside the home. When your phone is on mobile data or connected to a different Wi-Fi network, it's no longer going through your home DNS server. For protection on the go, a VPN or a DNS-based filtering app on your device is a better fit.

Learning More

These tools both have excellent official documentation and active communities:

• AdGuard Home on GitHub — includes installation guides for all major platforms
• Pi-hole official site — documentation and community forum
• r/pihole on Reddit — one of the most active self-hosting communities, useful for troubleshooting

💬 This is one of those setups that's very rewarding once it's running. Many people who set it up describe it as one of the biggest quality-of-life improvements for their home network — especially noticeable on smart TVs, which often serve a surprising number of ads and tracking requests.