Alternatives to dnsdist
A DNS load balancer that routes queries to backend servers and blocks abusive traffic with rules. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
dnsdist
A DNS load balancer that routes queries to backend servers and blocks abusive traffic with rules.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as dnsdist.
RouteDNS
A DNS stub resolver, proxy and router with blocklists and DoT, DoH, DoQ and DTLS support.
RouteDNS routes queries between resolvers with blocklists and encrypted transports, but lacks dnsdist's runtime console and metrics exports and is aimed at single deployments.
Also worth comparing
These listings name dnsdist as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
HAProxy
High-performance TCP and HTTP load balancer and proxy.
dnsdist is only a fit if the traffic being balanced is DNS, since it load balances and filters DNS queries across backend servers rather than TCP or HTTP.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
PowerDNS Recursor
A recursive DNS resolver from the PowerDNS project that you run on your own server.
Unbound
Validating, recursive, caching DNS resolver.
Knot Resolver
A caching DNS resolver with a small core and optional modules, from home routers to resolver farms.
CoreDNS
A DNS server written in Go that builds its behavior from a chain of plugins.
dnsproxy
A simple DNS proxy server supporting DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-HTTPS, DNSCrypt and DNS-over-QUIC.
