OpenAppFilter

Why we included this project

Parents and home network admins who want to control which apps their family can reach will find this a practical router-level solution. It runs as a plugin on OpenWrt devices and identifies traffic for hundreds of popular applications, including TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, using deep packet inspection rather than DNS tricks. Because identification happens at the flow level on the router itself, it keeps working even when clients use encrypted DNS or change their DNS settings, which is a common workaround for simpler filters. The project ships as three packages (a LuCI web interface, a service daemon, and a kernel module) that you compile into your firmware, and it lets you define custom protocol signatures for apps it does not cover out of the box. If you already run OpenWrt and want per-app blocking or scheduled network access without buying dedicated parental-control hardware, this is a solid, self-hosted option.