Kagi
Kagi ( KAH-ghee) (stylized as kagi) is a paid ad-free search engine developed by Kagi Inc., a company located in Palo Alto, California. The Japanese word 鍵, kagi means 'key'.
 | This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. (March 2026) |
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Type of site | Web search engine |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2018 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California |
| Country of origin | USA |
| CEO | Vladimir Prelovac |
| Key people | Vladimir Prelovac, Raghu Murthi, Dr. Norman Winarsky |
| URL |
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| Advertising | No |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Required |
| Current status | Online |
Kagi (/ˈkɑːɡi/ KAH-ghee[2]) (stylized as kagi) is a paid ad-free search engine developed by Kagi Inc., a company located in Palo Alto, California.[2]
The Japanese word 鍵, kagi means 'key'.[2]
Features
[edit]Kagi
[edit]Kagi functions as a metasearch engine to aggregate search results from other established search engines with its own indexes for websites and news.[3] They run their own crawler under the brand name Teclis,[4] although this index is only used for small-web searches.[5] In 2024, Kagi stopped listing specific traditional search engines included in their sources;[6] before this, these sources included Google, Brave Search, Mojeek and Yandex.[7][8]
The search engine enables results to be filtered by category with a feature called lenses and enables the user to create their own lenses. Available lenses include filtering to find discussions, podcasts, search directly for PDF files, and filtering to focus content from smaller websites like blogs and forums.[9][2] Websites shown in search results can be upvoted, downvoted, and blocked.[10] Shortcuts called bangs can be created which allow searches to be redirected to different websites.[11] There is also an AI quick response feature that summarizes a search query and gives sources.[2][12] Details about websites can be shown in the search results such as creation date and counts of ads and trackers. Kagi also allows for customization of the user interface with a custom CSS editor.[9]
Orion Browser
[edit]| Orion Browser | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Kagi Inc. |
| Operating system | |
| License | Proprietary freeware |
| Website | orionbrowser.com |
| Repository | github.com/OrionBrowser |
Orion Browser is a proprietary browser developed by Kagi Inc. that is based on the WebKit engine and is similar to Safari but with different features, such as supporting WebExtensions. Although they are working on going open source, Orion Browser is not fully open source yet.[13] Orion Browser is designed to be used with Kagi, but users have the option to use any search engine.[2][14][15] 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.
On March 7, 2025, Kagi Inc. announced that development of Orion Browser for Linux had begun.[16]
Kagi Assistant
[edit]On September 4, 2024, Kagi Assistant was announced.[17] The Assistant uses generative artificial intelligence models from third party AI providers which are accessed anonymously with their respective APIs to preserve user privacy and can use Kagi Search to improve their output. Originally limited to Ultimate plan members, the service was made available for all users on April 17 2025, with model availability and fair usage limits being divided by plan.[18] As of 2025, Neel Dhanesha found that the assistant did a relatively good job at citing its sources in its AI overviews compared with other models.[19]
Kagi Translate
[edit]
On November 7, 2024, Kagi Translate was introduced. Its aim is to provide better translation results than Google Translate or DeepL. Kagi Translate is free and can be used without an account.[20]
Kagi Translate became viral in March 2026 for its "LinkedIn Speak" mode, which allows users to translate plain English into corporate jargon similar to that used in LinkedIn posts, and vice versa.[21][22][23]
Kagi News
[edit]On September 30, 2025, Kagi News was introduced. Its aim is to provide a daily summary of worldwide news using AI, with customisable topics and sections in each summary. News is collated from a open-source list of public RSS feeds, updated once a day to prevent media fatigue. Summaries can be translated into any language supported by Kagi Translate. Kagi News is free and can be used without an account.[24]
Business model
[edit]Kagi has no ads or sponsored search results, being based on an account-based, subscription service instead.[25][26][27] Kagi allows users 100 free searches before they must subscribe to one of the monthly subscription plan tiers[28] below:
- A $5 tier that allows for 300 searches a month (formerly 500)
- A $10 tier that allows for unlimited monthly searches
- A $25 tier[29] that allows for unlimited searches and early access to new features.[11][27]
Kagi had around 50,000 subscribed members as of June 9, 2025 and 845,200 searches were made that day.[12]
Privacy
[edit]The site claims not to collect user actions such as searches.[12]
In 2025, the company implemented the privacy pass protocol in their search product,[30] allowing users to authenticate as a paying user while not being identifiable.[31] The same day, the company also announced the availability of their services on Tor.[1]
API
[edit]The Kagi API is currently in a 'v0' beta status, with ongoing changes and feature additions.
