CleanBrowsing vs Cloudflare: Which DNS Service Better Protects Your Family?

Last edited: 2025-07-02 22:01:42

Thumbnail

When choosing a DNS-based filtering solution for your family's internet safety, two prominent options often emerge: CleanBrowsing and Cloudflare for Families. While both offer free parental control features, they represent distinctly different philosophies in protecting children online. Understanding these differences is essential for selecting the right solution for your household's specific needs.

Before examining the comparison, it's important to understand how DNS filtering functions as a protective measure. DNS (Domain Name System) serves as the internet's address book – when someone types a website URL, the DNS server translates that request into the actual server location. Parental control DNS servers act as digital gatekeepers, checking every website request against their filtering databases and either permitting or blocking access based on predetermined rules.

This network-level approach offers significant advantages over software-based alternatives. DNS filtering protects all devices connected to your home network without requiring individual software installations on each device.

Service Philosophies: Focused vs Comprehensive

CleanBrowsing positions itself as a specialized parental control service, with a name that directly reflects its singular mission of providing clean, safe internet browsing experiences for families. Their entire business model revolves around DNS-based content filtering, offering multiple filtering levels designed specifically for different family needs.

Cloudflare for Families represents a different approach entirely. As part of Cloudflare's broader DNS infrastructure services, their parental control offering (1.1.1.3) extends their reputation for speed and reliability into the family protection space. This solution prioritizes performance while providing essential content filtering capabilities.

Blocking Effectiveness: The Core Protection Comparison

The fundamental question every parent asks is straightforward: How effectively does each service block inappropriate content? Based on comprehensive testing across 1,000 known adult websites using DNSFilterTest.com, the results reveal interesting performance patterns.

Cloudflare for Families demonstrates solid blocking capabilities, successfully preventing access to 85% of tested adult websites. This represents a strong foundation for content protection, placing it among the more effective free DNS services available.

CleanBrowsing offers two distinct filtering approaches with different effectiveness levels. Their Adult Filter achieves an 84% blocking rate, performing similarly to Cloudflare's offering. However, their Family Filter maintains the same 84% blocking rate while extending protection far beyond just adult content, creating a more comprehensive safety net for younger users.

The similarity in raw blocking percentages means the decision between these services depends more on their additional features and filtering philosophies rather than pure adult content blocking capability.

Safe Search Enforcement: Protecting Search Experiences

Safe search enforcement often proves more crucial than blocking specific websites because children frequently encounter inappropriate content through seemingly innocent searches. When children use Google Images, Bing, or other search engines, safe search ensures that explicit images and websites are filtered from results. We can quickly test this also at DNSFilterTest.com.

CleanBrowsing takes a comprehensive approach to search protection. Their Family Filter enforces safe mode across Google, YouTube, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex, creating comprehensive protection around your children's search experiences. Even their more permissive Adult Filter enforces safe search on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex, though it notably excludes YouTube from forced safe mode.

Cloudflare for Families enforces safe search on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex but does not include YouTube safe mode enforcement. This means while it effectively blocks known problematic websites, children could still encounter inappropriate content through YouTube searches or suggestions, representing a notable gap in search protection.

Mixed Content Sites: Handling the Gray Areas

Today's internet includes numerous platforms that host both appropriate and inappropriate content. Sites like Reddit, X/Twitter, Imgur, and similar user-generated content platforms can contain everything from educational discussions to explicit material. How each DNS service handles these "mixed content" sites reveals their overall safety philosophy.

CleanBrowsing's Family Filter takes a protective approach, blocking access to mixed content sites including Reddit, Imgur, DeviantArt, dating sites, and file-sharing platforms. This strategy prioritizes safety over access, recognizing that children might encounter inappropriate content even on otherwise legitimate platforms.

CleanBrowsing's Adult Filter takes the opposite approach, allowing access to mixed content sites while maintaining blocks on dedicated adult content. This provides families with flexibility to choose their preferred protection level.

