Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Add OpenDNS servers to resolve names with most recent successful entry launched in 2016; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   DN$ – an innovative, ad-supported DNS resolver▲294

   Tired of companies snooping through your DNS traffic? Don't you wish you could get advertisements with your DNS records? Today we're introducing the innovative, privacy-focused, ad-supported DNS resolver - DN$! Traditional DNS resolvers provided by your internet service provider, cloudflare, or google could be tracking your internet activity and selling it to third-party data vendors. We at DN$ want to fix that and cut out these nefarious actors (until we've amassed a critical number of users to exploit). In order to support such a radically new business model, our service needs to serve…

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

2. 2WD
   Which DNS servers are you pointing to?▲283

   2020 · which.nameserve.rs · its alternatives →

3. 3
   nextdns.io – A Combination of Cloudflare DNS and Pi-Hole▲372

   NextDNS protects you from all kinds of security threats, blocks ads and trackers on websites and in apps and provides a safe and supervised Internet for kids — on all devices and on all networks.

   2019 · nextdns.io · its alternatives →

4. 4
   I built a DNS resolver from scratch in Rust – no DNS libraries▲115

   I built a DNS resolver that lets me use https://frontend.numa instead of localhost:5173 — auto-generated TLS certs, WebSocket passthrough, path routing. No mkcert, no nginx, no /etc/hosts.

   Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5KE
   KittenDNS – Easy to setup, rule engine, LetsEncrypt compatible▲107

   My goal was to create a DNS server as simple as the LDAP server I've been contributing to (glauth) and here it is: https://github.com/fusion/kittendns A few things to know about it: - It is easy to configure using a Toml file - I am using it to bail my coredns/etcd instances when under attack - (yes, it also works as a service location server) - It comes with a simple, plain English, rule engine that doesn't do much at this point - It can be used with LetsEncrypt. I use it to retrieve certificates for my home servers. - RFC: all the nice ones :) Anyway, feedback is…

   2022 · its alternatives →

6. 6
   Open database tracking 77K public DNS servers every 10 minutes▲7

   Hey HN! We built DNS Directory (https://dnsdirectory.com), a free, searchable database of public DNS servers with live monitoring every 10 minutes. We needed to find an up-to-date list of DNS servers used by carriers around the world for a proxy fingerprinting / web-scraping project but we were shocked to find that it didn’t exist so we built it ourselves in an internal Hackathon We’re adding more features but so far we: Test 77K+ servers every ~10 minutes Allow filtering by uptime, location, security features (ad blocking, malware protection, DNSSEC) Show info on IPv6…

   Dec 2025 · dnsdirectory.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   DNS Benchmark Tool – Compare and monitor resolvers▲59

   I built a CLI to benchmark DNS resolvers after discovering DNS was adding 300ms to my API requests. v0.3.0 just released with new features: compare: Test single domain across all resolvers top: Rank resolvers by latency/reliability/balanced monitor: Continuous tracking with threshold alerts 1,400+ downloads in first week. Quick start: pip install dns-benchmark-tool dns-benchmark compare --domain google.com CLI stays free forever. Hosted version (multi-region, historical tracking, alerts) coming Q1 2026. GitHub: https://github.com/frankovo/dns-benchmark-tool…

   Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Run a temporary DNS server that resolves a hostname to the current IP▲8

   Run a temporary DNS server that resolves a given hostname to the current IP - no-gravity/dns-here

   2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   "q", a DNS query tool with support for UDP, TCP, DoT, DoH, DoQ and ODoH▲140

   A tiny command line DNS client with support for UDP, TCP, DoT, DoH, DoQ and ODoH. - natesales/q

   2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    MassDNS – A high-performance DNS stub resolver in C▲35

    A high-performance DNS stub resolver for bulk lookups and reconnaissance (subdomain enumeration) - blechschmidt/massdns

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    I built a guided Build your own DNS Server challenge▲57

