Like many folks, I’m over a year into using Kagi full time and my primary reason was privacy + avoiding ads.
Coming from DuckDuckGo before, I’ve found that other than the hyper local results mentioned, I find the right answer in the first few results or not at all. Switching to Google or DuckDuckGo provides no better answers.
Also retaining the full set of DuckDuckGo bangs was essential (and probably what I use more than actual search )
The hacky solution for default search in mobile safari sucks but only Apple can fix that.
I ran Kagi for a couple of months in a test trial alongside Qwant as part of my support for the EU movement to divest of America-first interests. I found little material difference between search results across the two websites, both actually work far better (in my opinion, as someone who knows how to use search operators and was using them primarily for technical searches) than other search engines, have cut out a lot of the SEO crap that proliferates first pages of results these days, and gave me the answers I need far more quickly (it was very rare that I didn’t find the page with the information I needed in the first couple of links listed).
Ultimately, because Kagi is American, is a paid-for service and doesn’t necessarily honour the foundational principles of a free web, can’t support equitable web access because of this, and has question marks around the ethics of financial links to Russia at this time, Qwant is the better offering for EU citizens presently. It’s free and partially funded by several EU programmes and countries, and is working with Ecosia to build a new search index, which will enable search engines to reduce their reliance on Google and Microsoft indexes (most the common search engines are using indexes from these two).
They’ve also developed a separate product for children in order to safeguard children whilst allowing them to learn and develop their web skills (Qwant Junior). I didn’t test this as it wasn’t the purpose of the trial but in principle this seems an exceptionally worthwhile idea and it’s strange no-one’s done it before (well, it’s not so strange when you realise most search engines are funded by marketing).
For the trial I was only running the two search engines on my main Mac, since that’s where I work and where the most benefit was to be had in improved web search. Since completing the trial I have installed Qwant across all my devices (replacing DuckDuckGo) and so far have been happy with the results (because its so good at filtering out SEO and AI generated web nonsense, it’s unexpectedly good at finding the answers to annoying little tech problems where you just need someone to tell you what settings need changing in something - a nice quality of life improvement!).
Kagi has been my only search engine since March 2024. I pay $108 USD per year and it’s worth every penny of that.
I was a Google user prior to this. I didn’t move to Kagi for privacy reasons; I moved because Google search results are terrible these days. Kagi in 2025 feels like Google did in 2005, it’s made the internet fun for me again in ways that are hard to quantify.
I remember trying to find some obscure things on Google, and they must be really de-prioritizing old content because it was just impossible for me to find. With Kagi, I feel like my search engine is working for me again, not against me.
It doesn’t take a Masters in Economics to understand the issue with Google. They make money via advertising, so they are financially incentivized to keep your eyeballs on Google search results. Kagi makes money directly from me paying them, and that makes them financially incentivized to deliver me the perfect search result so I get off their website and stop costing them money!
Lastly, I’ve really been using Kagi Assistant more and more as my interface to AI models. They way they have structured the pricing means I get to effectively spend $108 per year of their money on AI models AND get unlimited searches on Kagi itself. I imagine I will upgrade to their $270/year plan that includes the premium AI models before too long.
I had this on my todo for couple of months, delaying. Last month, gave in and subscribed for a cheaper plan, with limited search numbers. Not sure I’m happy. Not sure I’m happy with google either, or duck duck go. they don’t find me what I’m looking for most of the time on a first page. (google sometimes does, but there are bunch of ads first and sometimes miss it)
product search is not helpful at Kagi.
heard they released news product (or update to it) last week, didn’t yet try – still have 40 or so tabs to read before getting to that tab
Didn’t try their browser either, happy most of the time with Safari and Firefox mix.
AI? didn’t try directly, but saw few very unhelpful and simply wrong summarizations.
)