One thing I worry a lot about with Google is my parents being sent an ad thats actually a virus or phishing website. Once in a while I click a sponsored post and I realize its a scam. Parents and grandparents might not realize though so from that perspective Kagi sounds ideal.
It's interesting: they are the only search engine I know that advertises a "family plan" (I've not used it btw). Their index tries to weed out sites with too many site and malicious sites, but I don't think they can guarantee it.
If memory servers right, antivirus companies made a lot of money promising to protect just from these though!
Thank you! If it’s a personal recommendation, don’t see a problem running these kinds of things from time to time. Never heard of Kagi, tried it already, and it looks like a great alternative!
It is a personal recommendation. I updated the intro to reflect this. I realize it could have been ambiguous.
I did want to highlight two companies that follow a different business model: one heavily VC-funded (Perplexity) and losing money, and always a risk of not being around. Another growing much more responsiblity and focused on being profitable (Kagi): but a risk of not being able to grow to keep up with competition.
I've been paying for both, and found them useful. I wanted to draw wider attention to them, in case others find this approach interesting - and (like me) might consider trying out a product where you're not "the product" for search engines.
There's a fair chance that Google's ad-supported model will remain dominant: but also feels like there is an opportunity for companies treating the "person searching" as the *real* customer succeeding.
While their core capabilities are different, both Perplexity’s Pro Search and Kagi’s Assistant have somewhat similar functionality: web search along with LLM processing. Do you use them both?
Still have mixed feelings about paying for a search on the web.
Maybe it's because I have taken it for granted since the first web searches appeared on the Internet, but for me "search on the Internet" for free is like "public health care": it should be free to all human beings.
If you tell me a web search for concrete or specialized fields, I could agree to pay.
I remember going to a local book store and paying for a physical book with "yellow pages" - written down collection of URLs and their short descriptions. Hundreds of pages. So I don't mind paying for a well-curated, Internet version of it :)
Karan: this is not an ad. I've not been paid to share this, and receive no form of financial benefit or other benefit. I reached out to these two startups, as I wanted to share these two tools I have been using for over a year, for anyone who might also find it useful.
In the over three years of The Pragmatic Engineer, this is the first-ever time I did anything like this: offering a deal for subscribers to try out a service I use and like (but am not paid to recommend.) I spent a considerable time to convince Kagi to even do this: they are a bootstrapped company that does not do trials, and built the trial functionality for this specific use case.
I don't forsee doing any more of these the next three years. If this is the response - I might not do any in the future, at all!
I do experiment with things, and this is one of them. I also listen to feedback.
I've been subscriber for a second year now and I was pleasantly surprised from this offer.
Following Gergely on social media and knowing about his ethics statements is a reason why I enjoy an offer like this from him. You know that it comes sincerely and that it is not a paid ad. It's an added value to all of the subscribers.
I've started using Perplexity recently and it's been refreshing in comparison to Google. Gergely, please keep what you are doing
Karan: fair ask. I should have thought of it before. I created a separate section for these infrequent Announcements (including any issues that are not deepdives, The Pulse or other issues). You can turn off notifications and posts by turning off Announcements here: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/account?utm_source=user-menu
I think Perplexity just saved me ~1500 EUR on a skiing trip. It found some random Italian site that had an apartment available much cheaper than those that were listed on booking.com. Damn worth it :)
First of all, thank you very much! Is it just me or anyone else also not receiving the codes? I am a paid subscriber and I am sure added the correct email address, multiple times now.
Just a few days ago the local T-Mobile (one of the major mobile carriers in Czechia) also gave out Perplexity Pro for 1 year to all their customers. I wonder if it's a sign of Perplexity not doing too well 🤔
They raised a lot of VC money and - unlike Kagi - are clearly making a big loss in an effort to grow. For this case, I reached out to them, and it was an easy "yes" (compared to Kagi!) and they do these Pro deals more commonly with businesses.
One thing I worry a lot about with Google is my parents being sent an ad thats actually a virus or phishing website. Once in a while I click a sponsored post and I realize its a scam. Parents and grandparents might not realize though so from that perspective Kagi sounds ideal.
It's interesting: they are the only search engine I know that advertises a "family plan" (I've not used it btw). Their index tries to weed out sites with too many site and malicious sites, but I don't think they can guarantee it.
