PowerDNS

PowerDNS is an open‑source service for managing DNS (Domain Name System) servers, originally developed by the Dutch company PowerDNS.COM BV (acquired by Open‑Xchange in 2015). Designed for professional environments, PowerDNS enables the handling of authoritative and recursive DNS zones with a high level of performance, flexibility, and security.

Today, PowerDNS is widely used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), hosting companies, and large enterprises that seek a robust alternative to proprietary solutions such as Microsoft DNS or Infoblox. In this review we will examine its features, installation process, use cases, and compare it with other solutions available in 2025.

What problems does PowerDNS solve?

DNS is a cornerstone of the Internet, yet many commercial solutions still suffer from significant limitations:

• High license costs for large‑scale deployments.
   

• Automation difficulties in cloud or hybrid environments.

• Lack of flexibility to integrate external databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, LDAP, etc.).

PowerDNS stands out by offering a complete open‑source solution, highly customizable and integrable with existing systems. It provides:

• Centralised, automatable management of DNS zones.
   

• Real‑time replication thanks to its SQL back‑ends.

• Strong open‑source software support and full compatibility with major DevOps tools.

Key features and capabilities

PowerDNS mainly consists of two modules:

• PowerDNS Authoritative Server : handles authoritative DNS zones.
   

• PowerDNS Recursor : serves end‑client DNS queries with intelligent caching.

Main features

• Interface and API

  • Web interface (via PowerAdmin or pdnscontrol)
     
  • RESTful API for remote management
     
  • Integration with SQL and NoSQL databases
     

• Performance

  • Handles several million queries per second
     
  • Multi‑threaded C++ engine optimised for speed
     

  • Smart caching to reduce latency

• Customisation

  • Multiple back‑ends: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, LDAP
     

  • Support for DNSSEC, GeoDNS, and dynamic records

  • Lua extensions for scripting

• Security

  • Native DNSSEC support

  • Role‑based access control (RBAC)

  • Advanced logging and compatibility with Fail2ban

How to install and configure?

Installation steps for PowerDNS (example on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)

1. Update the system:
   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

2. Install the PowerDNS server and the MySQL back‑end:
   sudo apt install pdns-server pdns-backend-mysql -y

3. Configure the database:
   Create the database and tables using the script located at /usr/share/pdns-backend-mysql/schema.mysql.sql.

4. Edit the main configuration file:
   /etc/powerdns/pdns.conf
launch=gmysql gmysql-host=127.0.0.1 gmysql-user=pdns gmysql-password=motdepasse gmysql-dbname=pdns

5. Restart the service:
   sudo systemctl restart pdns

6. Check the status:
   sudo systemctl status pdns

Use cases for PowerDNS

PowerDNS is widely adopted in various professional contexts:

• ISPs and hosting providers: Centralised management of thousands of customer zones with high availability.
   

• Enterprises: Integration with Active Directory for hybrid DNS environments.

• Cloud providers: DNS automation in Kubernetes and OpenStack deployments.
   

• Public institutions: Sovereign deployments for critical infrastructure.

Concrete example:
OVHcloud uses an infrastructure model based on PowerDNS, a recognised open‑source project, to automate the creation and management of DNS zones via its public API. This approach reduced provisioning time by 60 %.
 

Comparison with alternatives

Advantages and disadvantages

Conclusion

PowerDNS is a complete open‑source project, performant and highly flexible, ideal for developers, system administrators, and DevOps teams seeking a reliable alternative to proprietary solutions.

Its modular architecture, native SQL support, and REST API make PowerDNS, in 2025, a strategic choice for organisations that want digital sovereignty, automation, and high performance.