Thoughts on Kagi Search after two months

I’m old enough to remember when you had to search the internet using a portal such as Yahoo!, Excite or Alta Vista. I stopped using these when Google first came along (when it was on the google.standford.edu domain!) and never looked back. Of course over the years I tried Bing and flirted with DuckDuckGo, but Google was always faster and generally provided better results.

I keep hearing about how ChatGPT is eating into Google’s search market share, but the reality (for now) is that Google still accounts for around 90% of search traffic. ChatGPT is brilliant, no doubt, but it feels overkill right now for quickly searching for things on the web. Given the thirst for all those tasty ad dollars, we will see a big shift here, but for the consumer it'll just mean swapping one privacy-invading, ad-infested search experience for another.

You do get a bit more than basic search and LLM access. There is Kagi Maps which uses Open Street Map (it's okay for now), image search (very good) and a News search – basically like what you traditionally get with Google, but without all that dirty-ass surveillance.

You can access Kagi for $5/mo but this only gives you 300 searches. Maybe that's enough for you but I munched through this limit in just over a week. I had to upgrade to the Professional plan at $10/mo + tax to get unlimited searching. This is definitely feels a little on the pricey side.

I'm enjoying the experience so I'm happy to pay right now, but I can afford the luxury. I also feel by paying that I'm supporting the cause for a better web, which feels important right now. You're funding Kagi's coffers of course, but it actually feels somewhat charitable! I'm very aware that I'm in a narrow niche of people here, but I think there's one thing on the horizon that will see a big shift in supporters... email.

It's no secret that email is coming to Kagi – see https://kagimail.com and recent job openings. If Kagi bundled email into your $10/mo I think we'll see a lot of individuals and micro-businesses switch from Google Workspace.

I use Google Workspace for domain email for Pagecord, the price of which was recently hiked to £7/mo which is essentially a Google AI tax. If I get Kagi Mail bundled into the $10 I'm already paying, ditching Google Workspace is a no-brainer. I'd be confident that many other people would feel the same, so I think this could be an inflection point for Kagi in the coming months. I really hope so.

In many ways Kagi is nothing novel, but it absolutely feels like the future. If you get a chance, give it a spin.