MaraDNS is an open-source (BSD licensed) Domain Name System (DNS) implementation, which acts as either a caching, recursive, or authoritative nameserver.

[2][3][4][5] MaraDNS has a string library, which is buffer overflow resistant and has its own random number generator.

[6] MaraDNS runs as an unprivileged user inside of a chroot environment, while MaraDNS specifies the user and group to run as by user-ID, Simon Burnet has made a patch that makes it possible to supply a username [7] MaraDNS can add both IP records and the corresponding PTR "reverse DNS lookup" record.

[9] MaraDNS currently does not support DNSSEC because of a lack of money for the developer to implement it using the LibTom library.

[10] Deadwood includes built-in "DNS wall" filtering (to protect against external domains which resolve to local IPs), the ability to read and write the cache to a file, DNS-over-TCP support, the ability to optionally reject MX, IPv6 AAAA, and PTR queries, code that stops AR-spoofing attacks, among other features.