What is the advantage of using NextDNS over Pi-hole®?

The main advantages of using NextDNS over Pi-hole® are:

1. Ease of installation and maintenance. You don’t need to setup a Raspberry Pi and maintain a software up to date on your network.
2. Works outside of your home network. We have apps for mobile as well as desktop OS so you can benefit from your DNS configuration wherever you go, either on cellular or on other Wifi networks like coffee shops, friends place or office networks. Note that you could install Pi-hole® on a cloud service by yourself, but then it goes back to point 1. and you would quickly realize that it would cost you more than NextDNS for lower performance (we run an anycast network to guarantee the lowest latency and you benefit from our shared cache, monitoring, maintenance).

To be fair, there are also some advantages of using Pi-hole® over NextDNS:

1. You know who runs it. We can’t ask you to trust us more than yourself. We can provide all the guarantees you want, show who we are and make promises, it is understandably easier to trust a solution you manage yourself. Keep in mind though, that all your unblocked DNS queries are still visible by your upstream DNS. So there is still someone you need to trust with your data.
2. It’s free with no limits. NextDNS is cheap, very cheap, but it’s still a paid service if you use it over a certain limit. Pi-hole® is free to use. You still have to pay about $35 for a Raspberry Pi + an SD card, which is equivalent to several years of NextDNS subscription. You should also consider donating to the Pi-hole® project if you use their solution. After a few years though, yes, Pi-hole® should become less expensive than NextDNS.