Using Pi-hole outside the home network: which approach should I use?

General
1

Hi everyone!

I’ve been running Pi-hole and Unbound on my home network for a few years, and I want to extend the same DNS filtering to my devices when I’m away from home. At the moment I do this with the following setup:

  • Pi-hole and Unbound on a DietPi host;
  • WireGuard providing a DNS-only VPN;
  • iOS and macOS as clients, using the VPN “On-Demand” feature.

I’ve read about a few alternative approaches, such as exposing a DoH or DoT endpoint and proxying requests to Pi-hole, or using Tailscale / Headscale instead of a self-hosted WireGuard VPN, but I haven’t tested these options yet and I don’t fully understand their practical implications.

Do these approaches, or any other solutions, offer meaningful benefits (for example in terms of battery usage, latency, security, etc.) compared to a DNS-only WireGuard VPN? Or is my current setup already the best overall option?

Thank you for your help

2

I would stick with WireGuard simply because of the fact that I do not trust all the other solutions :slight_smile:

3

That would highly depend on individual preferences, but I'd still be tempted to yes that, as it is the solution that is already working for you.

Unless you'd deem any of the potential additional benefits of alternative approaches necessary for you, I'd see no reason to replace your current solution.

4

Thank you both @nero355 and @Bucking_Horn for your suggestions. I confirm that the WireGuard VPN seems to be working fine at the moment. However, in response to this point:

My concern is that I’m not sure what those potential benefits would actually be, nor how significant they might be in practice. For example, would alternative approaches result in better battery life for the clients? And if so, are we talking about a meaningful improvement (e.g. 10%) or something negligible (e.g. 0.1%)?

Or lower latency, improved security, etc.

5

It’s a fact that Wireguard has better battery performance than OpenVPN for example so that’s “1 point in the pocket!” for you while using Wireguard, however I have never read anything about the others having such benefits when compared to any other solution.