Blocky vs NextDNS
Blocky and NextDNS are both network ad blocking software. Blocky is open source under Apache-2.0, with 7.1k GitHub stars. NextDNS is a commercial product from NextDNS.
Which to pick
- Pick Blocky when
- You want Pi-hole-style network ad blocking as a single stateless binary configured in code, without a built-in web UI.
- Pick NextDNS when
- You want network-wide blocking on phones and laptops wherever they go without running a Pi-hole.
Side by side
A DNS proxy and ad blocker for a local network that applies blocklists per client group and supports DoH, DoT and DoQ, caching and conditional forwarding, all from one YAML file.
A hosted DNS resolver that blocks ads, trackers and malicious domains on every device and network, with parental controls and query logs.
No admin interface out of the box; query logs and dashboards mean adding a database and Grafana or a third-party UI.
A small company, the service has gone quiet on development at times, and logs go to a third party unless disabled.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service
Go
Not published
Open source, Apache-2.0 (permissive)
Closed source, sold by NextDNS
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
7.1k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 7 years ago, latest release v0.35.0.
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.