Back to Kagi • Hacker News Board

Re: Back to Kagi

#161

Post by Marsymars » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 12:51 AM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #75

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.

“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’s going to be hard for people to give an answer to that because if you get an answer you like on Kagi, you’re not going to also search on Google.

You basically need someone with a Kagi sub to commit to using Google, and trying Kagi whenever Google fails.

I’ve got a specific instance of something a few days ago where I searched on my wife’s phone for and neither the canonical website or the wiki page were anywhere in the top results for Google, whereas they were IIRC top-2 results on Kagi. Apologies though, I can’t for the life of me remember what the search term was.

Re: Back to Kagi

#162

Post by Marsymars » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 12:55 AM UTC

starvar2 wrote: post #8

Does Kagi work well in other countries for finding products?

For things to buy yes, though I’ll usually stick “Canada” into the search term.

Unfortunately Google Maps still dominates info/reviews for any real-world locations.

Re: Back to Kagi

#163

Post by dawnerd » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 1:00 AM UTC

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #79

dmrivers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in seeing that block list if you have it somewhere

Kagi nowadays has a feature called "SlopStop" that you can opt into. It's basically a global block list for LLM generated websites, etc that is shared across all users who opt into and anyone can report sites/content to it. Kagi of course reviews it but generally it's good enough that I don't see much LLM generated content in the results anymore.

They started marking a lot of my reports as not slop when it’s very obviously ai garbage. Stopslop is nice in theory if they actually handle reports correctly. It’s exhausting to spend time trying to help clean up their results only to be told no.

Re: Back to Kagi

#164

Post by hgoel » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

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.

Re: Back to Kagi

#165

Post by nixgeek » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 1:31 AM UTC

j1elo wrote: post #138

201984 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your financial situation, but $10 is nothing these days. That's the price of a bougie coffee, half the price of going out to eat, half the price of a movie ticket, or less than 2 gallons of gas in some states. For most people here, it's probably 20min of labor after taxes or less, for something you use constantly. You pay several times more, possibly 10x more, for the internet you use Kagi on. Really not a…

So you live in one of the most expensive countries in the planet I guess, which forced you to get used to those absurdly high prices? In my corner of the first-world, I'm paying: * €6/mo mobile carrier with unlimited calls and what used to be 8 GB of data, but got raised (permanently without extra cost, across all customers) to 15 GB on last June. Paying a bit more could get you an "unlimited" plan. * €10/mo for 500…

I think I’m on the upper end of what’s normal in U.S. but also not super abnormal either —

1. Four lines on Google Fi is about $220 per month for “Unlimited”.

2. Comcast is $95 per month for 1Gbps.

3. A regular cinema ticket is $22.83 to the nearest movie theater and that isnt a "premium" thing like IMAX.

Re: Back to Kagi

#166

Post by ijustlovemath » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 2:09 AM UTC

northhex wrote: post #147

giancarlostoro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont use it anywhere near as much because it felt like I was hitting their limits too quickly, not sure if that has changed.

Do you know what their upper limit is? I average 1900 queries/month so I'm curious where they drew the line for you.

Curious what your distribution is, as a ~400 person that thought they did more.

Re: Back to Kagi

#167

Post by ares623 » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #79

dmrivers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in seeing that block list if you have it somewhere

Kagi nowadays has a feature called "SlopStop" that you can opt into. It's basically a global block list for LLM generated websites, etc that is shared across all users who opt into and anyone can report sites/content to it. Kagi of course reviews it but generally it's good enough that I don't see much LLM generated content in the results anymore.

Do they review false positives? Do site owners have an avenue to challenge being falsely blocked?

Re: Back to Kagi

#168

Post by Groxx » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

neysofu wrote: post #73

haburka wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hit the 300 search limit once in a few years. It’s usually quite enough

Just to add another data point to this, 300 would absolutely not be enough for me. Here's my usage stats: Jul 2026 939 Jun 2026 1,317 May 2026 1,924 Apr 2026 2,537 Mar 2026 2,183 Feb 2026 2,038 Jan 2026 2,392

Yep, in my one month paid trial I hit 300 after about 2 weeks, and I was being conscious of when I used it vs other engines. I'd probably clear 1000 if I wasn't.

Their claims of "most people don't use 300+" has an EXTREME survivorship bias. I'd happily pay the base price if it weren't so limited - maybe if I wasn't subsidizing the LLM?

Instead I just cancelled.

Re: Back to Kagi

#169

Post by leoh » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 2:52 AM UTC

I have worked for Google on and off the last 6y. When I am not working there, I use kagi. When I am working there, I miss kagi a lot.

Re: Back to Kagi

#170

Post by windexh8er » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 3:17 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #159

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it bad if they're using other engines to produce results?

It is a bit weird that a ‘search engine’ is using other companies search results. They aren’t the only one doing this though.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this was always the plan for Kagi. Google has been rather distracted and complacent in their, former, core business. If Kagi is bootstrapping their indexing to emerge on the other end of this as the next "good" search, then good on them.

I'll continue to support them because it's a great experience.