Kagi vs. The Competition
Table of Contents
Features
The table below shows how Kagi stacks up to some of the most popular search engines around in terms of key features.
| Kagi | Bing | DuckDuckGo/Ecosia/Startpage | Brave | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ad-free business model | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Has own web index | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| User can block sites in the UI | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Zero search telemetry | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Anonymises user data | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Learn more about Kagi's unique features.
Speed
We’re obsessed with increasing speed and lowering latency, and we currently use three approaches.
First, we optimized our technology stack to increase code execution speed and decrease connection latency.
Second, we reduced data transfer between Kagi and the browser, in some cases by as much as 20x less compared to some of our competitors! This reduction has the neat side effect of reducing CO2 emissions. Using Kagi Search will benefit the environment as well as you!
| Product | SERP Size | CO2 | Load Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | 0.76 MB | 0.43 g | 0.4 s |
| Ecosia | 1.55 MB | 0.89 g | 1.2 s |
| Bing | 1.94 MB | 1.11 g | 0.8 s |
| 2.43 MB | 1.39 g | 2.4 s | |
| DuckDuckGo | 2.48 MB | 1.42 g | 2.1 s |
| Data from ecoping.earth |
Third, our infrastructure is global, so you’ll always connect automatically to the Kagi node closest to you.
Kagi vs. Google
Google's search engine has indeed changed the world and the way we access information. We value this contribution. We’re grateful to have access to Google's search technology and infrastructure for Kagi.
Instead of trying to create a search product for billions of people, we want to develop a refined search experience for sophisticated customers who value high-quality results, privacy, and speed.
Kagi will allow you to discover well-written articles from lesser-known blogs and use features like Lenses and Personalized Results. Ad-supported search must avoid this kind of depth and flexibility to stay profitable. Kagi has unique features, many of which can never be replicated in an ad-supported search engine.
We do not see Kagi as the Google killer. Google's scale and reach are enormous. Google also serves a purpose in the world — it did help enable our modern society to exist, with all its marvels and flaws. Heck, it even enables Kagi to exist!
Think of Kagi as a small, premium brand, providing a very different, tailor-made search experience for people who need and appreciate that.
For a deeper dive, we created a video showcasing the main differences between Kagi and Google:
Kagi vs. DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo has shown the world that a privacy-first search engine is possible, and we respect this contribution. However, its innovation has slowed in the past decade. Additionally, ad-supported business models will always force a company to make compromises and balance between serving users and advertisers. In the end, DuckDuckGo's search product is just "good enough" (by our standard, sorry, DuckDuckGo!) and has been stagnant for years without any groundbreaking feature development.
In contrast, Kagi search does not need to compromise on user experience. Everything we do is user-centric. Kagi Search already has many unique features, like Lenses and Personalized Results. Because we depend only on our users for revenue, Kagi can and will always offer a much richer search experience for the user.
Kagi vs. Brave Search
We appreciate that Brave is making a free search product and that it cares about user privacy. That said, we believe that Kagi Search is a better solution.
Brave Search is pursuing an ad-based model where users can pay to opt out of ads. This means that the product direction of Brave Search will be greatly influenced by the needs of advertisers. Kagi Search does not accept advertising, and our product direction is guided only by the needs of users.
Brave Search also largely uses its own search index for results. Having a single-index source may be limiting.
Kagi Search includes anonymized requests to traditional search indexes, including Brave, as well as our own non-commercial index (Teclis), news index (TinyGem), and an AI for instant answers. Teclis and TinyGem are a result of our crawl through millions of domains, focusing primarily on non-commercial, high-quality content. More about Kagi's search sources.