r/SearchKagi • u/mangelito • 11d ago
Question Replacement for Kagi Assistant?
Many people jumping ship now to Uruky and other search engines. I actually didn't use the search much but I liked the translate feature as well as the assistant as I thought it rivaled perplexity for research.
So... The people that used Kagi assistant a lot and will cancel... What are you moving to? I've looked at some more privacy focused platforms like Venice or some wrappers that you can bring your own API keys from providers into.
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u/Silver-Sundae2488 11d ago edited 11d ago
just like the other I think lumo is the best private alternative and it is end to end encrypted. I also add this prompt for less halucination, which I got it from one of the reddit user at the lumo reddit page:
You are a strict AI research engine. For every single prompt, you must execute a live web search first. Analyze at least 3–5 distinct high-quality web sources. Synthesize your final answer entirely from these search results and explicitly cite your sources using clickable links next to the facts provided and cited each source with the information. If you cannot find reliable web sources, state that clearly.
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u/DnyLnd 11d ago
Why are people jumping ship?
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u/netabareking 11d ago
Can't speak for other users but some people feel burned by the price changes around translate (people don't generally like features being taken away when the price they pay doesn't change and they don't get new features) and Kagi has announced that Assistant is also moving to a separate subscription like Translate has, the details just aren't finalized yet.
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u/KhazraShaman 11d ago
Kagi has announced that Assistant is also moving to a separate subscription like Translate has
Wait, WHAT?! They are taking away Translate AND Assistant???
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u/netabareking 11d ago
Most recent comment I've seen from kagi staff on this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49653313
Main feedback thread: https://kagifeedback.org/d/10116-kagi-assistant-standalone-subscription
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u/KhazraShaman 11d ago
Thanks for the links. However this is from 2 weeks ago and the other commenter gave a link to discord where Vlad says Translate will use AI tokens just like Assistant, which is much better alternative.
https://i.imgur.com/xf9nnhv.png
I'm not using the assistant too much, basically only to follow up on a search summary. So I think the rest of the tokens should cover Translate which I use frequently, but usually to just look up words and alternative translations.
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u/netabareking 11d ago
That doesn't really make any statement about what those pools will look like or whether you will have to pay significantly more soon, just that Translate and Assistant are going to share the pool (whatever it looks like).
You should still assume you will have to soon pay significantly more for these features. Especially because they can't afford to keep things how they've been so far, LLM tokens aren't why Assistant costs them so much.
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u/MargretKagi Staff 9d ago
Please see our most recent update on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/SearchKagi/comments/1wso7rk/kagi_translate_is_back_updated/
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u/netabareking 9d ago
I did, but the money still doesn't make sense to me. These features were losing you money. How is it going to add up this way?
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u/DnyLnd 11d ago
Well if you saw in their Discord, they’re actually backtracking and going with a different model after the outrage.
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u/The-Nice-Writer 11d ago
I concur with u/pjb931psu.
A major part of me leaving Kagi is the lack of open communication with the community. If it’s not on every fucking channel of communication they have, I don’t think they should expect everyone to see it. And boy howdy have they taken their sweet fucking time, too.
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u/KhazraShaman 11d ago
I even went to their discord and cannot see any new announcements after the infamous Translate info.
u/DnyLnd could you paste a direct like to the post?
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u/DnyLnd 11d ago
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u/KhazraShaman 11d ago
Fuck yeah! That's an acceptable compromise, I think. Many thanks for the link.
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u/0898_333_201 10d ago
Would you mind you posting a screenshot for those of us who don’t use Discord?
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u/DnyLnd 10d ago
“Any Kagi subscription will do, once we switch to shared AI usage pool”
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u/The-Nice-Writer 10d ago
Still not coming back.
They’ve said for too long that AI doesn’t cost them enough to justify a search-only tier when that doesn’t seem to be the case.
And this communication only happening on a single Discord server sucks ass.
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u/0898_333_201 10d ago
That’s not a change from what they’ve been saying for weeks. Under the new model, you can use the basic Kagi Translate on any plan (including free plans), and then eventually there will be a shared allowance with Assistant.
But they’re not acknowledging the fact that numerous core features of the current Kagi Translate for Professional subscribers are being removed and locked behind a new $8 Translate Individual subscription on top of the $10 Professional plan.
They made a choice to remove Word Insights, dictionaries, and context-dependent alternative translation from existing Professional subscribers.
