Your home network doesn't need Pi-hole — an $8 ESP32 blocks ads just as well for a fraction of the cost
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An ESP32-S3 microcontroller can serve as a network-wide DNS ad blocker using the ESP32_AdBlocker project, offering a cheaper and lower-power alternative to Pi-hole. The ESP32-S3-N16R8 variant with 8MB PSRAM is recommended for faster lookups (under 50 microseconds) and larger blocklist support. Setup involves flashing firmware via Arduino IDE, optionally switching from LittleFS to FFat for more storage, and pointing your router's DNS to the device. Caveats include handling only one blocklist at a time, some manual configuration around partition schemes, and fewer advanced features compared to Pi-hole's dashboard, regex rules, and per-device controls.