    Hey everyone. It's Sherub here, author of the Build your own DNS Server challenge on CodeCrafters. Currently it’s available in Rust, Go, and Python and is free while in beta. https://codecrafters.io/dns-server I've kept the challenge accessible but still challenging for an intermediate developer. This challenge, like others from CodeCrafters, is self-paced. You can use any tools you prefer (terminal, editor, etc.) to build the project. At the end of the challenge, you will have created a DNS forwarding server. The server can create and read DNS packets and respond to DNS…

    2023 · app.codecrafters.io · its alternatives →

12. 12
    DNS Diagnosis▲86

    Free AI DNS record diagnostics tool

    2023 · its alternatives →

13. 134D
    4B+ DNS Records Dataset▲90

    Hi HN, I've been working on building a pipeline to create a DNS records database lately. The goal is to enable research as well as competitive landscape analysis on the internet. The dataset for now spans around 4 billion records and covers all the common DNS record types: A AAAA ANAME CAA CNAME HINFO HTTPS MX NAPTR NS PTR SOA SRV SSHFP SVCB TLSA TXT Each line in the CSV file represents a single DNS record in the following format: www.example.com,A,93.184.215.14 Let me know if you have any questions or feedback!

    2024 · merklemap.com · its alternatives →

14. 14OT
    OctoDNS, Tools for managing DNS across multiple providers▲31

    After the major outages from AWS and Cloudflare, I began wondering how to make my own services more resilient. Using nameservers from different providers is doable but a bit tricky to manage. OctoDNS helps automate keeping the zones synced so AWS, Cloudflare, etc. are all serving the same information. In an age of centralized infrastructure, we can exploit the capabilities from the origins of the decentralized internet.

    Nov 2025 · octodns.readthedocs.io · its alternatives →

15. 15AA
    An API to provision custom hostnames with SSL▲90

    We launched an API for custom hostnames today. A simple HTTP post with a hostname gets a temp hostname with CNAME/a record instructions, as soon as DNS is setup we issue SSL and start accepting traffic for that hostname. It's the quickest way we know of to provision custom hostnames: https://fly.io/mix/custom-hostnames/ When we started building Fly, we figured it was too late to "make SSL easy and the customers will come". Lets Encrypt changed the world, and we knew many companies rolling their own SSL support with nginx, Traefik, etc, etc. It seemed like a…

    2017 · its alternatives →

16. 16
    NsLookup▲72

    A simple and powerful tool for querying DNS records

    2020 · nslookup.io · its alternatives →

17. 17
    Review My DNS▲7

    Check DNS propagation across 50+ global servers

    Nov 2025 · reviewmydns.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Shiddns a DNS learning experience in Python▲7

    Hi HN, as a learning experience, I created a small DNS resolver with blocking capabilities and resolution of local host names. There are already tons of good ad-blocking DNS implementations out there. And they do this much better than my implementation. Great examples are Blocky or pihole. So when I set out to "play around", I looked at these projects and tried to modify them. Fortunately for them, but unfortunately for beginners, these are already quite far developed and complex projects. So impatient me set out to "quickly write something in Python". Almost two weekends later, I put in so…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Backname.io – every IP address gets its own domain▲46

    I was setting up tests involving DNS resolution recently, where something like 127.0.0.1.service.foo would have been tremendously useful. Back in the day, I'd have used xip.io - but sadly that service died. Well, every excuse is a good one when it comes to writing a DNS server! Backname.io joins nip.io and sslip.io in the wildcard DNS game.

    2023 · backname.io · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Identifying the DNS server used to fulfill a HTTP request▲17

    Identifying the DNS server used to fulfill an HTTP request

    2013 · 5f5.org · its alternatives →

21. 21
    I've created the fastest open-source DNS bruteforcer using XF_ADP▲15

    An experimental high-performance DNS query bruteforce tool built with AF_XDP for extremely fast and accurate bulk DNS lookups. - c3l3si4n/pugdns

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

22. 22
    A DNS server that removes the top million domains▲48

    2012 · millionshort.com · its alternatives →

23. 23GB
    GitHub-based DNS Hosting▲37

    2014 · dns-api.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Our project, free DNS service EntryDNS.net▲13

    entryDNS - a DNS service and dynamic DNS.

    2011 · entrydns.net · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →