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CoreDNS

Flexible, plugin-based DNS server

Reverse Proxy & Gateways ★ 14.4k stars Medium setup Apache-2.0

CoreDNS is an open-source DNS server and forwarder built on a plugin architecture, and is the default DNS for Kubernetes. It can be self-hosted as a general-purpose DNS server with extensible behavior.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Plugin-based architecture
  • Kubernetes service discovery
  • Multiple backends
  • Lightweight

Pros & cons

Strengths

  • Simple Corefile configuration
  • Single Go binary
  • Kubernetes default DNS

Trade-offs

  • Fewer features than BIND
  • Plugin order matters

Is CoreDNS secure?

No known vulnerabilities affect CoreDNS's latest release (v1.14.7). OSV.dev lists 17 past advisories for the project; none of them applies to this release. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

  • Most recent fixed advisory CVE-2026-82399, published 2026-09-16 (28 days ago), fixed in 1.14.7

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

CoreDNS replaces

Self-hosted BIND alternativesSelf-hosted dnsmasq alternatives

Health badge

Maintain CoreDNS? Add its health score to your README. The badge links back to this page.

SelfHostIndex: 95 · excellent

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[![SelfHostIndex health score for CoreDNS](https://selfhostindex.com/badge/coredns.svg)](https://selfhostindex.com/app/coredns/)
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<a href="https://selfhostindex.com/app/coredns/"><img src="https://selfhostindex.com/badge/coredns.svg" alt="SelfHostIndex health score for CoreDNS"></a>
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.. image:: https://selfhostindex.com/badge/coredns.svg
   :alt: SelfHostIndex health score for CoreDNS
   :target: https://selfhostindex.com/app/coredns/

The score is recomputed on every nightly rebuild from public repository data — see how it is calculated.

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