# Pi-hole Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/pi-hole/ 113 people recommended Pi-hole in Hacker News comments, 23 had mixed feelings and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 108 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A free, self-hosted DNS filter that blocks ads and tracking for every device on your home network, though it can break sites and apps, forcing whitelisting. Summary written by Claude from 49 comments. Claude agents reviewed it against the quotes on 2 Nov 2026. ## Why people recommend it - Blocks ads network-wide, all devices (10 comments in the sample): "Extremely intuitive, relatively inexpensive… you can even force your entire network to obey ad-blocking lists" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46068920)) "pihole blocks a massive amount of ads in my home. It is extremely rare that any website ever breaks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46402413)) "PiHole/Adblocker have become essential for traversing the cesspool that is the modern internet." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45812751)) - Stops tracking and telemetry (4 comments in the sample): "My vote for the best privacy option is always going to be just run pi-hole with your own recursive nameservers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134295)) "adguard or pihole on your local network so no analytics/tracking data is still being pushed out" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49990183)) "Pihole + Unbound as recursive DNS to avoid DNS poisoning and personal data tracking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773262)) - Self-hosted and under your control (3 comments in the sample): "Owntone, pihole and wireguard is reason enough alone to put an old laptop into service as a home server." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112715)) "You could run pihole and a slew of other useful utilities on your self-hosted server" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45817216)) "For blocking things I have Pi-Hole, which is under my control for that reason." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47476344)) - Easy setup, little maintenance (2 comments in the sample): "Minimal fuss, efficient setup, little maintenance, I don't have to understand the guts." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46145566)) "takes a few minutes with pi hole, and it's got a very functional web interface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46307932)) ## What people warn about - Breaks websites and streaming apps (6 comments in the sample): "It has a high maintenance overhead, at least for me. It would block too much, then my wife would complain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46520429)) "I installed pihole on our home network. She immediately began complaining that the internet was broken." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49296393)) "I’d be afraid of stuff being randomly broken. Eg at some point pi-hole made YouTube history not work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112646)) - Too technical for non-technical people (2 comments in the sample): "I have had to mess with the configuration and troubleshoot things so often that I don’t feel comfortable recommending it to non-technical people." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46072032)) "It is pretty easy if you have some technical knowledge but I would say that it is generally out of reach for the general population" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46109894)) - Weaker than uBlock Origin alone (2 comments in the sample): "Pihole is great for DNS filtering but doesn’t hide elements, no filtering and script blocking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48473387)) "It's definitely better than nothing, and greatly improves things, but UBO is better." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46305115)) - Needs ongoing troubleshooting (1 comment in the sample): "My pihole updated, broke its own dns, stopped working, and broke dns for every device on my network." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449915)) ## Other network ad blockers people recommend - [NextDNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nextdns/): 67 recommend, 9 mixed, 13 criticize - [AdGuard Home](https://hackerapproved.com/p/adguard-home/): 43 recommend, 4 mixed, 3 criticize - [AdGuard DNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/adguard-dns/): 25 recommend, 0 mixed, 3 criticize - [Control D](https://hackerapproved.com/p/controld/): 14 recommend, 2 mixed, 1 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Pi-hole", https://hackerapproved.com/p/pi-hole/ (113 recommend, 23 mixed, 25 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 3 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.