Koru Shield vs NextDNS
NextDNS is the tinkerer's firewall: deep control, a generous free tier, and community support. Here is how it stacks up against Koru Shield, row by row.
Protection that survives our own outage. Koru Shield's edge servers are stateless, run from signed configuration bundles, and fall back to last-known-good config automatically. We have run failure drills simulating control-plane and edge outages, and DNS kept resolving through them. A filter that disappears during an incident is not protection, so we lead with this.
| NextDNS | Koru Shield | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 300,000 queries per month. Past the quota, filtering silently stops and queries resolve unfiltered. | Always on. Free protection never silently switches off, quota or not. |
| Paid price | Pro: $1.99/mo or $19.90/yr, unlimited queries. | Guardian: $5/mo. Scam-specific protection plus human support on every plan. |
| Threat blocking | Threat intel feeds, Google Safe Browsing, DGA and typosquatting protection, block newly registered domains. | Malware, phishing, and scam blocking live now, with human support when something gets through. |
| Privacy | Configurable retention from 1 hour to 2 years or zero-logs; data residency choice of Switzerland, EU, or US; open-source client. No public third-party audit found. | Never sells data; US-first residency (Northern Virginia, Oregon). |
| Support | Community forum on free; email support on paid plans. | Human support on every plan, including free. |
| Dashboard and analytics | Deep analytics, per-device identification, real-time logs. | Real-time logs, per-device profiles, and analytics included. |
| Family controls | Categories, SafeSearch, YouTube Restricted Mode, app blocking, recreation-time schedules. | Family filter, per-device profiles, SafeSearch, and schedules for homework and bedtime. |
| Setup | Native apps, CLI, router configs, one-tap iOS profiles. | Guided per-device setup and one-tap iOS profiles. |
| Network | Established global anycast network. | Two US regions live (Northern Virginia, Oregon). |
| Outage resilience | Global anycast network; resilience details not published. | Drill-verified. Stateless edges with signed config bundles and last-known-good fallback kept resolving through simulated control-plane and edge outages. |
| Maturity | Established service with a large community. | Live now. Newer, smaller, and shaped by early members. |
Pricing and features from public pages, September 2026. NextDNS Pro pricing commonly cited as $1.99/mo or $19.90/yr.
Where Koru Shield wins
- Protection that survives our own outage, verified by failure drills
- Free protection that never silently degrades to unfiltered
- Human support on every plan, not just paid
- US-first data residency as a headline promise
- Simpler setup with no configuration rabbit holes
Where NextDNS wins
- Lower paid price ($1.99/mo Pro)
- Deeper configuration for power users
- Global network with years of operational history
- Open-source client and large community
The bottom line
NextDNS is an excellent service, and if you enjoy fine-tuning every rule, you should stay. Koru Shield exists for people who want the protection without the homework: always-on filtering, plain-language explanations, and a human to email when something looks wrong. If that sounds like you, try it free and compare them side by side.
Try the difference free.
Run our five-second protection check, then put Koru Shield on one device and see what it catches.