4 ms·

I really wanted to like Kagi, I'm onboard with paying for search, but I've had had a big issue with its speed when doing the trial to be honest, am I the only o

I really wanted to like Kagi, I'm onboard with paying for search, but I've had had a big issue with its speed when doing the trial to be honest, am I the only one bothered by this? Perhaps this is because I'm in Europe and it's faster in the US? A search request to Kagi seems to take around two seconds for me (shows as ~1s in the Kagi UI), it just feels really unpleasant compared to Google, I'm used to firing of a couple searches with different wording / terms and go through results quickly, feels like I'm being held back. Maybe I'm spoiled, but if I'm paying for search I would really like it to be at least on par with Google, the search result quality seems ok from what I can tell, lenses don't really make sense to me, they seem to filter out too many results I would have liked to actually see, but the customization like adjusting the rating of individual websites is fantastic. If they can manage to bring the speed to match that of Google, I'd be happy to pay for it I think.

bboygravity 2y ago
Are you using Ziggo by any chance? With the white modem? If so: that's your root cause.
ddingus 2y ago
Interesting!! I'm not slamming you, or your experience or preferences. That said, I find very little difference between 2 seconds and one second or less than that. Search taking a small fragment of time just isn't a big deal and I search sometimes many times per day. What is the gain for you that makes 2 seconds an exception to using the product? Just curious. Peace, live well.
- __jonas 2y ago
  I feel like search is probably one of the most common things I do with a computer, I would say I often search many times per minute if I’m actively looking into some topic or issue. Because it’s such a common action for me, it feels like such a strong regression to go 2/3 times slower than before.
  - temporarara 2y ago
    But do you seriously think you should get serious results in one second? I would understand the complaints about slowness if searches were taking like ten seconds, but a few seconds, I really must be getting old. I still remember when google was giving relevant results in page 2. Now it's pretty much useless for me, and the fast search makes me think they are throwing away tons of potentially good stuff just to make it fast (and place more ads and rubbish scam/ai sites).
    - chipsrafferty 2y ago
      Kagi is pretty much useless past the first 3 results.
      - MrOxiMoron 2y ago
        I haven't found that, but even if that is true, it saves you tons of time having to filter out all the sponsored results and get to the things that actually give you the information you where searching for.
      - temporarara 2y ago
        That's not my experience, but I guess that depends on the use case and how specific things you are searching. However, in general I much prefer good search results to saving a few seconds and getting delivered absolute rubbish like google does these days, that was the main point of my post. Like I said I still remember when just plain google search without any thought on how to word the search was phenomenal. Google fully pivoted from prestigious tech-company to lame ad-company and that's a shame really. Business as usual.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    Thanks. I have a couple of thoughts to share: Back in the day, IBM did a usability study. An application requiring the user to specify operations and fields for data input was setup two ways: One way was manual, lots of clicks, and or input sequences. Each one did a specific thing quickly. The other way was highly automated and the user was only required to click a few times. The tasks were the same. This way had more flow, fewer discrete commands, more functionality woven together. To their surprise the users felt they were more productive with the software they clicked more, despite the automated version being less work and the workflow more efficient. I bet the effective reduction in your search is minor, but the delays do accumulate and demand attention. Given that, a small change to your flow may well change things! What you should do is rapidly input your first queries and then as they appear, drill down on those, and when that appears, start to eliminate dead query windows, or drop fresh queries into them. What you prefer, to use a car analogy, is one that corners like no other. Then you find yourself in one that lacks corner cases. So you maximize your time in lane, straight road, batching the corner driving and flooring it on the straights. I used to experience a similar thing running a browser on IRIX vd NT. The NT browser was quicker to respond where the IRIX one would delay a little and then just render it all quick I just started working with a few windows. Changed everything. I would be typing in new queries while one I waited for was about to render. It was a change from rapid fire to a more batch mode. Soon, I rarely had to think and my flow was fast all around. I put this shared experience here in the hope you may be inclined to try different things.
- mthoms 2y ago
  It doesn’t seem intuitive at first but this is a well researched phenomenon. https://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20.html?m=1 https://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20...
veb 2y ago
How bizarre. I'm not in the US either - I'm in New Zealand, and have been using Kagi since their beta I think and currently pay for Ultimate, and to me it's a lot faster than Google. The other day I was using someone else's computer and used Google, and my goodness, the results were just awful and ... bloated?
Lazare 2y ago
I'm using it from NZ and Australia and found it blazing fast. No lower than Google certainly! I wonder if it'd be worth reaching out to Kagi support.
darreninthenet 2y ago
UK user here, no speed issues at all
freediver 2y ago
Kagi should be around 800ms mean. Faster if you are closer to our DC. Something is wrong, somewhere.
- chipsrafferty 2y ago
  Very slow for me too, East Coast USA
  - fluential 2y ago
    Very slow for me as well, Central Europe
sodapopcan 2y ago
For me, any downside of Kagi is worth dealing with to not support Google.
shepherdjerred 2y ago
I have experienced slow searches with Kagi. Usually if I refresh it fixes things
sweetgiorni 2y ago
Hrmm, I've noticed the same thing on the US west coast over the last year or so. Maybe I'll finally bother Kagi support about it.
aorth 2y ago
Greetings from Kenya. Been using Kagi for two years here... never noticed any issues with speed on search.
jcul 2y ago
Really strange, I'm in Europe too and I've always found it pretty snappy.
- spurgu 2y ago
  Yeah same.
dperrin 2y ago
Sorry to hear your experience hasn’t been great. I’ve been using it from NZ for the last six months and haven’t noticed any speed differences. Just did trips to Canada and the US recently and I didn’t notice any difference in performance.
pps 2y ago
There's no noticeable difference in search speed between Kagi and Google for me in Poland.
- szszrk 2y ago
  Wow, this shows how personal search is. For me it's dramatic.
nbenitezl 2y ago
Using it from Spain, and speed is good.
beretguy 2y ago
Possible reasons Google is faster for you is because 1. they simple pull ads from database on the first page instead of actually searching for what you need 2. They load marginally relevant answers instead of doing a better search for what you need 3. Google is multibillion company and can afford faster servers With Google you waste a lot more than 2 second scrolling down past the ads trying to find answers, assuming you can even find it, and doing another search(es) if you don’t, wasting even more time. But do what you want.
Modified3019 2y ago
I’m a US based user, I’ve never noticed a difference in speed between Kagi and Google. If there is one it’s below my threshold for annoyance. You may consider reaching out to them about what you are seeing, it might be something they could investigate and resolve if they know about it.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  US Kagi user here I can confirm that the search is randomly slower than it should be. Sometimes hanging indefinitely and I have to refresh. The added second or so to search is manageable but noticeable for sure. To be fair/clear, it’s often unnoticeable but when it does hang it drives me crazy.
ochronus 2y ago
I can second the 2s-ish response time (just did a couple of measurements) from Germany. Doesn't bother me, though.
- __jonas 2y ago
  Ah I’m in Germany too! Interesting, as I see a lot of other comments from Europeans saying they don’t notice this delay, maybe it’s Germany-specific?
  - probst 2y ago
    I am also based out of Germany, and experience the lag too. I find it very annoying actually, to the point where I am contemplating switching. The lag isn't always there though...
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Same for me in Poland right now - it takes around a second more for Kagi to produce the result than Google (with the delay happening after the interface of results page is shown). Doesn't bother me either. What does bother me is the occasional failure to load anything at all, solvable with F5 key. But, being able to rank pages, or rewrite reddit.com to old.reddit.com more than compensates for this.
andreagrandi 2y ago
I'm based in Italy and my lag is very low: Status Connected to: EUROPE-WEST2 Network latency: 47ms
slipperybeluga 2y ago
[dead]