Cloudflare for Families allows access to all mixed content sites, taking a more permissive stance that trusts parents to handle these platforms through alternative means or considers them acceptable risks for their filtering level.

Performance Comparison: Speed Matters

Fast DNS response times are crucial because slow DNS resolution can make web browsing frustratingly sluggish, potentially leading to family complaints about "slow internet" that might discourage continued use of parental controls.

Cloudflare for Families leverages their extensive global network infrastructure to deliver impressive performance. True to Cloudflare's reputation for speed, their parental control DNS achieves an average response time of 82 milliseconds, making it the second-fastest option among major DNS filtering services.

CleanBrowsing delivers notably different performance depending on which service you choose. Their Adult Filter provides exceptional speed with an average response time of 69 milliseconds – actually faster than Cloudflare and representing the fastest performance among all tested services. However, their Family Filter operates at 122 milliseconds, possibly due to the additional processing required for more comprehensive filtering.

It's important to note that DNS response times vary significantly based on your geographic location and internet service provider. Therefore, these measurements serve as general benchmarks, and actual performance may differ in your specific situation.

Making the Right Choice for Your Family

The decision between CleanBrowsing and Cloudflare for Families depends on your family's specific needs, your children's ages, and your preferred balance between protection and performance.

Choose Cloudflare for Families (1.1.1.3) if:

  • You prioritize fast internet speeds and performance
  • You want solid adult content blocking with minimal additional restrictions
  • You're comfortable managing mixed content sites through other means
  • You prefer a more permissive approach that blocks explicit content but allows broader internet access
  • You want the reliability of a major infrastructure provider

Choose CleanBrowsing Family Filter if:

  • You want comprehensive protection that goes beyond just adult content
  • You have younger children who need broader content restrictions
  • You want mixed content sites like Reddit and dating platforms blocked
  • You prioritize maximum protection over access to borderline content
  • You want YouTube safe mode enforcement included

Choose CleanBrowsing Adult Filter if:

  • You want the fastest possible DNS performance
  • You need adult content blocking but want to maintain access to mixed content sites
  • You have older children who can handle platforms like Reddit responsibly
  • You want search engine safe mode without YouTube restrictions

Implementation and Additional Considerations

Both services are straightforward to implement using the same basic process. You'll need to change your router's DNS settings to use either service, typically by accessing your router's administration panel and updating the DNS server addresses. This single change will protect all devices connected to your home network.

CleanBrowsing DNS Addresses:

  • Family Filter: 185.228.168.168 and 185.228.169.168
  • Adult Filter: 185.228.168.10 and 185.228.169.11

Cloudflare for Families DNS Address:

  • Malware and Adult Content Blocking: 1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3

Remember that DNS filtering, while effective, isn't completely foolproof. Determined children might find ways around these restrictions using VPNs, alternative DNS servers, or mobile data connections. The most effective approach combines DNS filtering with ongoing conversations about internet safety and age-appropriate monitoring strategies.

The Bottom Line

Rather than declaring a clear winner, it's more valuable to recognize that CleanBrowsing and Cloudflare for Families serve different family protection needs effectively. Cloudflare excels at providing fast, reliable DNS service with solid adult content blocking, making it ideal for families seeking performance-focused protection. CleanBrowsing offers more comprehensive filtering options, with their Family Filter providing broader protection suitable for younger children and their Adult Filter delivering exceptional speed for families wanting focused adult content blocking.

Your choice should align with your family's specific requirements, your comfort level with different protection approaches, and your children's ages and digital sophistication. Both services can effectively support family internet safety when implemented as part of a broader strategy that includes education, communication, and appropriate monitoring, which can be done with for example AdGuard Home or AdGuard DNS.

The most successful family internet protection strategies combine technical tools like DNS filtering with ongoing dialogue about digital citizenship, age-appropriate supervision, and education about online risks and responsible internet usage.