Kagi ( ) is a paid ad-free

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

developed by Kagi Inc., a company located in Palo Alto, California. It is based on a monthly subscription and requires users to be logged into an account to search. It functions as a

metasearch engine A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. S ...

but also has its own indexes for websites and news. The name means "key" in Japanese. (鍵)

Features

The search engine allows results to be filtered by category with a feature called lenses and allows the user to create their own lenses. Some lenses include filtering to find discussions, podcasts, search directly for PDF files, and filtering to focus content from smaller websites like blogs and forums. Websites shown in search results can be upvoted, downvoted, and blocked. Details about websites can be shown in the search results such as when it was created and how many ads and trackers it has. Shortcuts called bangs can be created which allow searches to be redirected to different websites. There is also an AI quick response feature that summarizes a search query and gives sources. Kagi allows for customization of the user interface, including a custom

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

editor.

Orion Browser

Orion Browser is a browser developed by Kagi Inc. that is based on the WebKit engine and is similar to

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

but with different features such as supporting

WebExtensions Add-on is the Mozilla term for software modules that can be added to the Firefox web browser and related applications. Mozilla hosts them on its official add-on website. Browser extensions are the primary type of add-on. In 2017, Mozilla enacted ...

. It is only available on macOS and iOS devices, with Kagi Inc. stating a potential Windows version sometime in the future, and is still in beta. Orion Browser is designed to be used with Kagi but users have the option to use any search engine.

Search results quality

Kagi aggregates search results from other established search engines, like a

meta search engine A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. ...

would. They run their own crawler under the brand name Teclis, although this index is only used for small-web searches. Kagi has been critiqued for not providing search results that outperform already established players.

Business model

Kagi has no ads or sponsored search results, being based on a subscription service instead. The site claims not to collect user actions such as searches. Users must have an account to search on Kagi. Kagi allows users 100 free searches before they must subscribe to a monthly subscription plan. There are three tiers available: a $5 tier that allows for 300 searches a month (formerly 500), a $10 tier that allows for unlimited monthly searches, and a $25 tier that allows for unlimited searches and early access to new features. Kagi had around 20,515 subscribed members as of January 29, 2024, and 347,000 searches were made that day.

References

External links