Linux

i switched from pihole to adguard because adguard is bsd compatible and runs on my opnsense router. for linux, the main benefit of adguard is that it is a self-contained app-image. pihole is a bit of a mess of packages that it installs (if installing on pc rather than a pi) , rather than being part of a distribution's native ports. upgrading adguard is also trivial.

I've not used anything other than pihole (and browser adblocks), so I can't speak on them. But pihole seems to do well for me. Granted I do have a bigger Blocklist than what ships. ~1.6 million domains. Some custom to my environment. Also using Wireguard so the blocking happens on smartphones while not at home.

With so many people complaining about installing/upgrading pihole... Does no-one else use Docker for pihole?

I stopped using PiHole, or more accurately, it stopped working with my router after my provider, TalkTalk UK, updated the firmware. I didn't want to invest a lot of time finding a workaround so went back to application layer processes like uBlock Origin, etc.

I'd be interested to hear from people who have something working with a Sagecom Fast 5364. I imagine it's possible to configure it as modem only and leave routing duties to a Pi.

If you care about DoT or DoH Adguard Home will support it out of the box (which is why I use it)
you can make pi-hole also support DoH/DoT albeit little bit more complicated with an extra service like stubby/unbound

otherwise it really doesn't matter, both are open source and easy to setup for unencrypted dns requests

Pihole for years on a Pi3. But it kept dying on me, taking the Internet down with it. I believe this was a micro SD card issue not the Pi or the software. When rebuilding it I took the chance to try AGH and honestly like the interface much better. Seems more logically laid out, at least to me. So now I run one instance on Pi3, another on my unRAID server, with Adguard sync to keep them identical. I'm very happy with this setup.

I ran Pihole for many years, but a few months ago moved my home to Adguard. Both as docker.

My main issue with Pihole was that the database get going readonly which prevented my from whitelisting domains. It got progressivly more irritating when a 10 second operation would take a quarter of an hour and this randomly happened over at least two of those years with seemingly increasing frequency. A secondary reason was curiosity - what does Adguard do differently?

Piece of cake to set Adguard up in docker - even though I have two servers running with primary/secondary failover. In terms of features, it "just works". User experience is identical. The lists seem equally as effective. Adding a local dns entry was a little more complicated, but not difficult by any means.

Is pihole bad? No, it's great. I don't think many other people encounter my specific issues.

Is Adguard better? Not by any massive margin. Both do what they claim to do without fuss.

Is browsing the internet without either of them considerably more awful? Yes.

Adguard is a little more refined imho.

Ran pinhole for ages and used scripts to update it.

Adguard, everything is built into the UI. Although custom rules for certain clients are a little hard in Adguard.

Now I have a dual system.

Adguard is a secondary and DoH as my primary. That way I have DNS services regardless of if the internet is up or down.

I've been running pihole for nearly 2 years now and it's been great, it's automatic integration with PiVPN being a nice bonus

PiHole is a pain in the ass to install in x86 Arch Linux, so I installed Technitium on my old laptop to be my home DNS server.

I have a laptop at my home that I use as a VPN exit node from Tailscail, and I installed Technitium there, to works also as a ad blocker. Really sweet to my needs.

It works pretty well

I'm using nextDNS so I can have it outside of home too. If you want someone to use on your phones when you're away from home wifi, I'd give that or AdGuard a try. But PiHole is easy to do for home in an SBC or container.