Kagi (search engine)

Kagi is a paid ad-free search engine developed by Kagi Inc., a company located in Palo Alto, California. It is based on a monthly subscription and requires users to be logged into an account to search. It functions as a metasearch engine but also has its own indexes for websites and news. The name means "key" in Japanese. (鍵)

Features
The search engine allows results to be filtered by category with a feature called lenses and allows the user to create their own lenses. Some lenses include filtering to find discussions, podcasts, search directly for PDF files, and filtering to focus content from smaller websites like blogs and forums. Websites shown in search results can be upvoted, downvoted, and blocked. Details about websites can be shown in the search results such as when it was created and how many ads and trackers it has. Shortcuts called bangs can be created which allow searches to be redirected to different websites. There is also an AI quick response feature that summarizes a search query and gives sources.

Kagi allows for customization of the user interface, including a custom CSS editor.

Orion Browser
Orion Browser is a 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. 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. Orion Browser is designed to be used with Kagi but users have the option to use any search engine.

Business model
Kagi has no ads or sponsored search results, being based on a subscription service instead. The site claims not to collect user actions such as searches.

Users must have an account to search on Kagi. Kagi allows users 100 free searches before they must subscribe to a monthly subscription plan. There are three tiers available: a $5 tier that allows for 300 searches a month (formerly 500), a $10 tier that allows for unlimited monthly searches, and a $25 tier that allows for unlimited searches and early access to new features.

Kagi had around 20,515 subscribed members as of January 29, 2024, and 347,000 searches were made that day.

Kagi's operational costs include its API access to other search engines.