alt Hacker NewsMy wife and I continue to work on Uruky [1], a simpler Kagi alternative, based in the EU.
Last month we reached 200 monthly active accounts (we’ve passed 250 now), and last week we launched support for XMR/Monero payments via ProxyStore [2]!
You can also see in our homepage that more independent bloggers and privacy-minded people have written about us!
The main differences between Uruky and Kagi, DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, etc. are visible in the footer (right side), but one huge difference is that with Uruky, after being a paying customer for 12 months, you get copy of the source code (licensed as BUSL,into AGPLv3 in 2 years — a suggestion made here in HN)!
Uruky is paid and you can get a free 2h trial when you signup if you pass a proof-of-work captcha (another suggestion made here on HN, and it uses a local Altcha).
Our main challenge continues to be discoverability and outreach because we want to do it ethically. Ideas are welcome! We’ve been sponsoring open source projects, open source maintainers, and indie, small-web, and privacy-related websites and applications. This month was Caddy [3]!
Feature-wise, for July we’ve already shipped a lot of visible and less visible things. We’re currently looking into increasing our own index, focused on indie/small web, and plan to add a couple of new search providers in the upcoming weeks.
Thank you for your kindness!
[NO-AI]: There is no generative AI product or service, here.
[1]: https://uruky.com
Replies
It looks good, but one of the big selling points to me with Kagi is them having their own index. It seems like you guys are working on that, but right now it sounds more like a search aggregator rather than a search engine.
You also mention not using the source for commercial use or distribution, is that only relevant before it becomes AGPL?
I am also struggling to find how to activate the 2h trial, so have not been able to test it out.
Very cool! How long have you been working on this? How did you acquire your customers?
I love the idea. How do you stay competitive with the search results of, let's say, DDG? have you considered enabling an API for subscribers? Or selling an enterprise tier subsctription that comes with API?
As someone unfamiliar with Kagi I encourage you not to describe yourself as a Kagi alternative but instead start with what you are doing first and foremost
Why do you call it a Kagi alternative and not a Google alternative?
Nice, cool project.
Is Monero legal in EU? I heard something about them banning private cryptos including Monero a while back but I don't know what the situation is now. (I think it might just be that exchanges are not allowed to offer it anymore?)