A household, not a list of IP addresses
Devices belong to people or groups; the protections follow the age of each person, and adults are never watched (their detailed reports need their own agreement).
Comparison
How Warda compares
How Warda compares with the two best-known self-hosted DNS filters, and what it does not do yet. Both are free software with their own licences: Warda (AGPL-3.0) takes ideas from what they show, never their code.
The comparison describes their public versions known in 2026; it will age, and each project keeps its own documentation up to date.
| 18 of 18 features | Warda | Pi-hole | AdGuard Home |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blocklists, own allow and block rules | yes | yes | yes |
| Learns on the box which names to suggest blocking | yes | no | no |
| People of the household, profiles by age, reports per child | yes | no | no |
| Sensitive categories (adult, gambling, violence…) by profile | yes | partial — through lists | partial — through lists and services |
| Hours of Internet, time a day, school holidays, requests of a child | yes | no | partial — blocking schedule of services |
| Detection of the ways around the filter (VPN, proxy, encrypted DNS) | yes, with alerts | no | no |
| "Something is broken" on a device (pause and one-click unblock) | yes | no | no |
| Network scan, local names, groups of devices, managed switches | yes | partial — local names | partial — clients and local names |
| DHCP server | partial — IPv4, and its DNS announced over IPv6 | yes — IPv4 and IPv6 | yes — IPv4 and IPv6 |
| Encrypted upstream servers (DoH, DoT) | yes | partial — through a companion | yes |
| Encrypted DNS for the devices (DoH, DoT, DoQ) | yes, with a free certificate renewed by itself | no | partial — yes, certificate to bring |
| SafeSearch, blocking of named services | yes, by profile, group, person or device | no | yes |
| DNSSEC validation | partial — by the upstream servers, checked | yes | yes |
| Custom local records (A, CNAME…) | yes | yes | yes |
| Query log with search, filters and live view | yes | yes | yes |
| Rule from a row of the query log | yes | yes | yes |
| Encrypted database | yes | no | no |
| Automatic updates | yes — signed, with rollback | partial — by hand | yes |
What Warda does differently
Local learning
Warda studies its own journal and suggests names to block, with the reason, instead of relying only on lists.
For parents
Hours of Internet, time a day per category, school holidays from the official calendars, requests for more time, alerts when a child tries to go around the filter, weekly summary.
Built to be left alone
Encrypted nightly backups (and a copy to a USB drive), signed automatic updates with rollback, a page of the scheduled tasks, a diagnostic without browsing data.
What Warda does not do yet
In the order they are planned (none is promised for a given version).
- 1Validation of DNSSEC by Warda itselfToday: by the upstream servers, checked every 6 hours.
- 2IPv6 DHCPToday: Warda announces itself as DNS server over IPv6.
- 3Finer rulesRules by regular expression; rules per device; rate limiting per client; a choice of the answer to a blocked name (
0.0.0.0,NXDOMAIN,REFUSED).
Ideas taken from their interfaces
The charts and the query log of Warda follow ideas both projects made familiar, drawn again in the charter of Warda.
- an activity chart by steps of 10 minutes over 24 hours, whose window shows under the chart and opens the queries of that window;
- small curves under the figures of the dashboard, rings for the types of queries, the reasons of blocking and the upstream servers, tops with the share of each name;
- a query log with one search box, a filter of the result and of the device, a live view, tinted rows and a rule in one click.
Coming from another DNS filter?
Warda is in open beta: the subscription is offered to every tester.