bboygravity 2y ago

Are you using Ziggo by any chance? With the white modem? If so: that's your root cause.

ddingus 2y ago

Interesting!! I'm not slamming you, or your experience or preferences. That said, I find very little difference between 2 seconds and one second or less than that. Search taking a small fragment of time just isn't a big deal and I search sometimes many times per day. What is the gain for you that makes 2 seconds an exception to using the product? Just curious. Peace, live well.

__jonas 2y ago
I feel like search is probably one of the most common things I do with a computer, I would say I often search many times per minute if I’m actively looking into some topic or issue. Because it’s such a common action for me, it feels like such a strong regression to go 2/3 times slower than before.
- temporarara 2y ago
  But do you seriously think you should get serious results in one second? I would understand the complaints about slowness if searches were taking like ten seconds, but a few seconds, I really must be getting old. I still remember when google was giving relevant results in page 2. Now it's pretty much useless for me, and the fast search makes me think they are throwing away tons of potentially good stuff just to make it fast (and place more ads and rubbish scam/ai sites).
  - chipsrafferty 2y ago
    Kagi is pretty much useless past the first 3 results.
    - MrOxiMoron 2y ago
      I haven't found that, but even if that is true, it saves you tons of time having to filter out all the sponsored results and get to the things that actually give you the information you where searching for.
    - temporarara 2y ago
      That's not my experience, but I guess that depends on the use case and how specific things you are searching. However, in general I much prefer good search results to saving a few seconds and getting delivered absolute rubbish like google does these days, that was the main point of my post. Like I said I still remember when just plain google search without any thought on how to word the search was phenomenal. Google fully pivoted from prestigious tech-company to lame ad-company and that's a shame really. Business as usual.
- ddingus 2y ago
  Thanks. I have a couple of thoughts to share: Back in the day, IBM did a usability study. An application requiring the user to specify operations and fields for data input was setup two ways: One way was manual, lots of clicks, and or input sequences. Each one did a specific thing quickly. The other way was highly automated and the user was only required to click a few times. The tasks were the same. This way had more flow, fewer discrete commands, more functionality woven together. To their surprise the users felt they were more productive with the software they clicked more, despite the automated version being less work and the workflow more efficient. I bet the effective reduction in your search is minor, but the delays do accumulate and demand attention. Given that, a small change to your flow may well change things! What you should do is rapidly input your first queries and then as they appear, drill down on those, and when that appears, start to eliminate dead query windows, or drop fresh queries into them. What you prefer, to use a car analogy, is one that corners like no other. Then you find yourself in one that lacks corner cases. So you maximize your time in lane, straight road, batching the corner driving and flooring it on the straights. I used to experience a similar thing running a browser on IRIX vd NT. The NT browser was quicker to respond where the IRIX one would delay a little and then just render it all quick I just started working with a few windows. Changed everything. I would be typing in new queries while one I waited for was about to render. It was a change from rapid fire to a more batch mode. Soon, I rarely had to think and my flow was fast all around. I put this shared experience here in the hope you may be inclined to try different things.
mthoms 2y ago
It doesn’t seem intuitive at first but this is a well researched phenomenon. https://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20.html?m=1 https://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20...

