Pihole vs pfsense. This was a difficult decision for me.

Pihole vs pfsense Integra con pfSense y navega con seguridad. Jun 21, 2022 · I used Pihole with unbound on RaspberryPi for some years, quite happy with it. Pihole seems to be much better at displaying what's being blocked and easier to manage blocklists. what else setting do i need to change in pfsense or pihole I run mostly this setup although I prefer pfsense's unbound resolver. I have pfSense setup to offer it's own DNS via DHCP and force all 3rd party DNS lookups to it. However if I went with the pihole I am unsure if I can point the modems DNS to the pihole IP. 0:03 - Introduction to configuring pfSense as Upstream DNS for Pi-hole 1:09 - Setting custom Apr 26, 2024 · Features Comparison: Opnsense vs pfSense In the realm of open-source firewalls, Opnsense and pfSense stand out as two of the most popular and widely used solutions. I use both. Then I learnt about the controversies around pfSense vs OPNSense. mobius. And one of those was ad-blocking (pfsense has a package called pfblocker-ng which does pretty much what pi-hole does from what I understood, but just built-in). Oct 10, 2022 · Configure pfSense Router with Pi Hole From the pfSense control panel, which is located at https://10. From my understanding: 1 Feb 1, 2017 · I'm running a pfsense router (192. So I guess that on top of NAT, I need to add PFSense to this DMZ ? Both achieve the same thing, one is just more specific than the other. I was hoping to run this in a docker on the same network as the firewall. I substituted pihole for pfblocker…much nicer to use. Unfortunately the USG 4 Pro doesn't have enough processing power to do IDS/IPS inspection for a 1 GB incoming WAN connection. Which one will you decide to use? Im trying to block ads, as well as do some basic network monitoring (mostly checking outbound traffic for malicious IPs). Once complete, move onto step 3. Install Pi-hole Our intelligent, automated installer asks you a few questions and then sets everything up for you. Works so far. I had a lot of nostalgia for Pi-Hole after working with it for years and it helping me get into Network building; however, Pi-Hole seems very much like a project of a bygone era. Reply reply Cats3214 • PFSense can do basically all of those things with other packages; why not do that? Honestly, I wasn’t aware of all the packages available, especially the experimental ones. Adguard home dont work either, so my nect step is to try a pfsense firewall to see if it is better. It is great to have choices. A few months ago, I decided to setup PiHole on a Raspberry Pi to block ads across all devices on my network. 1. System->Advanced->Admin Access After many test I keep my pihole, main reason : you can bypass some list on pihole for some client, my wife need to generate affiliation link, and it's don't work with unbound, with pihole I can filter some malware list and let ads service pass just for her pc. I do love pihole, but switched to adguard as it is easier to setup with my docker home assistent eviroment I am running. Setting up Pihole on proxmox with pfsense Home Lab Tech Support 2. arpa it forwards that to pfsense and gets the answer. What I also love in pfSense is the ability to install packages and add even more useful features to the platform. Pihole | Which Network Security Platform is BETTER in 2025?Join us as we delve into the nitty-gritty of two popular networking tools - Opnsense Pfsense, docker & pi-hole with unbound. I am in the process of rebuilding my network and I am curious what you would recommend. 4. Learn the key differences! PiHole is not a Firewall, just an ad blocking DNS server. Works great. Is this possible? Sep 15, 2021 · So don't laugh, but my current router is a 17 year-old Linksys WRT54Gv2 running DD-WRT. The PfSense DNS Resolver (unbound) will make external DNS requests as necessary The PiHole will also conditionally forward LAN requests to the PfSense DNS Resolver, which will be matched to the DHCP entries in PfSense I haven't seen this setup mentioned anywhere. Oct 13, 2022 · Hey all, I've been using pihole for some time now. etc. In my opinion, this is a waste of time. Comprehensive DNS ad blocking test with benchmarks, installation guides, and