Ending my Kagi Search Subscription

06 Feb 2024 | ~2 minute read

After nearly 6 weeks, I've decided to end my extended trial of Kagi search. It gives little value over DuckDuckGo and is a waste of money.

Cast your mind back a few weeks, dear reader. I wrote about how I was trialling Kagi search. Deciding the 100 free searches wasn't enough, I signed up for their $5/month plan that gives 300 searches.

I figured 300 searches would be fine, since the 100 search free trial lasted me a couple weeks. Turns out that 300 searches a month isn't enough for me, as my quota just ran out, 12 days shy of my monthly renewal.

It's interesting that a search who prides itself on being privacy respecting only offers Google and Bing as alternative searches...

No added value

During my additional month(ish) of testing Kagi, I didn't find any added value over DuckDuckGo. I know Kagi has lots of filtering options, but I never felt the need to use them, so Kagi is kinda wasted on me.

Also, given the fact that I already feel $5/month is expensive for search, I certainly won't be upgrading to the $10/month plan to get unlimited searches. Even if it is only a couple coffees a month.

Combined, the hosting for this site and the Zoho Mail subscription for my wife and I is less than $10/month. So it seems crazy to spend that much on search. Especially when I find DDG to be perfectly fine.

Final thoughts

So my extended Kagi Search trial has ended and I really don't think I'll miss it. I've cancelled my subscription and removed the plugins from my various browsers.

I get that a lot of users find Kagi to be really useful, but for me it adds no value. DDG does exactly what I need, is still privacy respecting and the ads it serves are (mostly) relevant to my search query, so I'll switch back to the big orange duck.

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