head to head · open source
AdGuardHome vs blocky
AdGuardHome has 38,159 GitHub stars, 2,596 forks, 1,253 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. blocky has 7,090 stars, 319 forks, 51 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. AdGuardHome leads on adoption by 438% (38,159 vs 7,090 stars). AdGuardHome is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; blocky is written in Go under Apache-2.0. AdGuardHome has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, blocky 4%. blocky was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (adblock, dns, dns-over-https, golang), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| AdGuardHome | blocky | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 319 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick AdGuardHome if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick blocky if
- You want the blocky feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and blocky fits your workflow better
About AdGuardHome
Privacy protection center for you and your devices Free and open source, powerful network wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server. AdGuard.com Wiki Reddit Twitter Telegram AdGuard Home is a network wide software for blocking ads and tracking. After you set it up, it'll cover ALL your home devices, and you don't need any client side software for that. It operates as a DNS server that re routes tracking domains to a “black hole”, thus preventing your devices from connecting to those servers. It's based on software we use for our public [AdGuard DNS] servers, and both share a lot of code. [AdGuard DNS]: Getting…
read the full AdGuardHome overview →
About blocky
Blocky Blocky is a DNS proxy and ad blocker for the local network written in Go with following features: Features Blocking Blocking of DNS queries with external lists (Ad block, malware) and allowlisting Definition of allow/denylists per client group (Kids, Smart home devices, etc.) Periodical reload of external allow/denylists Regex support Blocking of request domain, response CNAME (deep CNAME inspection) and response IP addresses (against IP lists) Advanced DNS configuration not just an ad blocker Custom DNS resolution for certain domain names Conditional forwarding to external DNS server Upstream resolvers…
read the full blocky overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AdGuardHome or blocky more popular?
AdGuardHome has 38,159 GitHub stars and blocky has 7,090. AdGuardHome has the larger community by that measure.
Are AdGuardHome and blocky free?
Both are open source. AdGuardHome is licensed under GPL-3.0 and blocky under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AdGuardHome and blocky?
AdGuardHome is written in TypeScript and blocky in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, AdGuardHome or blocky?
Choose AdGuardHome if you want the larger community (38,159 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose blocky if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.