If memory servers right, antivirus companies made a lot of money promising to protect just from these though!
Thank you! If it’s a personal recommendation, don’t see a problem running these kinds of things from time to time. Never heard of Kagi, tried it already, and it looks like a great alternative!
It is a personal recommendation. I updated the intro to reflect this. I realize it could have been ambiguous.
I did want to highlight two companies that follow a different business model: one heavily VC-funded (Perplexity) and losing money, and always a risk of not being around. Another growing much more responsiblity and focused on being profitable (Kagi): but a risk of not being able to grow to keep up with competition.
I've been paying for both, and found them useful. I wanted to draw wider attention to them, in case others find this approach interesting - and (like me) might consider trying out a product where you're not "the product" for search engines.
There's a fair chance that Google's ad-supported model will remain dominant: but also feels like there is an opportunity for companies treating the "person searching" as the *real* customer succeeding.
While their core capabilities are different, both Perplexity’s Pro Search and Kagi’s Assistant have somewhat similar functionality: web search along with LLM processing. Do you use them both?
I've not used Kagi's Assistant at all: I've only used Professional so far (that does not have the assistant.) So I can't tell!
Wow! Thank you!
Thank you so much!
Still have mixed feelings about paying for a search on the web.
Maybe it's because I have taken it for granted since the first web searches appeared on the Internet, but for me "search on the Internet" for free is like "public health care": it should be free to all human beings.
If you tell me a web search for concrete or specialized fields, I could agree to pay.
Thanks for the gift Gergely, I will give a try!
I remember going to a local book store and paying for a physical book with "yellow pages" - written down collection of URLs and their short descriptions. Hundreds of pages. So I don't mind paying for a well-curated, Internet version of it :)
Wonderful collaboration! Thank you so much!
How do I opt out of receiving these ads?
Karan: this is not an ad. I've not been paid to share this, and receive no form of financial benefit or other benefit. I reached out to these two startups, as I wanted to share these two tools I have been using for over a year, for anyone who might also find it useful.
In the over three years of The Pragmatic Engineer, this is the first-ever time I did anything like this: offering a deal for subscribers to try out a service I use and like (but am not paid to recommend.) I spent a considerable time to convince Kagi to even do this: they are a bootstrapped company that does not do trials, and built the trial functionality for this specific use case.
I don't forsee doing any more of these the next three years. If this is the response - I might not do any in the future, at all!
I do experiment with things, and this is one of them. I also listen to feedback.
Update: you can opt out of any future announcements (including any potential future ones like this) by turning off notifications for "Announcements" here: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/account?utm_source=user-menu
I've been subscriber for a second year now and I was pleasantly surprised from this offer.
Following Gergely on social media and knowing about his ethics statements is a reason why I enjoy an offer like this from him. You know that it comes sincerely and that it is not a paid ad. It's an added value to all of the subscribers.
I've started using Perplexity recently and it's been refreshing in comparison to Google. Gergely, please keep what you are doing
If you do plan to do this again, I'd appreciate an opt out mechanism.
Karan: fair ask. I should have thought of it before. I created a separate section for these infrequent Announcements (including any issues that are not deepdives, The Pulse or other issues). You can turn off notifications and posts by turning off Announcements here: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/account?utm_source=user-menu
Thanks for the feedback!
Wow! Thank you!
D’OH! I started paying Kagi professional a couple of days ago 🤦♂️
I think Perplexity just saved me ~1500 EUR on a skiing trip. It found some random Italian site that had an apartment available much cheaper than those that were listed on booking.com. Damn worth it :)
Thanks a lot for this!! But for me perplexity coupon isn't working ( seeing invalid coupon error). For kagi coupon shared is working as expected.
First of all, thank you very much! Is it just me or anyone else also not receiving the codes? I am a paid subscriber and I am sure added the correct email address, multiple times now.
Sorry about that, Varij! Can you please send an email to hello@pragmaticengineer.com and we'll sort it.
Just a few days ago the local T-Mobile (one of the major mobile carriers in Czechia) also gave out Perplexity Pro for 1 year to all their customers. I wonder if it's a sign of Perplexity not doing too well 🤔
They raised a lot of VC money and - unlike Kagi - are clearly making a big loss in an effort to grow. For this case, I reached out to them, and it was an easy "yes" (compared to Kagi!) and they do these Pro deals more commonly with businesses.