NextDNS
by NextDNS · DNS-level filtering for security, privacy and parental control
BenchRank score
Screenshots of NextDNS
Homepage
Overview
NextDNS is a hosted DNS service that filters queries before they resolve, blocking malware, phishing, cryptojacking, ads, trackers and category-based content using threat feeds and blocklists updated in real time. It adds parental controls including SafeSearch and YouTube Restricted Mode enforcement and time-based access. Settings are grouped into configurations, with analytics and logs whose retention and storage region you choose.
- Best for
- Households and small organisations wanting DNS-level blocking of ads, trackers and malicious domains
- Pricing
- Free up to 300,000 queries/month, then Pro at £1.79/month (£17.90/year), with Business and Education at £17.90/month (£179/year) per 50 employees or per 250 students.
- Runs on
- Web
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- Free tier covers 300,000 queries/month on unlimited devices
- Log retention from one hour to two years, or logging off entirely
- Log storage in the US, EU, UK or Switzerland
- DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS on all major platforms
Trade-offs
- Past the free 300,000-query quota it stops blocking and just resolves
- Free and Pro plans get community support only; email support is paid
- Business and Education are priced in blocks of 50 staff or 250 students
How NextDNS markets itself
A structured read of the promise, proof and page design on NextDNS’s captured homepage.
Homepage capture
“The new firewall for the modern Internet.”
- Angle: Security / trust-led
- Hero: Typography only
Pricing
Published plans and prices from NextDNS’s own pricing page.
How this score is made up
Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.
MCP support
Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.
API quality
Public API surface: machine-readable spec, official SDKs, documented auth, errors, rate limits and versioning.
Documentation
Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.
Agent friendliness
How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.
Pricing transparency
Whether real prices are published, self-serve signup exists, and usage costs are knowable without a sales call.
Customer sentiment
Third-party ratings, shrunk toward the catalogue mean by review volume and corroborated across independent sources.
Changelog
A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.
Marketing site structure
Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.
Page speed
How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.
Operational trust
Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.
Measured, but not part of the score
Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.
Openness
Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.
Maintenance
Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.
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Where this comes from
The NextDNS pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.
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Is this your product?
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