Hagezi vs OISD vs Energized: the blocklist that matters

Three blocklist projects dominate DNS-level ad blocking in 2026: Hagezi, OISD, and Energized. Each has active maintenance, multiple format outputs, and a user base in the tens of thousands. None of the three is strictly "best" — each has tradeoffs between coverage, false-positive rate, and specific category depth. Running the wrong one for your environment costs you either missed tracking or too many allowlist additions. This page positions all three honestly.

Summary table

Why blocklist choice matters

Pi-Hole without blocklists is a DNS resolver that blocks nothing. The blocklist is the content of the blocker. A mediocre blocklist paired with Pi-Hole will score poorly on every ad-blocker test; an aggressive blocklist paired with an otherwise identical Pi-Hole will score substantially higher. When users report "Pi-Hole scored 85% on PIHOLEKILLER" or "Pi-Hole scored 55%," the Pi-Hole configuration is usually identical — the blocklist is doing the work.

The tradeoff is always coverage vs false positives. A list with 50k carefully-curated domains produces almost zero false positives but misses tracker domains that aren't in the curated set. A list with 800k aggressively-aggregated domains catches much more but breaks login flows, CDN-hosted images, or analytics for apps you actually use. The right list matches your tolerance for occasional breakage.

Hagezi: the aggressive-with-discipline choice

Hagezi's DNS blocklists are the most popular third-party lists on r/pihole in 2026. The project is maintained by a single developer (Hagezi) with an active community of contributors. Lists update daily. The tiered structure is the killer feature: you pick your aggressiveness level by tier rather than by stacking individual lists.

• Light — mainstream ads and common trackers. Almost no false positives. Pi-Hole + Hagezi Light typically scores 70–80% on the PIHOLEKILLER gauntlet.
• Pro — adds common CDN-level trackers, more analytics domains. Typical score 80–87%.
• Pro++ — adds more aggressive fingerprinter and anti-adblock sources. The recommended daily driver for most users who want high coverage with tolerable false-positive rate. Typical score 85–90%.
• Multi — adds NSFW + gambling + crypto-mining categories, aggressive tracker lists. Typical score 88–92%, with more allowlist maintenance required.
• Multi Ultimate — the full extent. Aggressive on every category. Typical score 90–95% but expect 1–2 allowlist additions per week in normal use.

The Hagezi maintainer is aggressive about investigating and removing false positives when they're reported. The GitHub Discussions and Discord are active enough that a legitimate false positive typically gets resolved within 24–48 hours. This matters — a less-maintained list with similar aggressiveness would be unusable.

OISD: the curation-first choice

OISD (pronounced "ois-dee") is maintained by sjhgvr and has run continuously since 2019. It ships two core flavors: OISD Small (~50k domains, very conservative) and OISD Big (~130k domains, middle ground). Both are heavily curated — the project explicitly optimizes for low false-positive rate even at the cost of coverage. Every domain entry has been vetted through a mix of automated testing and community reports.

OISD's pitch is "set it and forget it." You don't need to allowlist frequently because the curation already filtered out domains that cause breakage. The downside is coverage: OISD Big typically scores 78–85% on the PIHOLEKILLER gauntlet — respectable, but below Hagezi Pro++ on aggressive tiers. For users who prize stability and don't want to babysit their ad blocker, OISD is the right answer.

Separately, OISD maintains an NSFW list (~1M entries) for users who want that category blocked, and the same curation standards apply there — expect low false positives even on an aggressive NSFW filter.

Energized Protection: the raw-coverage choice

Energized Protection takes a different approach: lists are aggregated from many upstream sources with less per-domain curation. The flagship Unified list is ~500k domains; Ultimate approaches 700k. Category-specific lists (Porn, Gambling, Regional) are available as separate files to combine as needed.

The strength is raw coverage. Tracker domains that Hagezi and OISD haven't caught yet are often already on an Energized list. The weakness is the corresponding increase in false-positive rate — Energized Unified typically requires 2–5 allowlist additions per month in normal use, and some sites (specifically older legitimate analytics tools, some legitimate newsletter platforms) get caught in the aggregation.

Energized updates weekly rather than daily, which is occasionally a disadvantage: a new tracker domain that appears on a Sunday will not be in an Energized list until the following week's update, while Hagezi and OISD will have caught it within 24 hours.

Which should you pick?

Decision framework, in priority order:

1. If you want maximum coverage and are comfortable allowlisting occasionally: Hagezi Pro++ is the sweet spot. Multi Ultimate or Energized Ultimate if you want to push further.
2. If you want zero-maintenance and fewer false positives: OISD Big. Accept that coverage caps around 85%.
3. If you want to stack multiple lists: don't. Pick one flagship list from the three projects and add category-specific supplements (NSFW, gambling, crypto-mining) only as needed. Stacking Hagezi + OISD + Energized produces redundancy without meaningfully increasing coverage.
4. If you're running Pi-Hole in a corporate or shared environment where allowlist requests create friction: OISD Small. Coverage drops below 75% but support tickets drop to near zero.
5. If you want the PIHOLEKILLER gauntlet top-tier grade: Hagezi Pro++ + uBlock Origin + router-level DoH blocking. Single blocklist is never enough for >90% on the gauntlet — layered stack is required. See Why Pi-Hole Fails Most Ad Blocker Tests.

What about Steven Black's unified list?

Steven Black's hosts file at github.com/StevenBlack/hosts is a widely-used aggregator of multiple upstream sources. It's good at what it does — particularly the variant-builder that lets you include/exclude specific source lists — but the maintenance model is less aggressive than Hagezi or OISD. For users specifically wanting a hosts-file format, it's a reasonable choice. For native Pi-Hole use where the gravity database handles the aggregation, the three specialized projects on this page are better positioned.

FAQ

Related reading: Why Pi-Hole Fails Most Ad Blocker Tests · The DoH Bypass · Glossary · Live Leaderboard