dog
A command-line tool for looking up DNS records that's easier to read than the classic `dig`, with color output and support for encrypted DNS.
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Description
Checking why a website isn't resolving, or verifying a DNS record change has propagated, usually means running `dig` and squinting at dense, unformatted text output built for scripts, not humans. dog is a free command-line tool that does the same DNS lookups but presents them in a clean, colorized, human-readable format, while also supporting privacy-focused encrypted DNS protocols that dig doesn't handle as easily.
dog supports DNS queries over UDP, TCP, DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS, can output results as JSON for scripting, handles internationalized domain names, and lets you customize queries by record type, nameserver or network class. It's written in Rust, ships as a single cross-platform binary, and is available through Homebrew, Arch and NixOS package managers among others. It's free and open source, with 6.7k GitHub stars and active development.
💬 Our review
The short version: if you run DNS lookups often enough to be tired of parsing `dig`'s dense text output, dog gives you the same information in a format that's actually pleasant to read, plus support for encrypted DNS protocols dig handles more awkwardly.
dog's value isn't new capability so much as usability — dig has done DNS lookups reliably for decades, but its output format predates modern terminal conventions. dog adds color-coded, structured output and a JSON mode for scripting, while covering the same encrypted-DNS use cases (DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-HTTPS) that matter increasingly for privacy-conscious network debugging. With 6.7k stars and steady commits, it's a credible, actively maintained alternative rather than an abandoned experiment. The tradeoff is familiarity: dig is installed everywhere by default and its flags are muscle memory for many sysadmins, so dog is worth adopting for personal/team workflows but isn't yet something you can assume exists on a random remote server. Good fit for developers and DevOps engineers who want friendlier DNS debugging on their own machines; not a full replacement for dig's universal availability in scripts meant to run anywhere.
💰 Pricing
📊 Global score
🤖 AI-enriched data
Projet open source, aucune offre payante
Pros
Sortie colorée et lisible, bien plus claire que dig
Supporte DNS-over-TLS et DNS-over-HTTPS pour des requêtes chiffrées
Sortie JSON pour usage scriptable
Binaire unique multi-plateforme, installation facile via gestionnaires de paquets
Cons
Moins universellement installé que dig par défaut sur les serveurs
Projet plus récent, moins ancré dans les habitudes des sysadmins
Nécessite Rust pour compiler depuis les sources