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Polfence vs NextDNS

DNS filtering resolver · NextDNS Inc., United States

NextDNS is a very good filtering resolver. It has one of the broadest catalogues of blocklists, fine-grained per-profile settings, an anycast network and a generous free quota. If DNS filtering is the only thing you need, it is a strong choice.

Polfence Shield is the DNS filtering piece of a wider EU platform. It covers the core categories, custom lists, safe search and per-profile logs with an EU upstream and EU-only log storage, and it sits next to Zero Trust access, VPN, DNS hosting, monitoring and the audit trail. Organisations pick Polfence when filtering needs to live inside the same policy, SSO and compliance setup as everything else.

Feature by feature

Reviewed September 2026. NextDNS details are taken from public documentation; plans and features change, so confirm with the vendor before you decide.

CapabilityPolfenceNextDNS
EU data residency, EU-owned vendor
Yes

Polish company, hosted in Paris and Amsterdam

Partial

US-incorporated; log storage region is selectable

GDPR DPA included
Yes

Available in the dashboard

Check vendor

Check vendor

NIS2 readiness report
Yes

Article 21 assessment + printable report

No
ZTNA, per-app least privilege
Yes
No
Device posture checks
Yes

Disk encryption, firewall, screen lock, OS version

No
Just-in-time access
Yes

Request, approve, time-boxed grant

No
SSO + SCIM provisioning
Yes

OIDC (Entra ID, Google, Okta) + SCIM 2.0

No
DPI-resistant tunnel
Yes

Perimeter engine, obfuscated WireGuard

—
Site-to-site router configs (plain WireGuard)
Yes

UniFi, MikroTik, pfSense, OPNsense, OpenWrt

—
DNS filtering resolver
Yes

Polfence Shield, DoH, EU upstream

Yes

Very broad list catalogue

Authoritative DNS + zone kill switch
Yes
No
Dynamic DNS (dyndns2)
Yes
No

Linked-IP update for profiles, not a hostname service

Remote desktop
Yes

Polfence Connect, consent-gated

No
Uptime monitors + public status pages
Yes

HTTP/TCP/DNS, public /s/ pages, badge

No
Public API
Yes

REST v1 + OpenAPI

Yes
Audit trail + signed webhooks
Yes

HMAC-signed, Slack/Teams/JSON, CSV export

Partial

Query logs; no signed webhooks

Pricing modelFlat plan per account: Free, Pro and Business monthly. Enterprise on request.Free query quota; flat monthly or yearly price

available partly or with limits not offered unsure, check vendor— not applicable

Why teams switch to Polfence

  • Filtering that is part of the same organisation, SSO and audit trail as your access policies.
  • EU-owned vendor, EU upstream and EU-only log storage by default.
  • Query logs and block events available to the audit trail and webhooks.
  • Access control, VPN, DNS hosting and monitoring in the same console.
  • A DPA and NIS2 readiness report for the compliance file.

Where NextDNS is stronger

  • A far broader catalogue of blocklists and native lists, with more granular per-list control.
  • A global anycast network with more resolver locations.
  • More client-side conveniences, such as native apps and per-device naming inside a profile.
  • A cheaper price point if DNS filtering is all you need.

Try it next to NextDNS.

The free plan needs no card. Set up a network, a Shield profile and a monitor in an afternoon and compare for yourself.

Polfence vs NextDNS · Polfence