recommendations. "DMZ" in most home routers is nothing Jan 24, 2023 · Expected Behaviour: display blocking activity in WebUI from various home LAN clients. Note that when you put more then 1 DNS, your computer use them randomly, it's not use the first one then the second. I have conditional May 27, 2025 · Compare Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home performance, features, and setup. nl - Here is the list of DNS blocklists I am using. There’s a ton you can do to break things on pfblocker and it keeps me May 5, 2024 · This side-by-side comparison looks at pfSense vs. I have one pfSense instance and two pi-hole instances Do I understand it correctly, that I could implement the same thing with a CARP (or IP Alias There are actually three layers you can block: Layer 3 - IP Blocklists (free; manual config in opnsense, pfblocker in pfsense) DNS - Adguard home, pihole, blocky, unbound, nextdns, (On pfsense, also configured via pfblocker) Layer 7 - application blocking - aka NGFW. However, I cannot get a client to use the pihole dns lookup before going out the vpn, For the life of me, I cannot get the pihole outside of the VPN despite creating a DMZ zone. After extensive testing with Pi-Hole, pfSense and other firewalls over the years, I‘m routinely asked – which solution is best for home networks? There is no one-size-fits-all answer. I just tried our AdGuard Home on a VM and yes - it has a nice GUI and some nice toggles to play around with compared to Unbound in the OPNsense plugin. Jun 14, 2023 · The issue I am facing: I'm new to this, so forgive me if I'm not using all the terms properly. Mostly for the API support and it's better at being an authoritative DNS server. Pfsense and Pihole on its own stand alone host. I like pihole mostly bc of it's interface and graphs. I had to disable DNS rebind protection to get Pi-hole and devices to function smoothly. I really love the performance, stability and security pfSense provides. All lookups go via PiHole and pfSense can offer local resolution itself. attaching scnreenshots. Dec 27, 2023 · If you‘ve worked with the Raspberry Pi single board computer and pfSense router software, you may have wondered: can I actually run pfSense on my Raspberry Pi? It‘s a great question. Sure. I used pfsense for many years but switched to opn about a year ago and haven’t looked back. There is no documentation or workaround to install it on a Raspberry Pi. These work very well in my network without false positives. Thanks for the post. Feb 4, 2022 · Despite the fact that pfSense had stability issues, proxmox ran fine and stable. My Pfsense box has cloudflare as its DNS upstreamprovider, with IPv4 and IPv6. Join My Discord: / discord Links: How to setup Pi-hole: / discord How to setup Adguard Home Nov 2, 2022 · Then you can keep everything in one VM/on bare metal. Pfsense doesn’t pull through those well for a home user. . 29 votes, 32 comments. The Raspberry Pi and Pfsense are Sep 23, 2022 · 1- Should I need to open 443 port (NAT) in the ISP router and forward it to PFSense IP address ? My ISP Router as a "DMZ" functionality that basically forward all request to the device (s) that are listed in this DMZ. In this post, we will compare pfSense with OPNsense, including their functions and differences, to help you make an informed choice to protect your network. In this case, you can often set Pi-hole to be the DNS server for your network clients in the router's DHCP (or LAN) settings page, which allows all of your network clients to block ads simply by connecting to the Aug 23, 2023 · Your client asks pfsense, pfsense asks pihole, pihole answers with 0. srv), and pfblockerNG to manage aliases for things like all Netflix IPs, so. This was a difficult decision for me. Pi-hole can be bypassed easily by simply choosing another DNS server (some phone apps do this, and some smart TVs too). A better comparison for Opnsense would be pfsense with the pfblocker-devel package which offers the same if not better functionality, if you only need dns level blocking and you don't need anything else that either of them offer, use pihole plus it has pretty graphs Apr 23, 2019 · Any chance you've got this working in IPv6 and figured out how to get pfsense hostnames to resolve in pihole the way they do for IPv4? Particularly if using a tracked interface for addressing? Feb 11, 2020 · For a while now I have pfSense firewall running at home. Dec 7, 2018 · Pihole has nice interface to view amount and type of dns queries. 