Why I Returned to Kagi After Trying Other Search Engines
Back to Kagi
After months of testing alternatives like Google, DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, and a custom SearxNG instance, I have re-subscribed to Kagi. While other options struggled with result quality, rate-limiting, or unwanted AI and video clutter, Kagi delivered the privacy-focused, text-heavy search experience I needed. Its unique features, including summarization and CSS customization, made the return a relief, reinforcing my commitment to a tool that truly prioritizes user needs.
The well is already poisoned for me and I can't go back to Google or any other search engine that doesn't prioritize user privacy and quality results.
- hgoel
I've been using Kagi for a few years. I'd say that the biggest thing to me about it is that it does exactly what so many other sites nowadays seem to hate. It stays out of your way and allows itself to blend into the background, no sudden UI changes, no pop ups advertising some way to get more money from me and no sudden drops in result quality.
I absolutely adore the ability to block/downrank domains. With Reddit trying to require logins to view the old layout, it's been nice knowing that I can just stop having reddit show up in search results.
- poetril
I feel like half of what I do on HN is talk about Kagi. I switch to Kagi in 2023, and haven't looked back. Between vim keybinds for navigating search, explicit AI opt-in, the ability to curate search (block sites, increase others), and more. It really lets me feel like I can control my search tool, and at least so far its felt like our interests are aligned, I give them money and they make sure search is as good as possible for me.
- o_m
I've subscribed to Kagi for three of years now. Kagi is still great, but it doesn't feel like "Google ten years ago" anymore. I don't think it is because Kagi got worse, rather it is the web that has become worse. The content nowadays kinda sucks.
- SadTrombone
Kagi is great, and I'd pay some amount of money for it, but $10/mth is simply too much for me personally to pay for a search engine. I understand why others do and enjoyed my Kagi experience, however. If only the $5 plan had more than 300 searches.
- maelito
I'm surprised there is so little attention given to Staan.ai, the european search indexed built by Ecosia and Qwant.
The API is now available, you can make a query after creating your token.
This could enable SE innovation based on other sources than Google, Bing and Brave.
I wonder if Kagi's using it.
Edit : thanks, corrected the URL
- joshstrange
I've been paying for Kagi for almost 3 years now but with the advent of LLMs (really in the past 3-6 month) my usage has fallen off a cliff. I really wish they included some level of API/MCP access so I'd like to continue to support what they are trying to do but every month when I get charged I think "Is this still worth paying for?".
I could just pay for their API directly instead of my subscription but I wish they'd meet (some of) their customers where they are.
- cautiouscat
Kagi has been a great and worthwhile subscription to me. It feels like browsing the Google of the 10s in some ways. Way more private blogs and whatnot in the results.
- coldpie
I've asked a number of times on HN threads for specific examples of searches that Kagi performs better on than DDG or Google, and never gotten a solid reply. It seems what people like about Kagi is the customization and surrounding tooling, but the actual search quality is about the same or possibly worse. That's cool, but I don't find it worth the cash personally.