The best alternatives to Kagi
Kagi might not be the right fit: the price, a missing feature or a payment model you don't like. These are the closest alternatives in our catalog, ordered by rating, with the full review of each one.
Why look for a Kagi alternative
Nothing has changed on price or usage limits this week: the entry plan is still $5 and the assistant has gained no new feature since the native app shipped on 30 July. What this sweep adds is the first sixteen reviews of that app on the App Store, averaging 5 out of 5, with people who used the mobile web version saying the native app is an upgrade. The docs also note that buying extra AI credits once the plan cap runs out is coming, though it is not live yet.
What its own users repeat in the August 10, 2026 sweep:
- The index is not theirs for most queries: they pay third-party providers serving Google results, and the company itself writes it wants out as soon as direct licensing becomes possible (strong theme)
- The entry plan stops at 300 searches and 300 AI interactions a month, and anyone searching for a living ends up on the $10 tier (strong theme)
- AI usage is capped at the dollar value of the plan, with a 20 per cent margin baked in, and once you go over, new interactions are disabled until the next billing cycle. The official docs say an option to buy extra credits is coming, but it is not live yet (strong theme)
- Premium models are still tied to the $25 plan and there is no way to reach them from the lower tiers (present theme)
- There is no regional pricing: the request has been open on the official forum since June 2022, is still marked under review, and people paying from lower-income markets reopen it every few weeks (present theme)
- Multi-year subscribers say they now search far less because they ask a model instead, and some have already downgraded or cancelled over it (present theme)
Best alternatives to Kagi
A search engine with its own index and AI answers that cite sources, with ads removed for $3 a month.
A free AI search engine with no ads and no account, attributing and linking the source of every answer.
What the internet says about each alternative
Brave Search 3.7/5 · Free + from $3
First sweep. Brave Search is one of the few engines in the segment that does not lean on somebody else's index: its own April 2023 announcement states that it removed the last Bing API call, which accounted for around 7 per cent of results, and that every web result has come from its own index since. The AI answer layer is free and cites sources as a principle stated in its documentation, and what costs $3 a month is removing the ads the free tier does carry. The two serious problems are documented by third parties and neither is about price. The first is the long tail, where its own help pages admit in writing that results are not refined enough for every query and offer a fallback that consults Google, available only inside its browser. The second is reputational and dates to 2023, when copyright analysts documented that its crawler does not identify itself in a way a publisher can block, an accusation that underpins a News Corp countersuit filed in July 2026. It is also worth knowing that the index is fed partly by browsing history contributed voluntarily by users of its browser.
Where it wins: The in-house index is a verifiable fact rather than a marketing promise, and it is what separates this product from most so-called AI search engines, which are a writing layer over results rented from Google or Bing Where it slips: The index falls short on the long tail and the product's own help pages admit it in writing, with a fallback that queries Google as the official fix, available only inside its browser
Andi 2.9/5 · Free
First sweep. Andi is the small project of this segment and it genuinely answers the segment's question: a free search engine with no advertising, no account and no search logging, with the source named and linked in every answer. Verification was run against its live API rather than only its marketing site, returning results dated in 2026 with attribution on all of them. There is real work underneath, with intent classification by query type, recency scoring and its own page extractor, so it is not a wrapper over somebody else's model. The problems are three and none of them is about price. The first is that the default answer is not what the home page promises: instead of a multi-source synthesis by language models, what arrives is an extract from a single page, and in three of nine test queries the chosen extract did not answer the question. The second is size and focus, because the declared team went from ten people in 2023 to two, the browser extension promoted on its home page has not been updated since April 2024, and most of its 2026 posts concern neighbouring products. The third is coherence: its policy states it never uses third-party analytics while the app loads a product analytics platform with a persistent per-visitor profile, served from its own domain, although it trims the query text before sending and the whole thing can be switched off.
Where it wins: It is genuinely free with no hidden trade: no card, no account, no ads and no search logging, which nobody else in this segment offers Where it slips: The default answer is a single-page extract rather than the multi-source synthesis the home page advertises, and selection misfires often: in three of nine test queries the extract did not answer the question
Comparison table
| Tool | Price | Free trial | Platforms | Rating | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | Free trial · from $5 | Yes | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Chrome | VisitKagi (opens in a new tab) | |
| Brave Search | Free + from $3 | No | Web | VisitBrave Search (opens in a new tab) | |
| Andi | Free | No | Web, Chrome | VisitAndi (opens in a new tab) |
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