4 as secondary in case something fails) DNS resolver and forwarder sevices are completely turned off in pfsense. Which one would you recommend Jan 16, 2024 · Discover the pros and cons of PfBlockerng vs Pihole for ad-blocking. Quad core 8GB Ram 120GB ssd Share Add a Comment Sort by: Best Open comment sort options Best Top New Controversial Old Q&A speatzle_ •• Edited Aug 31, 2018 · Hi I am trying to set up the proper pi-hole configuration in my PfSense install. Apr 24, 2024 · PfBlockerNG vs Pihole: Descubre sus pros y contras para el bloqueo de anuncios a nivel red. 5) running on Centos - both virtualized. Find the link below to my website, where I have shared them with you. Easy backups and tinkering. Configure pihole as DNS in the DHCP server for each VLAN. So just one thing: adguard works with regular White/Blacklisting. Would you run pfBlockerNG or Pihole and why? Edit: I would run Pihole in an LXC container on ProxMox and not a physical Pi. Apr 25, 2025 · Choosing the right firewall can boost your home lab’s security and performance. Now I am asking myself, whether it would be better so run Pihole as a container or a VM. So I am asking myself, is there any benefit on using PiHole / AdGuard Home ON TOP of Unbound Blacklisting? I also saw that there is a community package . Explore advanced DNS configuration and alias settings to customize DNS resolution for local servers. Not OPNSense, but PfSense has a package called pfblockerng-devel which integrates DNS blocklists (and extra IP blocklists if you want) to the firewall itself. Also have you tried Adguard? I’m using pfblolcker now because, well the urge to tinker and break things. (Apologies for the simplistic phrasing and spread of questions but I probably do not understand the subject very well) I have a little network setup with A Synology NAS, PC running proxmox with bits and pieces Between 4 and 6 raspberry Pi with pihole, logging and analytics and some Feb 27, 2019 · In this video we walkthrough how to configure PFSense so that DHCP clients are sent to PI-Hole to resolve DNS instead of your ISP DNS servers. OPNsense to determine the best open-source firewall you can use by comparing their major differences. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. At present pfsense is handling external DNS request with upstream TLS DNS servers. Pi-Hole simplifies network-wide ad blocking for novice users, while Hi folks, I currently run a Unifi network with their Security Gateway, so have existing firewall capability. g. OpenWrt to determine the best router and firewall operating system that you can use. Now the problem Pfsense handles dhcp and also dns resolver (unbound). I currently run pfSense with pfBlockerNG. If you don't have the internal network hooked up then you can't get into the front end without it having some kind of usable DNS service. Now I’ve found some guides but all of them appear to have pihole as a separate machine/vm on a dmz. for example, with pfblocker, you have the DOT/DOT list built-in and you do not have to do the work of making sure your list is updated on your end, you can more easily NAT redirect things to use pfblocker when you use Dec 28, 2002 · Starting to look at DNS options again with the above options, anyone had particular experiences of them? I’ll be spinning up instances of them on the virtual server to have a further look. I am running it on Baremetal and it's running pretty smooth. DoT is blocked and DoH where possible (based on host). Can you please suggest a solution for ads blocking with OPNSense? Dec 8, 2020 · Hi currently i have all my traffic goes directly tru pihole like this: general settings: nat redir: i have DNS resolver and Forwarder disabled on pfsense Proxmox on Protectli. I would like to go further than a DNS sinkhole, I read that pfBlockerNG + pfSense would even be better. In this video, I will show you how to properly redirect every DNS request to your DNS server of choice, when using pfSense as your firewall. pfsense hands this back to client. i did conditional forwarding on my pihole to point to my pfsense router, also added my pfsense router as upstream dns in pihole also enabled dns resolver in pfsense but still it does not work. 168. PiHole docker is using host network configuration. 