Raspberry Pi

The decision really comes down to two things: what hardware you already have running, and whether you want to run Pi-hole as a dedicated service or alongside other containers. Use the native install (Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu, or Proxmox LXC) if: You want a dedicated Pi-hole instance with minimal other services running on it You’re running Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi or any Debian-based Linux distribution You’re running it in a Proxmox LXC and don’t need Docker on top You want the simplest, most-supported setup with the least amount of moving parts Use the Docker install if: You already use Docker

Most people should keep Pi-hole reasonably current. Security patches matter for anything that handles network traffic, and the Pi-hole team is good about not breaking things in updates. That said, “update immediately when a new version drops” isn’t always the right call either. If everything is working, there’s no specific feature you need, and you don’t have time to deal with potential issues, waiting a few weeks to let any release issues surface in the community is reasonable. The Pi-hole subreddit and forums usually surface bugs quickly.

In 2026, Pi is losing its footing among hobbyists. This memory fragmentation driven by marginal price gaps is strangely familiar. It’s straight from Apple and smartphone makers’ playbooks. Offer a memory-constrained base model and create calculated price gaps to make upgrades feel smart. So you might consider doubling the memory by not spending too much. Now, Raspberry Pi takes a leaf from the very margin-maximizing playbook to bring memory tiers. It’s surprising that ‘computing for everyone’ is mimicking Apple's premium positioning. With the April 2026 price increase, the 4GB Pi 4 model costs