What is PowerDNS used for?

PowerDNS is the PowerDNS source repository containing the Authoritative Server, the Recursor and dnsdist, a DNS load balancer, for running DNS infrastructure. It is a good fit for hosting authoritative DNS zones, running a recursive resolver for a network and load balancing DNS traffic.

Is PowerDNS open source?

Yes. PowerDNS is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at PowerDNS/pdns and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. PowerDNS is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host PowerDNS?

Yes. PowerDNS can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is PowerDNS an alternative to?

PowerDNS is an open-source alternative to Cloudflare, Gcore, Amazon Route 53 and NS1. Other open-source alternatives to Cloudflare include Technitium DNS Server, NGINX and Zrok.

Is PowerDNS actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to PowerDNS was on 2 October 2026. The project has 4.5k stars on GitHub.

PowerDNS: open-source alternative to Cloudflare, Gcore

About PowerDNS

This repository contains the sources for PowerDNS, a set of DNS server software. It includes the PowerDNS Authoritative Server, the PowerDNS Recursor and dnsdist, a DNS load balancer. All three can be built from the same repository, although they are also released separately as tarball, deb and rpm packages.

The authoritative server depends on Boost, OpenSSL and Lua and needs a compiler with C++17 support, and the project provides pdns-builder, a Docker-based build process for producing the different releases. Docker images are available, with the README mirrored to Docker Hub, and full documentation lives at doc.powerdns.com.

PowerDNS is copyright PowerDNS.COM BV and many contributors and is distributed under the GNU GPLv2, with the NOTICE file describing the exact license and exception. Bugs are reported on the GitHub issue tracker, and the changelog on the documentation site is the place to check for recent updates.

Key features

Authoritative DNS server
Recursive DNS resolver
dnsdist DNS load balancer
Releases as tarball, deb and rpm
Docker images and Docker-based builder
Documentation and changelog online

Good fit for

→Hosting authoritative DNS zones
→Running a recursive resolver for a network
→Load balancing DNS traffic

Built with: C++
Tags: dns; dns-server; powerdns; recursor; dnsdist; authoritative; cpp; networking

PowerDNS: questions and answers

What is PowerDNS used for?: PowerDNS is the PowerDNS source repository containing the Authoritative Server, the Recursor and dnsdist, a DNS load balancer, for running DNS infrastructure. It is a good fit for hosting authoritative DNS zones, running a recursive resolver for a network and load balancing DNS traffic.
Is PowerDNS open source?: Yes. PowerDNS is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at PowerDNS/pdns and is written mainly in C++.
Is PowerDNS free?: Yes. PowerDNS is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host PowerDNS?: Yes. PowerDNS can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is PowerDNS an alternative to?: PowerDNS is an open-source alternative to Cloudflare, Gcore, Amazon Route 53 and NS1. Other open-source alternatives to Cloudflare include Technitium DNS Server, NGINX and Zrok.
Is PowerDNS actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to PowerDNS was on 2 October 2026. The project has 4.5k stars on GitHub.