It’s kind of unclear what they use as sources nowadays. What is clear however is that they use their own search engine, Teclis, so it doesn’t just act as a proxy for other search engines but searches will only remain in their own engine.
Vendor Status
Mojeek Direct license
Brave Direct license
Yandex Direct license
Wikipedia Direct license
TripAdvisor Direct license
Yelp Direct license
Apple Direct license
Wolfram Alpha Direct license
Our own Small Web Index Proprietary
With Google and Bing, we failed - notfor lack of trying.
Bing: Their terms didn’t work for us from the start. Microsoft’s terms prohibited reordering results or merging them with other sources - restrictions incompatible with Kagi’s approach. In February 2023, they announced price increases of up to10x on some API tiers. Thenin May 2025, they retired the Bing Search APIs entirely, effective August 2025, directing customers toward AI-focused alternatives like Azure AI Agents.
Google: Google does not offer a public search API. The only available path is an ad-syndication bundle with no changes to result presentation - the model Startpage uses.
and “it doesn’t just act as a proxy for other search engines” it exactly does this, Teclis is <1% of the results (you can see yourself https://teclis.com/)
Google -> Kagi+
DDG uses bing and bing is owned my Microsoft
Enough said
I’ve heard… Questionable things about the Kagi CEO that make me hesitant to give them money. I just don’t really use search engines for much anymore.
What have you heard?
deleted by creator
I read most of it. Nothing of concern compared to Google & Microsoft.
related: https://lemmy.zip/post/58480727/24450030
and https://マリウス.com/doubting-your-favorite-web-search-engine/
Kagi uses Bing and Google…
It’s kind of unclear what they use as sources nowadays. What is clear however is that they use their own search engine, Teclis, so it doesn’t just act as a proxy for other search engines but searches will only remain in their own engine.
They listed their sources before and they removed https://web.archive.org/web/20231228222303if_/https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
But than this month they write a blog https://blog.kagi.com/waiting-dawn-search and revealed everything again
Vendor Status Mojeek Direct license Brave Direct license Yandex Direct license Wikipedia Direct license TripAdvisor Direct license Yelp Direct license Apple Direct license Wolfram Alpha Direct license Our own Small Web Index Proprietary With Google and Bing, we failed - not for lack of trying. Bing: Their terms didn’t work for us from the start. Microsoft’s terms prohibited reordering results or merging them with other sources - restrictions incompatible with Kagi’s approach. In February 2023, they announced price increases of up to 10x on some API tiers. Then in May 2025, they retired the Bing Search APIs entirely, effective August 2025, directing customers toward AI-focused alternatives like Azure AI Agents. Google: Google does not offer a public search API. The only available path is an ad-syndication bundle with no changes to result presentation - the model Startpage uses.and “it doesn’t just act as a proxy for other search engines” it exactly does this, Teclis is <1% of the results (you can see yourself https://teclis.com/)