Pi-hole is the Raspberry Pi project everyone tells beginners to build first, and I think it's the wrong one

Self-hosting is more of a necessity for most users than a hobby. Increasing subscription prices for popular tools, poor privacy and data-protection policies, and excessive tracking are major motivators. When you start learning about SBCs and self-hosting, Pi-hole often comes up as one of the most exciting projects. It can act as a network-wide DNS resolver and ad blocker, and benefits multiple users and devices in your home. However, it's a poor choice for an absolute beginner who just got their first Raspberry Pi.

Several other projects are better for beginners learning SBC concepts and self-hosted tools than Pi-hole. It's a complex project that feels exciting at first, then becomes a total nightmare later. Let's explore simpler alternatives that could be your first project to learn the ropes.

Pi-hole is tempting

But you're not prepared for the complexities

I detest ads and tracking, and most of you can relate to the frustration of seeing the whole internet littered with it. Websites use devious tracking methods, and apps use special ad-delivery mechanisms, and Pi-hole can help in those cases. The first thing that you can do is change the DNS resolver from a public one like Google's to something more private.

A Pi-hole can help you filter the incoming requests to it, which then go through the upstream DNS resolver you've defined. It also uses blocklists to prevent ads and trackers from loading on websites. For beginners, deploying Pi-hole isn't a major problem. You can easily set it up with web tutorials, but the concepts can be hard to grasp.

Some Raspberry Pi operating systems, like DietPi, make installation even simpler. Just select the tool, configure a couple of options, and the OS installs the tool for you. But remember that Pi-hole is a networking project. So you need to deal with far more than a simple self-hosted tool.

Pi-hole becomes tricky after deployment

A sudden change in pace

Pi-hole isn't a simple deploy-and-forget tool. After installation, the first thing you need to do is access the dashboard and check the DNS settings. You also have to check the blocklists and add new ones. During this phase, you might encounter download errors or problems with the Gravity tool. I was stuck for quite some time when I first tried to add a list. Depending on the setup, Gravity might need a full restart, or the Pi-hole itself might need reconfiguration.

Since your Raspberry Pi will sit between your devices and the router, you'll also need to enable and configure DHCP. An ISP router usually leaves very little control to the end user. You'll need to add the Raspberry Pi’s IP address as a preferred DNS server and an alternative DNS server. Most users leave it empty on the first try because devices can bypass your Pi-hole and use the alternative.

Even if you set up the Pi-hole as a DNS sinkhole with a public DNS resolver, other failure points remain. The Raspberry Pi server handling the DNS requests can go offline during reboots or crashes. So, all new DNS requests from devices on your home network will fail. Nothing will work until the server comes alive again.

That's one of the main reasons to set up a fallback DNS server. It handles the incoming requests when the main Pi-hole server goes offline. Suddenly, you need two SBCs for a project you thought you could complete with one. I haven't even touched on the networking problems you face when you set up Pi-hole with Unbound as Docker containers. You'll spend hours figuring out why Unbound can't communicate with Pi-hole if there's a mistake in the configuration file.

Focus on home server concepts first

Learning Linux, Docker, and networking basics

If you've decided to use the Raspberry Pi as a home server, try to learn the concepts first. You need to be comfortable flashing operating systems to the SD card and switching between them. Start with a simple CLI OS like DietPi, or a GUI OS if your Raspberry Pi is powerful enough. Next, learn a few essential Linux commands. DietPi reduces the need to run commands for most common tasks, like mounting drives, setting user permissions, configuring networking, and more.

Next, you should learn Docker. Start with a few basic commands like listing, controlling, and removing containers. You can use Docker Compose or run to deploy containers. I would start with something that doesn't use a database, like BentoPDF or OmniTools. These are lightweight tools that use client-side processing. Learn to access the web portals using an IP address and port combination; find the correct ports with the ss -tulpn command.

After that, you can deploy something that uses a database. Nextcloud, Jellyfin, or even Vaultwarden are great examples of such tools. Here you'll learn how to use persistent storage, add external storage drives to these tools for data browsing and more. Your home server is only accessible from the devices connected to your network.

Use Tailscale to register your device to a Tailnet and make it accessible outside. It's a secure way to expose tools hosted on your home servers. There's also a way to serve these tools over HTTPS using Tailscale serve. Vaultwarden and a few other tools demand an HTTPS connection, and it becomes a piece of cake with Tailscale.

Pi-hole needs a little experience

I wouldn’t recommend choosing Pi-hole as your first Raspberry Pi project because you’ll regret it. Pick a basic project with no networking or other complexities, and minimal management. OmniTools is a great option for beginners because you can deploy it once and never have to worry about it again. As you grasp Docker and networking concepts, try to raise the bar a little. Pi-hole will become your single entry point to the internet, so deploy it once you understand how all your devices will react.