8. Feb 26, 2022 · I am taking a break from Pihole for a while, because it dont work so well, i have just installed 3 ad blockers to google chrome, and they work like a charm. Pihole to block ads and have better LAN hostnames (e. com/AdguardTea You can implement the UniFi Ad Blocker in less than a few minutes, but does it make sense to implement, or should you use Pi-hole?🎯 Hire me: https://www. Which one is better? We compare and contrast both. Choosing the right solution for building a firewall becomes key for businesses and individuals who want to protect their networks from security threats, configure more complex network settings and effectively manage traffic. Both pfBlockerNG and Pi-hole are excellent and give us the options to block unwanted traffic across the network. In my case : Pfsense sends out dns addresses via dhcp (pihole as primary and google 8. Jul 2, 2024 · So i want client hostnames on my pi hole from my pfsense router . Aug 3, 2024 · Photo by Viktor Forgacs / Unsplash Open-source tools like pfSense, OPNsense, and Pi-hole offer powerful and flexible solutions for enhancing network security and management. Mar 9, 2025 · Vikash. Unbound resolvers addresses via both protocols via DoT. The reason for it is the google servers are always faster than other dns service providers. I found various posts across the net, but each had a somewhat different appr Mar 27, 2024 · pfSense® Software Embraces Change: A Strategic Migration to the Linux Kernel pfSense to migrate from FreeBSD to Linux for improved performance, wider software & hardware compatibility, and better cloud integration. This article will break down the key aspects of the Lawrence Systems 361K subscribers 3. Check on the Control D or NextDNS sites to make sure you choose a compatible router! Testing Many people “ping” their DNS server to test it’s response time. Squid proxy with SSL interception, Zenarmor et al. Where to get STL Files for 19 inch 1U rack:more Oct 29, 2019 · Having issues with Pi-hole and VLANs and pfSense? Here's a quick how-to for getting pfSense, Pi-hole, and VLANs to play nice together. These two pi-holes are also synced using Nov 1, 2024 · As a network engineer and homelab enthusiast, blocking ads and malware at the network level is an essential pillar of my infrastructure. This way I still get host names through dhcp (wasn’t getting it before when running unbound on my pi vm). May 9, 2017 · Using Your Existing Router For Network-wide Ad Blocking You might not need to use Pi-hole's DHCP server: In many home environments, your router also functions as your DHCP server. Please navigate to System General Setup DNS Server Settings from the menu above. My ideal setup would be to use the Pi-holes as my DNS Servers, with both of them pointing to pfSense to resolve the DNS using Unbound on the pfSense device. Pihole only protects devices that play by the rules. I keep hearing people on this sub and others talk about pfsense, but when I looked at pricing on their website it seemed outside the consumer range. It works for me. 3 seconds later client asks again, once again pfsense has to ask pihole, cycle repeats. Similar things for PiHole. You do understand you can bring up a pihole and then just have it forward to unbound running on pfsense which then resolves. 1 in my subnet I have pfsense VPN and a pihole raspi working perfectly. It does not need to be an either or sort of setup. Jul 6, 2020 · This video explains how to forward DNS requests to a Pi-Hole on Raspberry Pi in conjunction with a PfSense Firewall device. Apr 6, 2022 · Hopefully, this pfSense pfBlockerng vs Pihole comparison of pros and cons will help any trying to decide which solution to use and the benefits and drawbacks for each. 0. Jun 7, 2024 · Can pfSense Run on Raspberry Pi? Even if FreeBSD runs well on Raspberry Pi and the pfSense source code is available, all pfSense releases are limited to the AMD64 architecture. Also you can look at pfblockerng package which