NextDNS Manager: an unofficial Android app for a DNS filter you do not control

An app that holds a key, not an account

NextDNS Manager is an Android application that simplifies managing your NextDNS configuration. NextDNS itself is a cloud-based DNS filter and firewall designed to protect your home, your family and your online privacy, and this app is the remote control for that configuration.

The design decision that defines the project is that it talks to the NextDNS API rather than acting as a client inside a NextDNS account. The FAQ has a section titled What features won't be able to be added to this app since it's not official, and the project is explicit that NextDNS Manager is a completely open-source project and is not officially affiliated with NextDNS.

That distinction is the whole product. The official app, which the FAQ also addresses in a section asking what happened to it, is bound to whatever the vendor decides to build. This one is built by someone outside the company, from the public API, and the user supplies their own API key. The app therefore has no way to add features that need changes on NextDNS's own servers, because it does not control them. That is a real limit, and the project says so rather than hiding it.

There is also a section asking whether the app is secure and whether it can access your account or view your DNS queries, which is the question a user should want answered before granting a third-party app an API key. The answer is in the FAQ, and the app's own design follows from it: it holds a key that lets it change settings, and nothing more.

The application is written in Java, licensed under GPL-3.0, the last push was on 2026-10-19, and the recent releases are v5.5.25 from 2026-06-30, v5.5.24 from 2026-06-30 and v5.5.23 from 2026-06-27.

Three builds, and what the F-Droid one gives up

The installation section is really a privacy decision, and the README frames it that way. Your choice depends on your privacy preferences and how frequently you want to receive updates.

The Google Play Store route is best for users who prefer automatic updates and easy access to new features. A manual APK sideload is ideal for those who cannot use Google Play or prefer full control over updates. F-Droid is suitable for users who prioritise open-source purity, though updates may take longer to become available.

The update availability table makes the cost concrete: Google Play within minutes, a sideloaded APK within minutes, and F-Droid up to 14 days. The reason given is that each release is manually signed in a secure, air-gapped environment.

The important notes explain what differs between the builds. F-Droid builds do not support FCM, push notifications. FCM is enabled in Google Play builds for update and issue notifications. And versions before 5.5.0 do not support push notifications at all.

That is why the GitHub releases page carries two APKs rather than one:

| GitHub APK | Use when | | ---------- | -------- | | `app-release.apk` | You want the GMS build (same as Google Play; includes FCM) | | `app-release-foss.apk` | You use a de-Googled device or prefer the F-Droid-style build (no FCM) |

So the choice is between a build that can push you notifications and a build that has no Firebase dependency at all, and the FAQ has a dedicated section explaining what FCM is and why it is disabled in the F-Droid builds.

The deployment story is visible in the repository as well. There is a `sentry.properties` file at the root, and the FAQ has a section asking what Sentry is and whether it is tracking you, which means the app uses Sentry for crash reporting and the project has decided to answer that question in writing rather than leave it implied.

What the app actually does day to day

The feature list is short and describes a configuration app rather than a dashboard-heavy product.

The interface is described as intuitive, with a user-friendly experience enhanced with dark mode, dynamic and themed icons, and support for 14 languages. Fourteen languages is a lot for an Android utility, and it suggests a user base wider than English speakers, which fits a DNS filter that people install for their families rather than for their work.

Configuration management covers the filtering modes, blocklists and whitelists. Those are the three things a NextDNS configuration is actually made of: which filtering preset is active, which blocklists are subscribed to, and which domains are allowed through regardless.

Real-time statistics let you monitor DNS queries, blocked requests and security events as they happen. For a DNS filter, that is the useful window into what is happening on your network, and it is where the value of a filter is visible. The security events in particular are the thing that distinguishes a filter from a plain ad blocker, since the blocked-request count is mostly noise while the security events are the ones worth reading.

The privacy framing in the feature list is that you benefit from NextDNS' own filtering capabilities, and the app's contribution is the control surface rather than the filtering. That is worth being clear about, because it means the quality of the filtering depends on the service and the quality of the app is the quality of the controls.

The repository also carries a `fastlane/` directory with release metadata and phone screenshots, a `whatsnew/` directory for the release notes shown in the app, a `check-strings.py` script, and an `icons/` directory with the web icon the README shows. The `Gemfile` at the root is for the fastlane tooling rather than for the app itself.

Android 12L as a floor, and a question about older devices

The compatibility statement is one line and it is the first thing anyone trying the app will hit: compatible with any Android device running Android 12L or later.

The FAQ has two sections on that, one asking why the app does not support Android versions before 12L and one asking whether support for older versions will be brought back. The answers are not in the visible part of the README, but the framing tells you it is a deliberate decision with a reason behind it, since the project bothered to write both a question and a commitment to address it in the future.

The choice is defensible for a Java Android app in 2026. Android 12L is recent enough that the modern permission model, the notification permission flow and the background execution limits are the ones the developer is targeting, and a phone that cannot run the current Android is a phone with a small and shrinking installed base. The cost is that the app is not available to the many people whose devices are old but still work perfectly well as a phone for DNS filtering purposes, and a DNS filter is exactly the kind of app you might install on an old handset as a parental control.

The other piece of the compatibility story is the app's own build system. The repository is a Gradle project with `build.gradle`, `settings.gradle`, `gradle.properties` and the wrapper scripts, and the top level entries show the usual Android structure with an `app/` module, an `.vscode/` directory and a `.github/` directory for the workflows. The badges show three of those workflows: a GitHub Build badge, a Main Deployment pipeline pointing at a `deploy.yml`, and a Development Testing workflow pointing at `test-dev.yml`.

The presence of a separate deployment workflow rather than a release-on-tag flow is worth noting, because it is what produces the two APKs per release that the manual installation section relies on.

Where this sits against the official app and against a browser

The comparison worth making is with the two alternatives, and both are mentioned in the README itself.

The first is the official NextDNS app, and the FAQ has a section asking what happened to it. The answer is not visible here, but the fact that a third-party app exists at all and is being maintained, with releases through 2026, tells you the official one is not the option people are choosing. The official app would be better integrated, and it would be able to add features that need server-side changes, which the unofficial app cannot do. The unofficial app wins on the two things an independent project can offer: an auditable source tree, and a build without the vendor's tracking dependencies.

The second alternative is the NextDNS web dashboard, which every NextDNS user already has access to. A browser dashboard needs no install and is always up to date. The Android app wins on convenience and on the real-time statistics, which is much more useful on a phone than in a tab you have to look up. The web interface also works on a device where you cannot install an app, which for a parental control is a real case, and for that use the app is the wrong tool.

There is a third option the README does not mention but that the design implies. NextDNS is a DNS service, and DNS settings can be configured at the router, at the device, or through a local VPN on the device itself. An app that manages the account configuration is not the same as an app that filters the traffic, and the two solve different problems. The app here does the first. If your goal is filtering on a network rather than on one phone, you are looking for a different piece of software entirely.

The honest summary is that this is a well-executed convenience wrapper around someone else's service, with careful attention to what it does and does not collect, and with its limitations stated plainly in the FAQ rather than discovered by users.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt NextDNS Manager if you want to manage a NextDNS configuration from Android without an official NextDNS account, and pick the F-Droid or foss build if you would rather the app had no Firebase Cloud Messaging dependency. Do not adopt it if you need the NextDNS account features the vendor controls, because the app says outright that some things cannot be added while it is unofficial, and check first which build you install, since the Google Play build includes FCM and the F-Droid build does not, and the two behave differently around notifications.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. doubleangels/nextdnsmanager on GitHub
2. Issues
3. License: GPL-3.0
4. README
5. Releases