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Google is not the only way to search the web, but “alternative search engine” covers several different products. Brave Search and Mojeek maintain independent indexes; DuckDuckGo and Ecosia rely substantially on partner results; Startpage acts as a privacy intermediary; Kagi combines its own indexes with external sources; and SearXNG aggregates multiple engines.
That distinction matters. A private search interface is not automatically an independent index, and private searching does not make the websites you visit anonymous. The best choice depends on whether you value independent results, familiar coverage, no advertising, customization, environmental funding, or self-hosting.
Quick comparison
| Search engine | Best for | How results are supplied | Main drawback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brave Search | Independent results with privacy controls | Brave’s own index, with optional Google fallback | Long-tail coverage can be weaker |
| DuckDuckGo | Familiar general search with privacy protections | Largely Bing-sourced web links and images, plus DuckDuckGo indexes and specialist sources | Not primarily an independent web index |
| Startpage | Google-like results without directly exposing your searches to Google | Privacy intermediary for major-provider results | Anonymous View does not control the destination website |
| Kagi | Ad-free search and advanced filtering | Teclis and TinyGem indexes plus anonymized external sources | Paid plans and search quotas on lower tiers |
| Mojeek | A genuinely independent crawler index | MojeekBot, Mojeek’s index, and Mojeek ranking | Smaller coverage than the largest providers |
| SearXNG | Open-source metasearch and self-hosting | Aggregates engines configured by each instance | Public-instance operator and upstream trust issues |
| Ecosia | Search connected to environmental funding | Microsoft Bing or Google results and ads | Not a fully independent index |
| Qwant | European privacy-oriented search | Qwant indexing plus Microsoft partnership in some result and ad delivery | Its current privacy policy is more qualified than older summaries |
First, decide what “alternative” means
There are three separate questions to ask about any search product:
- Who crawls and indexes the web? An engine with its own crawler can produce results that differ meaningfully from Google and Bing.
- Who receives your query? A privacy intermediary may forward a query to another provider while shielding your identity.
- What happens after you click? Search privacy does not automatically prevent the destination site, your browser, or an account provider from observing your visit.
For example, DuckDuckGo maintains its own crawler and indexes, but says its traditional web links and images come largely from Bing. Startpage is best understood as a private route to major-provider results, not as a crawler with a wholly separate general-purpose index. SearXNG is software for aggregating other services, not one centrally operated search engine.
#1 Best Overall
- Google search engine.
1. Brave Search
Brave Search is the strongest general-purpose starting point if you want an independent index without paying. Brave says it does not profile users and maintains its own search index. The results page includes web, image, news, and video searches, plus AI features and community ranking tools.
Useful Brave features
- Goggles: Run a search at
search.brave.com, then select the Goggles tab. Goggles apply user-created reranking rules over Brave’s index; they do not create a new crawl or index. - Answer with AI: Generates a concise answer on the results page. Ask Brave provides a longer conversational interface, including a Deep Research mode.
- Google fallback mixer: In Brave Browser, open Settings → Search engine and enable Google fallback mixer, where the option is available. This can improve difficult long-tail searches, but it means Google results may be mixed into Brave results.
The fallback is an important exception to claims that Brave is entirely independent. When enabled, the query is sent back to Brave for analysis and Google results can be included. Brave says Google cannot associate the query with your Google account through this feature, but Google is still part of the result path.
Brave Browser also offers the Web Discovery Project at Settings → Search engine → Web Discovery Project. If enabled, anonymous signals such as queries, clicked URLs, and time spent on pages help improve Brave’s index. You can turn it off again at any time.
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Best use
Use Brave as your default if you want a different index, privacy protections, and more ranking control. Keep another engine available for obscure local businesses, very new pages, or searches where Brave’s coverage is thin.
2. DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a convenient privacy-focused replacement for mainstream search. It says it does not track searches or browsing history and proxies partner requests so those partners do not receive identifying information such as your IP address.
Its traditional web links and image results are sourced largely from Bing. Instant Answers can come from Wikipedia, specialist providers, DuckDuckGo’s own crawler, and other indexes. That makes DuckDuckGo a privacy-oriented search interface, but not primarily an independent alternative web index.
