Is PorchLights a Pi-hole alternative?

It is a different mechanism, not a rebrand. Pi-hole and AdGuard DNS block ads using large blocklists of domains that grow stale and break sites. PorchLights runs two small AI models, PhishScout for scams and AdVig for ads and trackers, that score the address of each site the house asks for, so there is no list to maintain and nothing to break. It costs $79 once, or Rs 1,999 in India, with no subscription.

Is Pi-hole better than PorchLights?

For a technical person who is happy maintaining a Raspberry Pi, Pi-hole is cheaper at $35 to $70 in hardware and is a perfectly good ad blocker. PorchLights is built for the case where nobody in the house will maintain it: it is pre-flashed, it needs no SD card and no admin console, and it blocks scams as its primary job rather than ads. If you are the sysadmin and you will keep it running, buy Pi-hole.

How does PorchLights compare to NextDNS or AdGuard DNS?

NextDNS and AdGuard DNS are cloud DNS services, typically $20 to $55 a year, and they work by resolving every domain name through someone else's server. That means the query data for your whole household leaves the house. PorchLights is $79 once, needs no account, and the models run entirely on the device, so nothing about your browsing is sent anywhere.

Will PorchLights break Netflix, Disney+ or my bank?

No. Because PorchLights filters with two small models rather than a large blocklist, streaming, banking and shopping sites keep working. It blocks scam-looking websites plus most ad and tracking domains. If anything ever misbehaves you can pause protection for 5 minutes from your phone. The one known false positive in firmware v0.3a is fonts.googleapis.com, which is scored 0.4774 against a 0.4774 cutoff; threshold tuning and a built-in allowlist are queued for v0.3b.

Does PorchLights need a subscription?

No. You pay once, $79 or Rs 1,999 in India. Stats, allow and deny lists, strictness and the 5-minute pause are all local and free forever. NextDNS and AdGuard DNS are annual subscriptions; Pi-hole and a Raspberry Pi are a one-time hardware cost but need someone to maintain them.

How hard is PorchLights to set up?

Two steps on your phone and one router setting, done once. Plug it in beside the router, join the PorchLights-Setup WiFi from your phone, pick your home WiFi, then point your router's DNS at PorchLights using the QR card and a 2-minute video. That last router step is the one unavoidable part, the same as with Pi-hole.

Pi-hole, NextDNS, Firewalla — or a box that looks after itself.

Four ways to stop ads and scams on a home network. They work in genuinely different ways, and the right one depends almost entirely on who is going to maintain it. Here is what each one costs, what it actually does, and — in the last section — when the cheapest option is the correct one to buy.

Four network blockers compared on cost, how they filter, maintenance, privacy, scam detection and whether they suit a house with non-technical parents.
	Cost	How it filters	Who maintains it	Catches scams	Your data	Right for non-technical parents?
PorchLights	$79 once / ₹1,999	Two on-device AI models score each address	Nobody, after setup	Yes — that is the primary job	Never leaves the house	Yes, this is the case it was built for
Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi	$35–$70 in hardware, once	Large blocklists of ad domains	You do, forever	Only if you maintain a scam list yourself	Stays local, if you never enable the public lists	Only if you are the one maintaining it
NextDNS / AdGuard DNS	$20–$55 per year, ongoing	Cloud resolver with blocklists	Nobody, but you subscribe	Scam-filtering on paid tiers	Every domain query goes to their server	Yes, if the subscription is fine
Firewalla	$319 and up	A full network firewall	A technical owner	Not its purpose	Local by default	Overkill for scam blocking
Per-device security app	Often free, sometimes a subscription	Installed on each phone and laptop	Everyone, and someone uninstalls it	Partly, on that device only	Varies by vendor	No — this is the thing that gets abandoned

Competitor pricing from public listings, August 2026. Pi-hole and Raspberry Pi prices vary by region and are hardware costs rather than subscriptions.

If you are technical and will keep it running

Buy Pi-hole. It is cheaper, it is open source, and you already know how to use it. PorchLights will not do anything better for you.

If the whole family must be covered

PorchLights. Router-level, so the TV and the smart fridge are covered too — not just the devices someone remembered to protect.

If nobody in the house will maintain anything

PorchLights. Pre-flashed, no SD card, no console, no lists. And if the blocklist approach already failed once, that failure is the reason this exists.

Said plainly

PorchLights is not a better Pi-hole. It is a different mechanism for a different household. If you can run a Raspberry Pi and keep a blocklist current, Pi-hole is cheaper and you should buy Pi-hole. This page is on our own site, so we have no reason to pretend otherwise. What PorchLights changes is who has to do the work afterwards — and that is the whole question for a house where the victim is your mother.

Join the waitlist Read the full register

One known false positive in firmware v0.3a: fonts.googleapis.com, scored 0.4774 against a 0.4774 cutoff. Threshold tuning and a built-in allowlist land in v0.3b. Scam lookups measure about 4 ms and ad lookups about 1 ms at 160 MHz, with roughly 100 KB of model on the device. The full register shows real output.