Kagi has the following APIs (Paid):
- Kagi Search API (invite only at the moment)
- Universal Summarizer API (public)
- FastGPT API (public)
- Web and News Enrichment API (public, exposes Kagi's own indexes Teclis and TinyGem)
And the following non-paid API:
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b "Using Kagi with Tor | Kagi's Docs". help.kagi.com.
- ^ a b c d e f "About | Kagi's Docs". help.kagi.com. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ "Search Sources | Kagi's Docs". help.kagi.com. Retrieved February 7, 2024.
- ^ "Teclis - Non-commercial Web Search". teclis.com. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
- ^ "How bad are search results? Let's compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT". danluu.com. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
- ^ Prelovac, Vladimir. "Dawn of a new era in Search: Balancing innovation, competition, and public good | Kagi Blog". blog.kagi.com. Archived from the original on January 21, 2026. Retrieved February 19, 2026.
- ^ Prelovac, Vladimir. "Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi | Kagi Blog". blog.kagi.com. Archived from the original on January 25, 2026. Retrieved February 19, 2026.
- ^ "Search Sources | Kagi's Docs". help.kagi.com. Archived from the original on December 28, 2023. Retrieved July 18, 2025.
- ^ a b Currie, Jason (August 10, 2022). "What Is Kagi Search and What Can You Do With It?". Make Use Of. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ Master, Web (May 12, 2023). "Kagi Search Gets Major Upgrade". GreyCoder. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ a b Ivanovs, Alex (September 24, 2023). "Google Search vs. Kagi - Is paying for a search engine the future?". Stack Diary. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ a b c Claburn, Thomas (January 30, 2024). "AI is changing search, for better or worse". www.theregister.com. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ "Orion F.A.Q." kagi.com. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
- ^ Ashwin (June 3, 2022). "Orion is a browser for macOS that supports Firefox and Chrome extensions". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved March 6, 2024.
- ^ Smith, Ernie (January 21, 2022). "Orion Browser: A Future Best Web Browser for the Mac?". Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet. Retrieved March 6, 2024.
- ^ "Kagi HQ (@kagi.com)". Bluesky Social. Archived from the original on March 8, 2025. Retrieved March 15, 2025.
- ^ "Announcing The Assistant". Kagi Blog. September 4, 2024. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
- ^ "Kagi Assistant is now available to all users!". Kagi Blog. April 17, 2025. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
- ^ Dhanesha, Neel (April 9, 2025). "Testing Kagi, a premium search engine for a broken internet". Nieman Lab. Archived from the original on March 16, 2026. Retrieved March 19, 2026.
- ^ "Kagi Translate - We speak your language". Kagi Blog. November 7, 2024. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
- ^ Tolentino, Aaron (March 19, 2026). "'LinkedIn Speak' translator goes viral amid layoffs across US". KRON4. Retrieved March 20, 2026.
- ^ Dellinger, A. J. (March 19, 2026). "This Translator Will Help You Parse Your Boss's Mind-Numbing LinkedIn Speak". Gizmodo. Retrieved March 20, 2026.
- ^ Taylor, Chris (March 18, 2026). "AI translation tool turns English into 'LinkedIn'". Mashable. Retrieved March 20, 2026.
- ^ Dhanesha, Neel (October 15, 2025). "Kagi News is an AI-powered app for keeping up with the world". Nieman Lab. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
- ^ Pierce, David (October 1, 2023). "The best Google alternative I've tried yet". The Verge. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ Koebler, Jason (April 3, 2024). "Friendship Ended With GOOGLE Now KAGI Is My Best Friend". 404 Media. Retrieved June 8, 2024.
- ^ a b Ashworth, Boone; Nield, David; Burgess, Matt (November 26, 2023). "How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ Parab, Pranay (October 19, 2023). "Does Kagi Making It Worth Paying to Search the Internet?". Lifehacker. Archived from the original on October 19, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ "Plan Types | Kagi's Docs". help.kagi.com. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
- ^ Prelovac, Vladimir. "Introducing Privacy Pass authentication for Kagi Search". Kagi Blog. Archived from the original on February 19, 2025. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
- ^ Davidson, Alex; Goldberg, Ian; Sullivan, Nick; Tankersley, George; Valsorda, Filippo (2018). "Privacy Pass: Bypassing Internet Challenges Anonymously". Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. doi:10.1515/popets-2018-0026. ISSN 2299-0984.
- ^ "Overview | Kagi's Docs". help.kagi.com. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
Primary sources
[edit]
External links
[edit]- Official website
- David Pierce, The future of search isn’t Google — and it’s $10 a month, The Verge, March 19, 2025
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