PowerDNS features a large number of different backends ranging from simple BIND style zonefiles to relational databases[4] and load balancing/failover algorithms.

In November 2002, the source code was made public under the open-source GPL v2 license.

Zone transfers and update notifications are supported, and the processes can run unprivileged and chrooted.

While pre-signed zones can be served, it is also possible to perform online signing & key management.

PowerDNS Recursor (pdns_recursor[7]) is a resolving DNS server, that runs as a separate process.