I am using a RT-AC56U with Merlinwrt installed.
I also got Skynet and Diversion, but not sure which profiles i should use there.
Anyone familiar with them or alternatives maybe?
Would like to set them up to block as much as possible,
but not blocking like every page there is.
Pi hole is pretty nice.
Tried it and it was quite neat, sadly i couldn’t really spare the device,
and as the router itself can act the part,
it seems more convenient to have it there if possible.
So, invest about $30-80 in arm sbc. A bit of separation will never hurt.
I use PiHole on Odroid HC1, but you can also buy RPi3 if it’s just supposed to be for PH.
For some $81 you have Odroid HC2 fully ready to use. And by the way you have an additional NAS for backups. And if you do not need a NAS then NanoPi NEO is enough for dns.
https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-hc2
https://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=132
Might be worth doing that.
If you like the idea of pi-hole and want to really go big, you could take an old PC that you might have sitting around and install pf sense with pfBlockerNG package.
Easy to follow instructions:
https://www.linuxincluded.com/block-ads-malvertising-on-pfsense-using-pfblockerng-dnsbl/