AdGuardHome vs Cisco Umbrella
AdGuardHome and Cisco Umbrella are both network ad blocking software. AdGuardHome is open source under GPL-3.0, with 38k GitHub stars. Cisco Umbrella is a commercial product from Cisco.
Which to pick
- Pick AdGuardHome when
- You want Pi-hole-style blocking with built-in DoH, DoT and DoQ in a single binary.
- Pick Cisco Umbrella when
- A business or school wants a simple first layer of web filtering and threat blocking across all sites and devices.
Side by side
A network-wide DNS server that blocks ads and trackers, with encrypted DNS support, per-client settings and a web dashboard.
Cloud DNS-layer security that blocks malicious and unwanted domains for offices and roaming laptops, extending to secure web gateway and firewall features.
DNS blocking cannot stop ads served from the same domains as content.
Higher tiers get expensive and are being folded into Cisco's wider security bundles.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service
Go, TypeScript and React
Not published
Open source, GPL-3.0 (strong copyleft)
Closed source, sold by Cisco
Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
38k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v0.107.79.
Not known
Other comparisons
More network ad blockers and DNS filters
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.