works very much like pihole and can even use pihole lists. Aug 29, 2024 · OPNsense vs pfSense: A Comparative Analysis Two of the leading open-source firewall solutions, OPNsense and pfSense, offer powerful tools for managing network traffic, detecting intrusions, and maintaining privacy. But I havent found a real pro pihole argument. If you would need to actually install a second bit of hardware to use pihole, I'd stick with pfBlockerNG. Apr 4, 2022 · If you have a pfSense then I’d highly recommend pfBlockerNG, but if you don’t have a pfSense then I’d recommend AdGuard Home. Set pihole to whatever upstream resolver you want to use. pfSense router is configured to point to Synology for DNS. I've searched online and I found conflicting advice on how I should setup my network to best use pfsense and pihole together while using unbound to resolve dns queries. Jan 25, 2024 · Pfsense is what holds all the dns records for all my local devices, etc. Then I got to pfsense and since then, unbound is running on pfsense with pfb_dev. pfSense is in first line an firewall, which can be enhanced via pfBlockerNG to do the same as piHole and also use Snort or Suricata to act as IDS/IPS. Feb 14, 2022 · Pi-Hole vs AdGuard Home: The two leading self-hosted ad blockers on the market. Dhcp sets PiHole ip as dns with rules allowing v1 and v3 to server vlan (v2). PiHole upstream is set to ip of pfsense for unbound instead of running it alongside the pi. I've got the radio disabled and use a newer TP-Link router hooked up as a dedicated AP. 67K subscribers Subscribed May 5, 2025 · Opnsense Vs. I think I read the other day that some people still stuck to pfsense because opnsense is still missing some, albeit very few, features. I have pfSense set as the . home. Feb 3, 2018 · On my pfsense I made all of the devices to use a static address. 8 DNS. Pi-Hole? It seems like a nice project but pi-hole is really mature; I'd love to see a feature comparison or a brag sheet showing what it's better at. Hi all, I've read a lot of information on how to setup pihole to work with pfSense and a lot of it is very confusing with lots… Aug 12, 2024 · You can also use routers running ”alternative” or open source firmware like DD-WRT, Merlin Fresh Tomato, pfSense. In this in-depth guide, I‘ll cover everything you need to know about putting pfSense on a Raspberry Pi: What are pfSense and the Raspberry […] Pihole is completely different from pfblockerng: DNS poisoning/spoofing vs packet filteringthere are a dozen different ways to accomplish what pihole does ("website blocking") within pfsense, including utilizing DNS poisoning. Pihole is just set and forget. Then I can control whether or not to have it pass through pi-hole or i will bypass pihole and add a simple 8. This article provides in-depth, step-by-step guides for setting up these tools to create a secure and efficient home or small business network. So, I'm in the early stages of exploring PFSense, Pi-Hole, and Synology's Router and had a few questions I was hoping this group could help with? What is Jun 5, 2017 · I have been using pfSense as my home router for a few years. I'm looking to upgrade the router and am considering either a new, DD-WRT compatible consumer product like the Linksys 3200ACM or a Netgate 1100 running pfSense. pfSense Resolver then uses PiHole as upstream DNS. It is just rock-solid! But let me tell you why I moved from pfBlockerNG to Pi-Hole. 1 in my case. Jan 13, 2021 · I have just rebuilt my Proxmox machine and got pfSense up and running again so that I can use everything as I would normally. Do u have a how to instruction? My pfSense is virtaulised so it's easy to spin up another Container for pihole. May 10, 2024 · Today, we're setting up our own AdGuard DNS Ad-blocking server! With Proxmox helper scripts it couldn't be easier!AdGuard Home: https://github. So if some client says hey pihole whats the IP of nas. Here are the steps needed to add a pi-hole to you pfsense network. The basic setup is to add the Pi-hole's IP (w/gateway none) into DNS servers in System->General, and disable the DNS resolver before enabling DNS forwarder. i can have that traffic go over WAN instead of VPN. If you run pihole behind your router then be sure to have the router