# NextDNS 81 Hacker News commenters recommended NextDNS and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 3 years (4 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended for system-wide ad and tracker blocking across devices, with fine-grained profiles and easy setup. Common caveat: some sites break and support is thin. ## Why people recommend it - System-wide ad and tracker blocking (5 comments): "You can block ads on a system level with NextDNS. Much easier to use for non-tech users then any browser plugin." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47440553)) "No need for Adblocking extensions if we can't even make the requests to those ad servers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47442276)) "I use NextDNS on my iPhone and I don’t think I’ve ever seen these ads in years of usage." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812248)) - Configurable profiles, filterlists, and allowlists (6 comments): "It's worth the price because you can set up all kinds of different blocking profiles and have different ones on different devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49572722)) "NextDNS.io gives you fine grained controls - you can set up a custom profile to apply to her device." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46514753)) "Custom blocking options such as allowlists, denylists, blocking certain TLDs, custom rewrites" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191045)) - Easy setup for non-technical users (5 comments): "Been a happy user for a few years now and introduced many non-tech friends/family into the world of 99% advert-free internet." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47374801)) "You can block ads on a system level with NextDNS. Much easier to use for non-tech users then any browser plugin." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47440553)) "NextDNS free tier is what I give them now, takes two minutes, and I never hear about it again." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49572265)) - Works across devices and networks (5 comments): "For simplicity I highly recommend https://nextdns.io . Supports most devices, and probably most, if not all, well known blacklists." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49778145)) "I use NextDNS, one of the features it provides is letting you register a source IP so requests from your network "just work"." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47315725)) "it can pass through the requesting client information so you're not losing any of the logging you'd have running Pi-hole" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191246)) ## What people warn about - Poor or absent customer support (4 comments): "NextDNS literally not innovating at all and having no customer suppport" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49986549)) "I have used them both paid and free and they are not good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46187409)) "support. It's pathetic. Maybe because it's non existent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46187572)) - Breaks sites that must be disabled (2 comments): "some things would get messed up so I'd have to sometimes disable it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484122)) "my only issue with it is that when sites break, it is hard to fix" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46422411)) - Unreliable service with timeouts (3 comments): "the service kept degrading with more timeouts regardless if you were on free/paid" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49570370)) "I have been having problems for years, especially with NextDNS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896829)) "after a period of unreliability from from NextDNS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46423485)) - Blocks some archive and TLD domains (3 comments): "I struggle with skepticism for anyone who blocks archive.today, which cloudflare does, along with nextdns and others." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48893958)) "haven't been able to load any of these archive domains in at least a few days now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45888821)) "NextDNS doesn't route to .is or .ph or .fo or .today anymore." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479385)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [AdGuard DNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/adguard-dns.md): 26 recommend - [RethinkDNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rethinkdns.md): 16 recommend - [Control D](https://hackerapproved.com/p/controld.md): 16 recommend - [Pi-hole](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pihole.md): 5 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://nextdns.io/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "NextDNS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/nextdns/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).