Pi-hole to AdGuard Home, one year later

I switched the Pi from Pi-hole to AdGuard Home last spring, mostly because I wanted encrypted upstream DNS without bolting on a separate resolver. A year in, here is the honest list.

Better

• One binary, one YAML file. Backups are a single cp.
• Per-client settings are easy: the kids' tablets get a stricter blocklist without a second instance.
• Upstream over DoH works out of the box, with parallel queries to two providers.

Worse

• The query log is less pleasant to search than Pi-hole's.
• Fewer community guides, so when something breaks you read the source or the issue tracker.

The DHCP gotcha

AdGuard Home's DHCP server refuses to start if the interface doesn't have a static address configured on the host, not just reserved on the router. The error is clear in hindsight:

dhcpv4: interface eth0: no static ip configured

I had set the reservation on the router and assumed that was enough. It isn't. Setting the address in /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0 fixed it:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.2/24
    gateway 192.168.1.1

Would I switch again?

Yes, but I'd do it on a weekday morning, not at 11pm when everyone else in the house needs the internet to work.