When comparing AdBlocker Ultimate vs Pi-hole, the Slant community recommends Pi-hole for most people. In the question“What are the best ad blockers?” Pi-hole is ranked 5th while AdBlocker Ultimate is ranked 6th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Completely free
Pro Best Youtube ad blocking
Pro Free and open source
Anyone can improve and audit the code.
Licensed with a gplv3 license.
Pro Supports most popular browsers
AdBlocker Ultimate works on Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari and Yandex.Browser.
Pro No acceptable ads
Unlike other adblockers, AdBlocker Ultimate doesn't have any whitelisted websites, ad networks or advertising agencies.
Pro Avoids awful looping problems on Firefox one sees with Adblock Plus and uBlock
Pro You can select a DNS like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 and others
Pro Does not need a Pi
You can install this on any posix device that can run bash scripts eg your linux or unix server it also can run on windows with the subsystem for linux or with a docker container.
Pro Blocks ads for all network devices and browsers
No need to install blockers at the browser or OS level. Pi-hole works at the DNS (network) level so you only have to maintain and manage one authority.
Pro Frequent updates are easily applied
It takes one mouse-click to keep pi-hole updated and current with new blocked-site lists.
Pro Low-cost deployment
Installs on a $35 Raspberry PI SBC. Open-source software (donations accepted).
Pro Can whitelist blocked sites on the fly
If a blocked site comes up and pihole is set to display the block page, you can add it to the whitelist there and then.
Pro Can be used with a vpn from anywhere in the world
Pro Easy installer
It includes an easy shell installer.
Pro Regex blocking
Supports now regex blocking.
Cons
Con Just a browser addon
It is just a browser addon so it will only work with the supported browsers and you have to install it for all browsers separately.
Con Element hiding helper has occasional hiccups.
Con Memory hog that gets worse the longer it runs
Happened with 64-Bit Firefox 62.0.3 running on Desktop PC with 64-Bit Windows 10 Pro with 8GB of RAM.
Con Slow
Like any browser extension it slows down your browser.
Con Requires some advanced devOps skills
The tutorial and installation is pretty straight-forward but requires some technical chops to install. You should be comfortable with the Linux command line.
Con Can inadvertantly block sites that are required for other web-based services
For example, using pi-hole for websites that rely on 3rd-party sites can be broken by pi-hole if the 3P site references black-listed sites.
Con Unreliable because of Pi architecture
If you use it with a Pi, however, Pi-hole can run on any POSix device that can run curses like: Any Unix/Linux server, Windows servers with the Linux subsystem, routers, even toasters if they run on Linux.
Con Setup horror
Con Pages
It blocks the ads but doesn't delete the location of an ad.