DuckDuckGo settings worth changing
Open DuckDuckGo Settings to configure:
- Region and display language
- Safe Search
- Instant Answers
- Hide AI-generated images
- Infinite scroll and autocomplete suggestions
- Opening links in a new tab
- Advertisements, keyboard shortcuts, location, and video previews
- Blocked sites
If you want search without DuckDuckGo’s AI features, use noai.duckduckgo.com. DuckDuckGo says this entry point filters out AI-generated images as well.
Best use
Choose DuckDuckGo when you want a familiar, free search experience with privacy protections and broad partner coverage. Do not choose it specifically for a completely independent crawler index.
3. Startpage
Startpage is a privacy intermediary. It delivers search results while claiming not to record personal search history or build personal profiles. Its appeal is straightforward: you can retain a Google-like results experience without directly handing your search activity to Google in the normal way.
Startpage’s Anonymous View lets you open a result through a privacy-preserving intermediary. It does not make the destination site universally private. The site can still apply its own account rules, fingerprinting, advertising, and content policies, and you can leave the protected viewing path.
Do not confuse Startpage.com with the Startpage app. The website is the search engine. The app is a mobile browser that uses Startpage as its default search engine and adds browser-level privacy features.
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Best use
Startpage is a good choice when result familiarity matters more than having a separate crawler index. It is less suitable if your goal is to deliberately escape the ranking and coverage of the largest search providers.
4. Kagi
Kagi is the most polished option for people willing to pay for search. It is ad-free and highly customizable. Kagi combines its Teclis web index and TinyGem news index with anonymized calls to major providers and specialist sources including Marginalia, Wolfram Alpha, Apple, Wikipedia, Open-Meteo, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.
Kagi pricing and limits
| Plan | Documented allowance | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Trial | 100 searches and 100 AI interactions with standard models | Free trial |
| Starter | 300 searches and 300 AI interactions per month | $5/month plus tax |
| Professional | Unlimited searches and standard-model features | $10/month plus tax |
| Ultimate | Unlimited searches, Universal Summarizer, Kagi Translate, and premium-model Assistant access | $25/month plus tax |
Quotas reset according to the subscription date, not necessarily on the first day of the calendar month. Bangs and search suggestions do not count as searches, while loading more results does. Kagi also counts each Lens and each content type, such as images or news, as a separate search. Reloading the same search within approximately two minutes normally does not count again.
Features that make Kagi different
- Lenses: Create a Lens with region, included or excluded sites, keywords, file types, and date ranges.
- Bangs: Use shortcuts such as
!w Monty Pythonfor Wikipedia,!ifor images,!mfor maps,!nfor news,!ytfor YouTube, and!rfor Reddit. - Quick Answer: Append
?to a query or pressqafter results load. Kagi summarizes results and provides source links. - Summarize Page: Open the three-dot menu beside a result and select Summarize Page.
To change plans, use Settings → Billing → Switch Plan.
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Best use
Kagi is worth considering if advertising, SEO-heavy result pages, and weak filtering are costing you time. Its AI summaries should still be checked against the linked sources.
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5. Mojeek
Mojeek says its results are 100% independent: they come from MojeekBot, Mojeek’s own web index, and its own ranking algorithms. It also says it does not track users.
The trade-off is coverage. An independent index will not necessarily match the breadth or freshness of Google or Bing, especially for obscure, highly local, or newly published searches. That is not a defect in every query; it is the cost of using a smaller, separate crawl.
Mojeek has a useful low-distraction setting. To remove the Wikipedia information box, open Preferences → Search Results and untick Infobox.
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Use Mojeek when independence is more important than maximum coverage, or when you want to compare results from a genuinely separate crawler.
6. SearXNG
SearXNG is open-source metasearch software. It queries the services configured by an individual instance and combines the responses. The documentation says an instance can aggregate up to 279 services, depending on its configuration.
There is no single SearXNG search company to trust. You select either a public instance operated by someone else or run your own. A public instance administrator could log, aggregate, or misuse requests, even though SearXNG is designed to remove private data from outgoing requests, avoid forwarding advertising content, and hide the referring page and query from visited result pages.
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Administrators configure enabled services in settings.yml. The engines: section controls which providers are active. An engine shortcut uses the shortcut field:
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shortcut: demoWith a shortcut such as demo, users can query that engine with a bang such as !demo search terms. Exact engine names and configuration fields depend on the SearXNG version and provider.
