blocky

Blocky is a DNS proxy that filters requests before they reach your devices. Same concept as Pi-hole but written in Go, runs as a single binary, and needs zero dependencies. No database, no web server framework, no PHP.

Point your router's DNS at Blocky, configure your blocklists, and every device on your network stops loading ads and trackers. It supports DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS, conditional forwarding, and client-specific rules. Apache 2.0.

Fully free. No paid tier, no cloud version. Self-host only.

The catch: Blocky has no web dashboard out of the box. Pi-hole gives you a slick admin panel with graphs and query logs. Blocky gives you a config file and an API. If you want a UI, you'll need to set up Grafana or a third-party frontend. For people comfortable with YAML config files, that's fine. For everyone else, Pi-hole's UI is hard to beat.