I started using NextDNS in early 2024 because I wanted encrypted DNS with per-device profiles, and the alternative options either lacked configurability (Cloudflare 1.1.1.1) or were less polished (the various open-source self-hosted setups I had tried before). A year later I am still using it, and the relationship has gone through enough phases that a real review is worth writing.
This is what NextDNS is, what it does well, what frustrated me, and whether you should pay for it.
What NextDNS actually is
NextDNS is a hosted, configurable, encrypted DNS resolver. You sign up, create a profile, get a configuration ID, point your devices at the NextDNS server using either a configuration profile (iOS, macOS), DoH/DoT settings (Windows, Android, Linux), or a router-level setup. From that point your DNS lookups go to NextDNS over an encrypted channel, and the company applies whatever filtering rules you have configured.
The configurability is the differentiator. NextDNS supports:
- Multiple blocklists, choosable from a curated catalog (NextDNS Ads, EasyList, EasyPrivacy, OISD, malware lists, parental control lists, dozens of others)
- Custom allowlist and denylist entries
- Per-device profiles (your phone gets one filter set, your kids’ tablets get another, your work laptop gets a third)
- Logging and analytics that you can review
- DNSSEC validation
- ECS (Edge Client Subnet) controls
- Various paranoid options (block newly registered domains, block dynamic DNS, block IDN homograph attacks)
The company is French, headquartered in Paris, with infrastructure on Cloudflare and AWS edge networks for global low-latency routing.
What the first month looked like
Setup was easier than I expected. The iOS and macOS configuration profiles are one-click installs. The Windows setup involves running a small installer (or configuring DoH manually in newer Windows builds). The Android setup is a single Private DNS field in network settings. The router setup, if you go that route, is a Pi-hole-style “set this DNS server in your router config” exercise.
The first thing I noticed was that web browsing felt subtly faster. Some of this was placebo. Some of it was real. NextDNS’s resolvers are aggressively cached and well-peered, and on my home Comcast connection, NextDNS responses came back faster than Comcast’s own DNS in informal latency tests. Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 was equally fast; NextDNS edged out the ISP option.
The second thing I noticed was that the analytics dashboard was genuinely interesting. Within a week of use, the logs showed exactly which trackers were embedded in which apps, which “smart” devices in my home were beaconing where, and which common websites were the heaviest tracker offenders. Some of this was unsurprising. Some was genuinely educational (the number of distinct telemetry endpoints my smart TV contacts is uncomfortably high).
The blocklist defaults caught most of the obvious advertising and tracking. A few things broke (a payment processor used a CDN that was on one of the blocklists; one of my work tools used a domain that NextDNS classified as advertising). The fix in each case was adding the broken domain to my allowlist.
What month three taught me
The honeymoon ends around month three for most privacy tools, when you have stopped paying close attention and you find out what the product is like when you are not actively monitoring it.
NextDNS held up. Latency stayed consistently good. The analytics continued to be informative. The blocklist defaults stayed mostly correct without intervention. I added a few custom blocklist entries for specific annoyances (a particular news site’s recommendation engine, a particular weather app’s telemetry endpoint), and the per-device profile feature let me apply different rules to my work laptop than to my personal devices.
The first real frustration came when I tried to use NextDNS for parental controls on my younger relative’s tablet. The parental-control blocklists are extensive, but the categorization is imperfect. I had to manually add and remove categories several times to get a rule set that blocked actually-objectionable content without blocking the perfectly normal kids’ shows that triggered false positives in the “violence” category. After about a week of tuning, the setup was usable. It was more work than NextDNS’s marketing implied.
The second frustration was the dashboard itself. NextDNS’s web interface is functional but slow, especially the logs page when you have a busy household generating thousands of queries per hour. Filtering and searching the logs to investigate specific issues was clunkier than I expected.
What month nine taught me
By month nine I had learned the operational habits that make NextDNS work well.