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Common SearXNG failures
Public instances frequently encounter upstream CAPTCHAs, access-denied responses, and rate limits. SearXNG documents suspension intervals for errors including SearxEngineCaptcha, SearxEngineAccessDenied, and SearxEngineTooManyRequests. If one provider fails, another may still return results; if several fail, choose a different instance or disable the problematic engine.
Best use
Choose SearXNG if you want configurable aggregation, open-source software, or a private instance under your control. Do not assume every public instance offers the same privacy or results.
7. Ecosia
Ecosia connects search activity with environmental funding and presents itself as a privacy-oriented alternative. Its current privacy policy says results and ads are supplied through either Microsoft Bing or Google.
That provider relationship makes Ecosia different from Brave or Mojeek. Its main appeal is its environmental mission and privacy position, not a wholly independent search index.
There are two practical privacy boundaries to remember. Your browser can still retain history after you click a result, and the destination website can observe the visit. Also, Ecosia’s AI Chat processes submitted prompts and included information to generate responses. Do not paste personal or confidential information into the chat as though it were an offline tool.
Best use
Use Ecosia if environmental funding is a deciding factor and you are comfortable with its Bing-or-Google result supply.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.8. Qwant
Qwant is a European privacy-oriented search engine. It says it does not store individual search history during ordinary use, but its current policy is more nuanced than older claims that it collects no data or never interacts with Microsoft.
Qwant may process technical data, use Microsoft for some results and contextual advertising, and apply different rules when users create accounts or enable optional features. Its product page also advertises free, unlimited AI features—including short answers and a Summary feature—after creating an account. Optional advanced features involve additional data sharing explained during account creation.
Best Value
Best use
Qwant is worth trying if you want a European privacy-oriented interface and are willing to read the current policy rather than rely on older “zero data” descriptions.
How to choose an alternative search engine
- Want a different index? Start with Brave Search or Mojeek. Compare both with your usual engine for technical, local, and recent queries.
- Want privacy with broad coverage? Try DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Ecosia, or Qwant, while remembering that partner-result relationships differ.
- Want no ads and strong controls? Kagi is the clearest fit, provided the monthly price and quota model suit you.
- Want many sources in one interface? Use SearXNG, preferably an instance you trust or operate yourself.
- Want AI answers? Treat every summary as a generated convenience layer. Open the cited pages before relying on an answer for health, legal, financial, security, or technical decisions.
Why results differ between engines
The same query can produce different pages because engines use different indexes, ranking algorithms, freshness schedules, regions, languages, Safe Search settings, and personalization rules. Brave Goggles and Kagi Lenses deliberately alter ranking or filtering. SearXNG results depend on which upstream services are enabled and which ones are currently accepting requests. Brave’s optional Google fallback can also change the result mix.
For important research, run the query in two categories: one independent index such as Brave or Mojeek, and one partner-backed or aggregated service such as DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Kagi, or SearXNG. Look for agreement between primary sources rather than assuming the first result is authoritative.
FAQ
Which alternative search engine has its own index?
Brave Search and Mojeek maintain independent web indexes. Kagi has its own Teclis web index and TinyGem news index but also uses anonymized external providers. DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Startpage, and SearXNG should not be described as fully independent general web indexes.
Is DuckDuckGo completely independent from Bing?
No. DuckDuckGo says its traditional web links and image results are sourced largely from Bing, although it also operates its own crawler and indexes and uses specialist sources for some features.
Does private search make browsing anonymous?
No. Private search can reduce the information sent with your query, but the website you open can still use accounts, cookies, fingerprinting, advertising, and its own logs. Your browser may also retain local history.
What is the best alternative search engine overall?
For an independent free index, try Brave Search first and Mojeek as a comparison. For ad-free customization, Kagi is the strongest option if you accept its paid plans. For privacy with familiar large-provider coverage, DuckDuckGo or Startpage are practical choices.
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Use Brave Search or Mojeek when you specifically want an independent index. Choose DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Ecosia, or Qwant when privacy or mission matters more than crawler independence. Pick Kagi for an ad-free, paid and highly configurable experience, and SearXNG for open-source aggregation or self-hosting.
Whichever engine you use, check its result sources and privacy boundary. “Private,” “independent,” and “anonymous browsing” describe different properties.
Quick Recap
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