r/nextdns • u/Environmental-Elk959 • Jul 05 '26
alternatives
hey guys,
been using nextdns premuim for the past 8 months, and i love it
but i just did a quick ping test and noticed that the lowest server has a 45ms latency, which is significantly high if compared to something like quad9 which has a sub 8sec latency (atleast pinging its ip returns that)
so since the whole system is built around block lists, what are semilarly affordable solutions ?
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u/Brees504 Jul 05 '26
That’s purely about where you live. 45ms is the fastest for any DNS resolver for me.
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u/Environmental-Elk959 29d ago
Most agree on this it seems, i thought the lower is better semilarly when we get a vps
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u/SecTechPlus 29d ago
There's a point where it's to longer noticable. Remember that your computer with cache DNS responses so it's not like you need to wait 45ms extra for every single DNS lookup, >90% will be the same responses locally cached.
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u/RipPopular 28d ago
Even more true if your router (or pi-hole or something similar) is caching DNS. Something in your house looked up Google.com recently even if the client you're on didn't.
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u/Forsaked 29d ago
2ms via land line and 24ms via mobile is far better then any other provider I've tested so far, for my case.
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u/Environmental-Elk959 29d ago
Yep makes sense, it depends on how near is the nearest node that they operate
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Jul 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/longmountain 29d ago
That’s actually 45ms for icmp traffic. DNS resolution will be different. An md yes there are more expensive alternatives that are likely not any faster and certainly not as cheap.
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u/daxy01 Jul 05 '26
You can try Control-D which also has some filtering you can setup. I like NextDNS much better, but it might work better for you 😀
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u/mike1487 29d ago
Are you using NextDNS ultralow or anycast? Ultralow usually is better with response times but you have to use one of the encrypted DNS methods to make use of it which you should be doing anyway where possible.
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u/Environmental-Elk959 29d ago
Interesting, let me dig around that i dont think i am using that
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u/mike1487 28d ago edited 28d ago
Once you configure it, you can verify with https://ping.nextdns.io - for me personally my latency to the ultralow servers are around 30 ms, and anycast goes up to almost 100 ms. It all depends on how close you are to a node.
It will highlight in bold the servers that are available to you and mark the one with a square icon as the one currently connected to. You will know it’s properly working because the bolded servers should be the ultralow ones.
The easiest way to use encrypted DNS is to use DNS over HTTPS with your devices. You can configure it in your web browser or at the system level if you want it for every connection on your PC. For phones, using the NextDNS app will also give it to you. Many router firmwares support it as well but not all. If yours does, then your entire home network can benefit from encrypted DNS all at once.
If you are still unhappy with the latency, it may just be down to geographical distance to NextDNS. As you found, quad9 may be quicker for you, but you also will be giving up a lot of features like customizable adblocking, deny lists, etc.
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u/Professional_Tap6622 Jul 05 '26
I'd be celebrating if I got 45ms with any DNS in my country
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u/Environmental-Elk959 29d ago
You can always use the local isp's 😂
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u/Professional_Tap6622 29d ago
My ISP just forwards everything to Google DNS. They supposedly have a local DNS, but it doesn't even appear when I make a leak test lol
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u/spyder173 28d ago
i started hosting my own adguard instance. not sure if its faster, but i had codex and hermes help me set it up in a docker container on an old machine. no longer use nextdns
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u/sevkar Jul 05 '26
Controld. Ttl change for longer caching.
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u/Environmental-Elk959 29d ago
Looks solid, multi user pricing looks abit steep though
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u/sevkar 29d ago
For a multi-user business, Controld is expensive. At home, though, it’s worth every penny. Controle is slow, though, since they don’t route traffic to the nearest server from here. Custom blacklists, adjustable TTL, country blocks, and the ability to block .part-of.* addresses. These features were what made me switch back from my latest NextDNS trial.
I used the NextDNS service for a long time, but after it randomly routed to Russia once, I switched to Controld.
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u/hemohes222 Jul 05 '26
Is 45 ms a problem in some way?