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I left Kagi when they changed their pricing a few months ago, after being a paying customer since the closed beta. Switched away to Neeva, and even messaged the

I left Kagi when they changed their pricing a few months ago, after being a paying customer since the closed beta. Switched away to Neeva, and even messaged the customer support at Neeva to ask if they were financially stable, since competitor Kagi raised prices so much (they told me yes). Now that Neeva has collapsed, I’m back at Kagi. But I also bought the highest tier $25 plan because I want them to get my money. Even with these search increases on the lower plans, I understand now that building a privacy focused search engine is expensive. And Kagi has really hit a sweet spot of providing high quality search (often better than google) I’ve also switched to Orion browser and might start donating for that too. It has features that I can’t get in Firefox (like a vertical tab tree that doesn’t look like a hack, or setting a custom ‘new tab’ page). Huge kudos to the Kagi team for building products that are not only privacy focused, but also just genuinely better products. Search and Orion are both fantastic. I really hope they can be financially sustainable.

runnerup 3y ago
I think Neeva needed user signup growth more than it needed cash. It was reasonably well funded through VC. If it had shown adoption growth they would have received more VC money to continue even if they were losing money on each user. Kagi appears to be more bootstrapped, so it's very, very important for them to always maintain healthy marginal profits on each user. In this case, your cash is probably very appreciated, and hopefully they're net positive overall so can afford years of potential stagnation after this boom time while still earning a decent living. That allows them to be around to get sudden influxes of new customers whenever various self-inflicted crises damage the incumbents brands. Time in market vs. timing the market.
- freediver 3y ago
  Well put, "time in market" is a thing when going against a habit so entrenched as search is.
zirgs 3y ago
How is Kagi better than simply using google without an account through a VPN? Or using DDG through a VPN? I really don't like that Kagi requires you to have an account. They can then associate all of your searches to that account just like google and bing do when you use them while logged in.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  The search results are better. That's why I'm using it. The privacy part is not important to me, but having the best search results possible is important. I'm done wasting my time.
- david38 3y ago
  I searched for certain things that google didn’t show me for ten pages that Kagi did on the first. For example, a divorce filing of someone
- switch007 3y ago
  I feel Google’s ability to track and profile you extends far beyond your IP address and/or a login
  - zirgs 3y ago
    Not really. I set my VPN endpoint to Sweden, disabled adblock and Google started showing me ads in Swedish. Also back when I still used my Google acc they showed me ads for things that I've already bought. Their adtech stuff is way dumber than you think it is.
    - switch007 3y ago
      I guess they created a browser and continuously push for more sources of tracking data via web browser features/standards just for fun. Gotcha
      - zirgs 3y ago
        That browser requires an account. Most people use it with a google account, because they are using gmail and other google services. So their adtech doesn't need to be that smart. Why bother trying to track a Firefox user who uses a VPN and an adblock when most of your users don't even bother to hide from you?
gnicholas 3y ago
> It has features that I can’t get in Firefox (like a vertical tab bar that doesn’t look like a hack). Huh? Firefox has had great vertical tabs, thanks to Tree Style Tabs, for decades. Orion doesn’t supper hierarchical tabs, like Firefox does. I use Orion and Brave, both of which are experimenting with vertical tabs, but if Firefox were as fast as Brave I’d be full-time on that. The tabbed browsing experience on Firefox has always been the best, in my book.
- californical 3y ago
  I used Tree Style Tabs in Firefox, but it looks like it was tacked-on (because it is). Also Firefox doesn’t have a good way to hide the normal top tab bar, so you have to go into browser-chrome CSS and hide some UI elements.
not_your_vase 3y ago
> even messaged the customer support at Neeva to ask if they were financially stable Offtopic, but what answer were you expecting? "Thank you for your message. We advise you not to start using our services, we are on the brink of shutting down, just haven't announced it yet."
- californical 3y ago
  Fair, maybe oversimplified for the sake of the above comment. Rather, I asked the Neeva support person if the $6 price was sustainable, and if they foresaw a need to raise prices. I mentioned that Kagi called out increased costs from Bing, and asked if Neeva was impacted as well, and whether $6 was enough to support their costs. I was hoping to mostly just let them know that customers care about this stuff, but they responded to me by saying that they have an in-house index and Bing costs are not a problem for them, due to their private index. So even though they likely answered my question honestly that Bing costs increasing didn’t impact them as much as it did Kagi, it seems they had much bigger cost problems instead!
  - ignoramous 3y ago
    Can't say for sure, but Neeva I don't think failed because they couldn't keep the business going. It was always a game of perseverance going up against Google Search that not only is free but has tremendous distribution advantages (through Android and Chrome). DuckDuckGo is at it after all these years, building it brick by brick, if you will. Neeva's problem might have been the opportunity cost to their engineering and executive orgs in pursuing such a drawn out build. They'd rather latch onto something that could grow much faster, and frankly, Enterpise + LLMs is right in their alley. It is a nice pivot and not representative of much else (don't mean to discount that consumer products are hard, especially when the competition is BigTech themselves).
paulgb 3y ago
> setting a custom ‘new tab’ page Aside, but it’s so crazy to me that both Chrome and Firefox lack this option. There are third party extensions for it, which is the official solution, but I’d rather minimize the number of third-party extensions I use.
croutonwagon 3y ago
I setup account limits to the $25 water mark with the plan to just swap to that, probably for the annual re-up option. Then today I noticed they upped their quota. Talk about timing. Ill proabbly stick to monthly for a while. Honestly not sure what is better for them, a monthly sub or an annual (at a discounted rate). As it looks I'll probably be around 1k searches a month. https://imgur.com/a/ZbnWUao https://imgur.com/a/ZbnWUao a 25/mon bill was kinda steep. But 10 is definately digestible for me. So I am quite happy with the swap and the quality of the searches.

