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Kagi vs You.com

Features, pricing, ratings, and pros and cons, side by side.

Kagi logo

Kagi

Ad-free, subscription-funded search engine with built-in AI assistant and summarization tools

Free trial
Visit websiteView details

Verdict

Kagi is listed under AI Assistants and You.com under Developer Tools. Both have a free plan or trial.

Best overall

You.com

  • AI Developers
  • Engineering Teams
  • Enterprise Teams
  • Startups

Choose Kagi if

  • You want a tool built for people who want ad-free, personalizable search results and are willing to pay a subscription to get them.
  • No advertising; revenue comes from subscriptions.
  • Site-level raise, lower and block controls let users tune results.

Choose You.com if

  • You want a tool built for grounding LLM and agent outputs in live web data, RAG pipelines, cited research reports, adding web search to MCP-enabled coding agents.
  • Clear per-call pricing with no seat, minimum or platform fee.
  • Keyless free MCP tier (100 queries per day) makes prototyping frictionless.
Best for beginners
Kagi
Best for business
You.com

Features

17 features compared.

  • Ad-free search
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Site personalization
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Lenses
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Kagi Assistant
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Quick Answer and Summarize Page
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Developer APIs
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Orion browser
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Kagi Translate and Kagi News
    Kagi
    Available
    You.com
    Not available
  • Web Search API
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Contents API
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Answer API
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Research API
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Finance Research API
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Knowledge for Web Search
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Hosted MCP Server and Agent Skills
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Enterprise Security
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available
  • Inference Router
    Kagi
    Not available
    You.com
    Available

Pricing

Plans as listed by each vendor. Check their sites for current prices.

  • Pricing model
    Kagi
    Free trial
    You.com
    Freemium
  • Free plan
    Kagi
    Yes
    You.com
    Yes
  • Starting price
    Kagi
    $0
    You.com
    $0
  • Plans
    Kagi
    4 plans
    You.com
    3 plans

Kagi plans

  • Trial

    $0

    Free trial to evaluate Kagi

    • 100 searches
    • 100 Assistant interactions

  • Starter

    $5/month

    Entry plan for light searchers

    • 300 searches
    • Assistant Quick mode

  • Professional

    Most popular

    $10/month

    Unlimited search for regular users

    • Unlimited searches
    • Assistant Quick mode
    • larger monthly Assistant allowance

  • Ultimate

    $25/month

    Full AI access

    • Unlimited searches
    • Assistant Research mode
    • flagship models including Claude
    • GPT and Gemini
    • highest level of support

You.com plans

  • Free

    $0

    Keyless prototyping through the MCP server

    • No API key
    • account or credit card needed
    • 100 Web Search API queries per day via MCP

  • Pay as you go

    Most popular

    $5/1K calls

    Usage-based billing for production; $5 is the Web Search rate per 1,000 calls

    • No minimums
    • seats or platform fee
    • all endpoints
    • SDKs and MCP
    • auto top-up

  • Enterprise

    Custom/custom

    Enterprise teams needing compliance and capacity

    • Zero Data Retention
    • SOC 2
    • DPA-ready
    • custom QPS and dedicated capacity
    • SLA-backed support

Our ratings

Scored out of 10 by the Finder Atlas editorial team. Last reviewed November 2026.

Kagi
8.1overall
You.com
8.2overall

Kagi leads in 2 categories and You.com in 2, with 1 tied.

  • Ease of Use

    Kagi leads by 0.2
    Kagi
    8.2
    You.com
    8.0

  • Feature Depth

    Kagi leads by 0.3
    Kagi
    8.6
    You.com
    8.3

  • Value for Money

    You.com leads by 0.4
    Kagi
    7.4
    You.com
    7.8

  • Performance & Speed

    Tied
    Kagi
    8.4
    You.com
    8.4

  • Documentation & Support

    You.com leads by 0.7
    Kagi
    7.8
    You.com
    8.5

Scores weigh documented features, plan value, platform coverage, integrations and user feedback. A missing score means we have not rated that area yet.

Pros and cons

Kagi

Pros

  • No advertising; revenue comes from subscriptions.
  • Site-level raise, lower and block controls let users tune results.
  • Lenses give quick topic-specific filtering such as Academic or Forums.
  • Ultimate bundles access to Claude, GPT and Gemini models in Assistant.
  • Public APIs and an MCP server support developer use.
  • Transparent funding history published by the company.

Cons

  • No permanent free tier: the trial is limited to 100 searches.
  • The $5 Starter plan caps searches at 300 per month, which users report running out of quickly.
  • Reviewers report that lens use and loading more results can count as extra searches.
  • Full AI model access requires the $25 Ultimate plan.

You.com

Pros

  • Clear per-call pricing with no seat, minimum or platform fee.
  • Keyless free MCP tier (100 queries per day) makes prototyping frictionless.
  • Range of endpoints from raw search to cited multi-step research on one index.
  • Documented MCP server, agent skills and plugins for many coding agents.
  • Enterprise options include zero data retention and SOC 2.
  • Published latency figures per endpoint help with capacity planning.

Cons

  • Per-call billing makes costs harder to predict than a flat subscription, and top Research tiers reach $1,200 per 1,000 calls.
  • No consumer plans are published on the website, so anyone looking for the old chat assistant gets no clear pricing.
  • The consumer search and chat experience is no longer promoted, so it is a poor fit for casual users.
  • Free tier is capped at 100 Web Search queries per day.

Platforms

  • Web
    Kagi
    Supported
    You.com
    Supported
  • Windows
    Kagi
    Not supported
    You.com
    Not supported
  • macOS
    Kagi
    Not supported
    You.com
    Not supported
  • iOS
    Kagi
    Supported
    You.com
    Supported
  • Android
    Kagi
    Supported
    You.com
    Supported
  • API
    Kagi
    Supported
    You.com
    Supported
  • Browser Extension
    Kagi
    Not supported
    You.com
    Not supported

Integrations

Kagi

4 integrations
  • Anthropic Claude
  • OpenAI GPT
  • Google Gemini
  • MCP

You.com

11 integrations
  • Claude Code
  • Cursor
  • Codex CLI
  • GitHub Copilot CLI
  • Windsurf
  • Gemini CLI
  • VS Code
  • JetBrains IDEs
  • Zed
  • OpenCode
  • Jan

Company

  • Company
    Kagi
    Kagi Inc.
    You.com
    You.com
  • Founded
    Kagi
    2018
    You.com
    2020
  • Headquarters
    Kagi
    San Francisco, CA
    You.com
    Palo Alto, CA
  • Listing
    Kagi
    Claimed
    You.com
    Claimed

Frequently asked questions

Is Kagi better than You.com?

It depends on your workflow. Kagi is built for people who want ad-free, personalizable search results and are willing to pay a subscription to get them. You.com is built for grounding LLM and agent outputs in live web data, RAG pipelines, cited research reports, adding web search to MCP-enabled coding agents.

What are the key feature differences between Kagi and You.com?

Kagi: Ad-free, subscription-funded search engine with built-in AI assistant and summarization tools. You.com: Real-time web search, research and answer APIs that ground AI agents in live data.

Does Kagi or You.com have a free plan?

Yes, both do. Kagi is free trial and You.com is freemium, and each has a free plan or trial.

Which is cheaper, Kagi or You.com?

Both can be used for free. Paid plans differ in limits and features, so compare the tiers in the pricing table above.