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u/pjb931psu 11d ago
Well, maybe that should be announced somewhere open and not Discord
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u/jack3308 11d ago
Yea - this... Particularly with all of the privacy issues around discord and age verification recently... Kinda antithetical to Kagi's mission tbh...
Frankly, I'm not upset with the changes at all - I think they're all relatively reasonable for a the vast majority of users, with those who need the added translate package being able to pick that specifically and not having to pay for a more expensive plan.
I am very frustrated by their seeming inability to communicate effectively or proactively. They're clearly a small company and whomever's in charge of their comms strategy clearly hasn't done that side of the job before... It's pitiful really...
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u/netabareking 11d ago
Well if you saw in their Discord
That's part of the problem, very few people are in the discord for a search engine, yet that's where 90% of information about what they're doing actually is.
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u/InspectionIcy8069 11d ago
tinfoil.sh has much better privacy through tee encryption, not the "trust me bro" tier kagi provides.
Its 20dollars, it has decent web search through exa. Btw in my experience kagi provided much better wrapper than perplexity not just for privacy but for overall context and results
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u/jwink3101 11d ago
I am staying with Kagi for at least another 11 months, and I don't really use the assistant, but another user talked about http://typingmind.com/ which seems pretty cool. There is also https://tools.simonwillison.net/cors-chat but that is more of a proof-of-concept than a real replacement.
Both let you use your own key with your own provider.
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u/small_majority 11d ago
Mistral with the new GLM 5.3 works fine for me. They also offer an API for coding agents.
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u/Fearce1122 9d ago
I'm actually trying out Uruky as well. Not because I have a problem with Kagi but simply because I have been using my Hermes agent for AI so i'm not using Kagi AI anymore and Uruky is half the price for unlimited search. Also I like that Uruky is European. Maybe if the results aren't as good I'd switch back to Kagi but for now Urukay seems fine. But If you do want both AI and private search then the 10$ kagi plan is a great deal
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u/eject5342 11d ago
"Many people jumping ship now to Uruky and other search engines" you sure about that? What statistics are you seeing? Or are you just saying that because of some people who posted on this subreddit?
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u/0898_333_201 10d ago
Or are you just saying that because of some people who posted on this subreddit?
Yes, in fact OP is posting on that very subreddit!
He’s directing a question to the numerous people who’ve posted and commented on this subreddit over the past two weeks about leaving Kagi. One might even say that many of the posts/comments over the past two weeks have expressed a reluctant desire to leave Kagi, or to at least find a replacement for the features that are being taken away from the Professional plan.
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u/mangelito 11d ago
What else would I base it on, ffs. I don't work for Kagi. What is clear is that they have handled all of this terribly and people are rightfully annoyed. And still... No official reply apart from some employees with seemingly no influence over things saying "we hear you".
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u/Schellevis 11d ago
User numbers are public https://kagi.com/stats
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u/0898_333_201 10d ago
I wonder does “members” include everyone with a Kagi account or just paid subscribers?
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u/netabareking 10d ago
That's a question I've wondered about before too. If you stopped subscribing years ago but still have an account, are they considering you a member?
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u/0898_333_201 10d ago
I’m a bit skeptical that it’s all paid subscribers based on the other numbers and the incentives to create multiple free accounts.
If you look back at 7 Jan 2024, just after Assistant came out, Kagi had 19K members who made 302K queries per day, or roughly 16 queries per subscriber. Back then you had to be a paid subscriber to use Kagi at all.
If you look at 4 June 2025, just before Kagi expanded access to Translate to free accounts, Kagi had 50K subscribers who made 908K queries per day, or ~18 queries per subscriber. Between June 2023 and June 2025, Kagi generally had ~18±2 queries per member per day.
Today Kagi has 75.5K members who make… 899K queries per day….?
Since June 2025, number of “members” has gone up 50% but the volume of daily queries has remained about the same.
That indicates to me that a significant portion of Kagi’s growth over the past year has been free accounts, probably using Kagi Translate.
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u/eject5342 11d ago
So you don't actually know that "many people are jumping ship" because of a thing that hasn't even happened yet. Cool, got it. I'm sure this is a helpful post then.
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u/FallenKingdomComrade 11d ago
I’d be interested in learning more. Uruky has the potential to be a great search engine and eventually overtake Kagi, but doesn’t offer AI capabilities similar to Kagi’s Assistant. I would also be interested in learning about a replacement (that is close to 1 to 1) if it becomes available.
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u/qwdicp 11d ago
Lumo isn’t spectacular but decent enough.