ldns-host [1] is a DNS lookup utility based on ldns library [2]. It is meant to be a compatible replacement for the host utility from BIND 9 distribution [3].
Currently ldns-host supports all the options that host does (except for debugging ones), and produces close, and often identical output. That is to say, you can replace host with ldns-host and few people will notice any difference.
More details on current compatibilty status are in the man page at [4].
Make sure you have ldns library installed, and then do this:
hg clone http://hg.tx97.net/ldns-host
cd ldns-host
make
./ldns-host example.netYes.
FreeBSD ships with ldns-host in base since version 10. It is installed as host [5].
No.