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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Standard reminder for whenever Pi-Hole gets brought up: You don't actually need a physical Raspberry Pi for this functionality, and you don't even need the Pi-Hole software. It's all just wrappers around dnsmasq[1], which every Linux distribution makes available via their package manager. If you have an old spare Linux system on your LAN already, doing whatever, you can just install and set up dnsmasq and point your clients' DNS settings at it! You can run it on your Internet gateway or rooted WiFi router, too.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnsmasq

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I was shocked that TFA’s recommended kit was $155! When did Raspberry Pi’s get so pricey?

The latest, overpowered version with all the accessories is that pricey.

But you can do for much cheaper. For example: https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-plus-basic-ki...

Add a MicroSD card (if you don't already have one) and a case (if you need one) and you get to ~$75.

You can do even cheaper by getting a $15 Pi Zero 2 W and an Ethernet adapter off AliExpress. You probably already have an old phone charger and microSD card somewhere, but if you don't they are less than $5 each on AliExpress, so maybe a total of around $30 plus shipping.

And if you're getting close to $75 and don't need ultra-low power use, you should get a N97/N100 MiniPC anyway - or a used business PC like a Lenovo ThinkCentre.

All can be bought for around $100 and are upgradeable with standard parts AND are multiple times more powerful than any raspberry pi.

I don't _think_ you need a whole Raspberry Pi 5 kit. It seems like an older Raspberry Pi 3b+ would get the job done for $35 or so. Maybe even a Raspberry Pi Zero ($5) with an micro usb ethernet adapter.

I recommend against the Pi Zero. Once you add in the cost of the microUSB to USB-OTG adapter and the ethernet USB adapter you might as well buy a 3B or 4. Price aside it adds an extra mechanical point of failure as microUSB is not very robust.

RPi5 is definitely a huge overkill. Plus, it needs a power adapter, probably some cooling, and some space to seat it.

Pi Zero 2W + micro usb ethernet adapter works perfect for Pi-Hole, and has an almost invisible physical footprint: Small enough to hot-glue on the back of your router, happily runs with power from one of the router's USB ports, and you get a 10cm ethernet cable to avoid network cable management.

If you want a machine to run 24/7 for a long time, running it of an SD card is a bad idea. The NVMe support on a Pi 5 is important for somthing like a PiHole

Oh, it will definitely work on older ones. The one I have, w/o logging in and explicitly looking, is a 3-$SOMETHING, probably 3b+. Works just fine.

My Pi-hole runs on a ~13 year old Model B, which has survived several house moves. Definitely don't need top of the line hardware for it!

Same. I thought it'd be ~$50.

It's BS anyway. Pihole doesn't need anywhere near pi 5 kinda speeds.

Another option is to run Pi-Hole on any device that can use docker: https://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/

There are also official docs on how to run it using `docker run` and `docker compose` https://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/

I run it under Hyper-V on a NUC sized device that is always on.

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