I check the logs weekly, not constantly. Looking at minute-by-minute query data is overwhelming and not useful. The weekly aggregate view, with its top blocked domains and top allowed domains, surfaces the things worth knowing.
I treat the blocklist as additive. I subscribe to OISD (the most respected community-maintained list, with conservative inclusion criteria) plus NextDNS’s own ad list, plus a small custom denylist. I do not enable every available list, because the false positive rate compounds.
I keep a separate “permissive” profile for when something breaks and I need to bypass filtering temporarily. This has saved me twenty minutes more than once when a website failed in unexpected ways and I needed to test whether NextDNS was the cause.
I configure DoH on each device individually rather than at the router level, because per-device profiles are more useful than household-wide filtering for my situation.
I set up CNAME unblocking and ECS settings appropriately for the regions I care about, which improves CDN routing.
After about six months of habit-building, NextDNS faded into the infrastructure layer where it belongs. I stopped thinking about DNS and just used the internet, with most ads and trackers silently blocked at the network level.
Pricing reality
NextDNS pricing has shifted slightly over the past year. As of mid-2026:
- Free tier: 300,000 queries per month, all features available
- Pro: $1.99 per month or $19.90 per year, unlimited queries
For a single device, the free tier is plenty. For a household with multiple devices, smart TVs, and IoT, the free tier is exhausted within days. The Pro tier is the only sensible option for most users beyond a single phone.
At $20 per year, NextDNS is one of the cheapest paid privacy tools you can have, and the value is genuine. For comparison, that is roughly the same price as one month of NordVPN’s introductory rate.
Where it falls short
The dashboard performance issue mentioned earlier is real. NextDNS’s web app is built on a stack that does not scale gracefully to high-traffic households. Loading a week of logs can take seconds on a busy account. The mobile app is functional but limited; you do most management from the web.
The block-domain definitions occasionally lag. When a new tracking endpoint emerges (and they do, constantly), NextDNS sometimes takes weeks to add it to their built-in lists. Pi-hole users who run aggressively curated blocklists like StevenBlack’s hosts file get newer protections faster, at the cost of more false positives.
The “block newly registered domains” feature, if enabled, sometimes blocks legitimate new sites you actually want to visit. Worth knowing before you turn it on.
The customer support is email-based and slow (multi-day responses). For a paid product, this is below average.
The company’s small size (NextDNS is a small French team, not a huge enterprise) is both a strength (responsive when you can reach them, no enterprise-suite bloat) and a weakness (when they are overwhelmed, response times suffer).
NextDNS versus the alternatives
For configurability, NextDNS is genuinely best in class among hosted options.
For pure speed, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 is comparable or slightly faster, but lacks the per-profile and blocklist features.
For self-hosted alternatives, Pi-hole and AdGuard Home offer similar functionality with full control, but require running and maintaining your own DNS server. The trade-off is “I want to manage this myself” versus “I want someone else to manage the infrastructure and just configure it.”
For users who specifically want German-headquartered alternatives, AdGuard DNS is comparable, with similar pricing.
For users who want a NextDNS direct competitor that is also French and similarly small, ControlD is the obvious other option, with similar pricing and a slightly different feature set.
Should you pay for it
For households with multiple devices and an interest in network-level ad and tracker blocking, NextDNS Pro at $20 per year is one of the best privacy purchases you can make.
For technical users who would otherwise self-host Pi-hole or AdGuard Home and value the time savings: NextDNS does the job for less hassle.
For users who only need DNS for a single device and do not care about ads/trackers being blocked: Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 is sufficient and free.
For users who want maximum control and do not mind the operational overhead: self-hosted Pi-hole or AdGuard Home is the right answer.
After a year, my own usage continues. The product has earned its annual subscription several times over in time saved on managing self-hosted DNS infrastructure and in the small but persistent benefit of less-cluttered web browsing across all my devices.
NextDNS (referral program available, applying)
Related: Encrypted DNS friendly guide, Self-hosting Pi-hole on Raspberry Pi 5