runnerup 3y ago

I think Neeva needed user signup growth more than it needed cash. It was reasonably well funded through VC. If it had shown adoption growth they would have received more VC money to continue even if they were losing money on each user. Kagi appears to be more bootstrapped, so it's very, very important for them to always maintain healthy marginal profits on each user. In this case, your cash is probably very appreciated, and hopefully they're net positive overall so can afford years of potential stagnation after this boom time while still earning a decent living. That allows them to be around to get sudden influxes of new customers whenever various self-inflicted crises damage the incumbents brands. Time in market vs. timing the market.

freediver 3y ago
Well put, "time in market" is a thing when going against a habit so entrenched as search is.

zirgs 3y ago

How is Kagi better than simply using google without an account through a VPN? Or using DDG through a VPN? I really don't like that Kagi requires you to have an account. They can then associate all of your searches to that account just like google and bing do when you use them while logged in.

carlosjobim 3y ago
The search results are better. That's why I'm using it. The privacy part is not important to me, but having the best search results possible is important. I'm done wasting my time.
david38 3y ago
I searched for certain things that google didn’t show me for ten pages that Kagi did on the first. For example, a divorce filing of someone
switch007 3y ago
I feel Google’s ability to track and profile you extends far beyond your IP address and/or a login
- zirgs 3y ago
  Not really. I set my VPN endpoint to Sweden, disabled adblock and Google started showing me ads in Swedish. Also back when I still used my Google acc they showed me ads for things that I've already bought. Their adtech stuff is way dumber than you think it is.
  - switch007 3y ago
    I guess they created a browser and continuously push for more sources of tracking data via web browser features/standards just for fun. Gotcha
    - zirgs 3y ago
      That browser requires an account. Most people use it with a google account, because they are using gmail and other google services. So their adtech doesn't need to be that smart. Why bother trying to track a Firefox user who uses a VPN and an adblock when most of your users don't even bother to hide from you?

gnicholas 3y ago

> It has features that I can’t get in Firefox (like a vertical tab bar that doesn’t look like a hack). Huh? Firefox has had great vertical tabs, thanks to Tree Style Tabs, for decades. Orion doesn’t supper hierarchical tabs, like Firefox does. I use Orion and Brave, both of which are experimenting with vertical tabs, but if Firefox were as fast as Brave I’d be full-time on that. The tabbed browsing experience on Firefox has always been the best, in my book.

californical 3y ago
I used Tree Style Tabs in Firefox, but it looks like it was tacked-on (because it is). Also Firefox doesn’t have a good way to hide the normal top tab bar, so you have to go into browser-chrome CSS and hide some UI elements.

not_your_vase 3y ago

> even messaged the customer support at Neeva to ask if they were financially stable Offtopic, but what answer were you expecting? "Thank you for your message. We advise you not to start using our services, we are on the brink of shutting down, just haven't announced it yet."

californical 3y ago
Fair, maybe oversimplified for the sake of the above comment. Rather, I asked the Neeva support person if the $6 price was sustainable, and if they foresaw a need to raise prices. I mentioned that Kagi called out increased costs from Bing, and asked if Neeva was impacted as well, and whether $6 was enough to support their costs. I was hoping to mostly just let them know that customers care about this stuff, but they responded to me by saying that they have an in-house index and Bing costs are not a problem for them, due to their private index. So even though they likely answered my question honestly that Bing costs increasing didn’t impact them as much as it did Kagi, it seems they had much bigger cost problems instead!
- ignoramous 3y ago
  Can't say for sure, but Neeva I don't think failed because they couldn't keep the business going. It was always a game of perseverance going up against Google Search that not only is free but has tremendous distribution advantages (through Android and Chrome). DuckDuckGo is at it after all these years, building it brick by brick, if you will. Neeva's problem might have been the opportunity cost to their engineering and executive orgs in pursuing such a drawn out build. They'd rather latch onto something that could grow much faster, and frankly, Enterpise + LLMs is right in their alley. It is a nice pivot and not representative of much else (don't mean to discount that consumer products are hard, especially when the competition is BigTech themselves).

paulgb 3y ago

> setting a custom ‘new tab’ page Aside, but it’s so crazy to me that both Chrome and Firefox lack this option. There are third party extensions for it, which is the official solution, but I’d rather minimize the number of third-party extensions I use.

croutonwagon 3y ago

I setup account limits to the $25 water mark with the plan to just swap to that, probably for the annual re-up option. Then today I noticed they upped their quota. Talk about timing. Ill proabbly stick to monthly for a while. Honestly not sure what is better for them, a monthly sub or an annual (at a discounted rate). As it looks I'll probably be around 1k searches a month. https://imgur.com/a/ZbnWUao https://imgur.com/a/ZbnWUao a 25/mon bill was kinda steep. But 10 is definately digestible for me. So I am quite happy with the swap and the quality of the searches.