Is Stubby open source?

Yes. Stubby is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at getdnsapi/stubby and is written mainly in C.

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

Can I self-host Stubby?

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

What is Stubby an alternative to?

Stubby is an open-source alternative to NextDNS and Control D. Other open-source alternatives to NextDNS include Dnscrypt Proxy, Unbound and Pi-hole.

Is Stubby actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Stubby was on 15 July 2025, and the latest release is v0.4.3, published on 22 December 2022. The project has 1.3k stars on GitHub.

Stubby: open-source alternative to NextDNS, Control D

About Stubby

Stubby is an application that acts as a local DNS Privacy stub resolver using DNS-over-TLS. It encrypts DNS queries sent from a client machine such as a desktop or laptop.

Key features

Encrypts DNS queries using DNS-over-TLS
Acts as a local DNS Privacy stub resolver

Built with: C tools
Tags: dns; privacy; dns-over-tls; resolver; encryption

Stubby: questions and answers

What is Stubby?: Stubby is an application that acts as a local DNS Privacy stub resolver using DNS-over-TLS.
Is Stubby open source?: Yes. Stubby is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at getdnsapi/stubby and is written mainly in C.
Is Stubby free?: Yes. Stubby is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Stubby?: Yes. Stubby can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Stubby an alternative to?: Stubby is an open-source alternative to NextDNS and Control D. Other open-source alternatives to NextDNS include Dnscrypt Proxy, Unbound and Pi-hole.
Is Stubby actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Stubby was on 15 July 2025, and the latest release is v0.4.3, published on 22 December 2022. The project has 1.3k stars on GitHub.