veb 2y ago

How bizarre. I'm not in the US either - I'm in New Zealand, and have been using Kagi since their beta I think and currently pay for Ultimate, and to me it's a lot faster than Google. The other day I was using someone else's computer and used Google, and my goodness, the results were just awful and ... bloated?

Lazare 2y ago

I'm using it from NZ and Australia and found it blazing fast. No lower than Google certainly! I wonder if it'd be worth reaching out to Kagi support.

darreninthenet 2y ago

UK user here, no speed issues at all

freediver 2y ago

Kagi should be around 800ms mean. Faster if you are closer to our DC. Something is wrong, somewhere.

chipsrafferty 2y ago
Very slow for me too, East Coast USA
- fluential 2y ago
  Very slow for me as well, Central Europe

sodapopcan 2y ago

For me, any downside of Kagi is worth dealing with to not support Google.

shepherdjerred 2y ago

I have experienced slow searches with Kagi. Usually if I refresh it fixes things

sweetgiorni 2y ago

Hrmm, I've noticed the same thing on the US west coast over the last year or so. Maybe I'll finally bother Kagi support about it.

aorth 2y ago

Greetings from Kenya. Been using Kagi for two years here... never noticed any issues with speed on search.

jcul 2y ago

Really strange, I'm in Europe too and I've always found it pretty snappy.

spurgu 2y ago
Yeah same.

dperrin 2y ago

Sorry to hear your experience hasn’t been great. I’ve been using it from NZ for the last six months and haven’t noticed any speed differences. Just did trips to Canada and the US recently and I didn’t notice any difference in performance.

pps 2y ago

There's no noticeable difference in search speed between Kagi and Google for me in Poland.

szszrk 2y ago
Wow, this shows how personal search is. For me it's dramatic.

nbenitezl 2y ago

Using it from Spain, and speed is good.

beretguy 2y ago

Possible reasons Google is faster for you is because 1. they simple pull ads from database on the first page instead of actually searching for what you need 2. They load marginally relevant answers instead of doing a better search for what you need 3. Google is multibillion company and can afford faster servers With Google you waste a lot more than 2 second scrolling down past the ads trying to find answers, assuming you can even find it, and doing another search(es) if you don’t, wasting even more time. But do what you want.

Modified3019 2y ago

I’m a US based user, I’ve never noticed a difference in speed between Kagi and Google. If there is one it’s below my threshold for annoyance. You may consider reaching out to them about what you are seeing, it might be something they could investigate and resolve if they know about it.

joshstrange 2y ago
US Kagi user here I can confirm that the search is randomly slower than it should be. Sometimes hanging indefinitely and I have to refresh. The added second or so to search is manageable but noticeable for sure. To be fair/clear, it’s often unnoticeable but when it does hang it drives me crazy.

ochronus 2y ago

I can second the 2s-ish response time (just did a couple of measurements) from Germany. Doesn't bother me, though.

__jonas 2y ago
Ah I’m in Germany too! Interesting, as I see a lot of other comments from Europeans saying they don’t notice this delay, maybe it’s Germany-specific?
- probst 2y ago
  I am also based out of Germany, and experience the lag too. I find it very annoying actually, to the point where I am contemplating switching. The lag isn't always there though...
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Same for me in Poland right now - it takes around a second more for Kagi to produce the result than Google (with the delay happening after the interface of results page is shown). Doesn't bother me either. What does bother me is the occasional failure to load anything at all, solvable with F5 key. But, being able to rank pages, or rewrite reddit.com to old.reddit.com more than compensates for this.

andreagrandi 2y ago

I'm based in Italy and my lag is very low: Status Connected to: EUROPE-WEST2 Network latency: 47ms

slipperybeluga 2y ago

[dead]