itself use at least once public DNS server (like 8. Hi, I had long time thinking of creating a VM with PiHole But a friend told me he use AdGuard on his OpnSense firewall! I'm using pfSense, and I'm… Mar 16, 2023 · This article looks at pfSense vs. Install Pi-hole One thing I really like in pihole is the locally resolved rdns names. This post outlines how I accomplished this. Hi everyone, I am running two pi-hole servers today and I was about to implement this tutorial (part 2: create a HA (active/standby) between the 2 Pi-hole machines) with the help of keepalived when I saw "Virtual IPs" in the pfSense settings. This guide compares pfSense and OPNsense to help you decide. If you dont end up figuring it out, let me know and I can dive into my settings to see how I did it. wun I would not use dnsmasq I would just give all users your pihole IP address then point your pihole to unbound for its cache and have it query the root servers. I also use pfsense as my firewall and I want Pfsense to be my upstream DNS provider with Unbound. I have a pihole but I dont use it cuz it blocks games like splatoon so I've just been using adblock origin or brave in the meantime until I can fix it. It works great via IPv4 and IPv6, but I want to make some changes in my network. Hey everyone, I recently got into the pfSense bandwagon, and I’m trying to integrate it with my 2x Pi-holes. Jan 25, 2024 · If it makes you feel any better, I've been running Pihole on a RPi 3B+ for many years now (at least 5) as my sole DNS provider, even added Unbound at a later time, and the number of times my RPi/Pihole went down was exactly zero. I am not now, nor do I ever want to be a network I am a newbie to homelab setup, and my network is mostly used for software dev/test/deploy or home automation. I decided a while ago that I needed to get on the PiHole bandwagon and block ads network-wide rather than just on my own devices, per browser, etc. Jun 11, 2023 · Hi, Imitating a co-worker with his Raspberry Pi + PiHole, I have reproduced the same using PiHole on Debian. Feb 17, 2025 · OPNsense forked from pfSense in late 2014 and early 2015, citing a long list of reasons (and grievances) against continuing with pfSense and its less-than-transparent actions following a majority personally speaking, I use both pihole AND pfblockerNG on pfsense, some things can't be easily/reliably blocked with one, and that's where the other one takes over/cleans up. I think Zenarmor combines all three In this video I will show you how to install and configure pihole so that you can have your own DNS/DHCP Server. I'm running technician as well. Network setup: ISP modem > pfSense (as router+DHCP server) > rest of network. 2. 0 with ttl of 2 seconds. I’m looking to use pfsense with pihole also with unbound dns. 6K 170K views 5 years ago #pfsense #Firewalls The way you did work, your pihole goes to the internet for dns, your pfsense use pihole as dns and you vlan use either pfsense or cloud fare. I currently have 2x pi-holes, one running on bare metal and another on a docker container. Apr 22, 2021 · Hi, I am currently using Unbound DNS to blacklist DNS queries. 8) for itself even though you have pihole. I will integrate the pihole with pfSense so that you can have a full working setup Pfsense does dhcp and pihole is strictly DNS and my host names show up in pihole. Learn how each integrates with pfSense and optimizes your network security. I've seen many guides and questions related to Pihole and Opnsense. Deciding between these two can be challenging, especially when weighing their features, usability, and hardware requirements. Aug 4, 2023 · In this video i go over the difference between Adguard Home and Pi-hole and which one you should use. 1) forwarding DNS to Pi-hole (192. Pfsense on the other hand is a firewall and there should be no way (outside of a unpatched vulnerability) to bypass a well configured firewall. Jul 27, 2020 · Many folks out there use both (pihole + opnsense) combined, but I wonder what the true benefits are? Currently I am only using Opnsense as DHCP, DNS and Firewall and it's doing a great job. Why would I use Blocky vs. wmqqyi kybm usjth ycsgb aldmo qqwtf gjebp jdjogu iqlpjpd dxewz geurxen pyiwxwj polyr axccfqqz fzisbyw