The best search engines, according to hackers
38 search engines were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one, and 14 earn the Hacker Approved badge.
Top picks
The three most recommended search engines with the badge. Each figure is 50 people. RecommendsCriticizes One comment
Better results than Google
A paid search engine people choose for cleaner results without ads or tracking, with domain blocking, customization and opt-in AI answers; critics object to its Yandex data and pricing.
Private local search of browsed pages
A self-hosted search engine that indexes pages you visit and files you keep, so you can search your own browsing history and notes privately. Critics note browser import is awkward and the license is restrictive.
Combines results from multiple engines
Self-hosted metasearch engine that blends results from many engines without ads, tracking or AI summaries. Common caveat: upstream engines often rate limit or block it.
All 38 search engines, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kagi | 732 | 234 | 76% | 13 | 2 yrs106 owners | Approved |
| 2 | Google Search | 315 | 1,039 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs25 owners | — |
| 3 | DuckDuckGo | 286 | 204 | 58% | 12 | 3.5 yrs47 owners | — |
| 4 | Hister | 81 | 9 | 90% | 9 | 2 mo17 owners | Approved |
| 5 | Yandex Search | 79 | 49 | 62% | 12 | — | — |
| 6 | SearXNG | 76 | 9 | 89% | 11 | 3 yrs6 owners | Approved |
| 7 | Elasticsearch | 68 | 75 | 48% | 12 | — | — |
| 8 | Brave Search | 67 | 19 | 78% | 12 | 1.5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| 9 | Marginalia Search | 50 | 4 | 93% | 12 | — | Approved |
| 10 | Uruky search engine | 39 | 23 | 63% | 9 | 2 mo5 owners | — |
| 11 | Bing | 33 | 93 | 26% | 11 | — | — |
| 12 | Startpage | 25 | 8 | 76% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Tied 13 | Ecosia | 24 | 22 | 52% | 11 | — | — |
| Tied 13 | AltaVista | 24 | 14 | 63% | 5 | — | — |
| 15 | Qwant | 22 | 17 | 56% | 9 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| 16 | Google Lens | 21 | 4 | 84% | 10 | — | Approved |
| 17 | Algolia Hacker News Search | 20 | 7 | 74% | 10 | — | Approved |
| 18 | Wiby | 17 | 0 | 100% | 10 | — | Approved |
| 19 | Antfly | 15 | 1 | 94% | 3 | — | — |
| 20 | Mojeek | 14 | 2 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| 21 | YaCy | 13 | 6 | 68% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Tied 22 | DuckDuckGo noai search | 11 | 1 | 92% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Tied 22 | Scry | 11 | 3 | 79% | 5 | — | Approved |
| 24 | Yandex Image Search | 10 | 1 | 91% | 6 | — | Approved |
| 25 | Google Image Search | 9 | 5 | 64% | 8 | — | — |
| Tied 26 | Yahoo Search | 8 | 11 | 42% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 26 | Typesense | 8 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 28 | DuckDuckGo Lite | 7 | 1 | 88% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 28 | Manticore Search | 7 | 3 | 70% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 28 | Vespa | 7 | 1 | 88% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 31 | OpenSearch | 6 | 4 | 60% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 31 | Meilisearch | 6 | 2 | 75% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 31 | 4get | 6 | 3 | 67% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 31 | Searx | 6 | 4 | 60% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 31 | Greppr (greppr.org) | 6 | 2 | 75% | 1 | — | — |
| Tied 36 | FrogFind | 5 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 36 | PostgreSQL full-text search | 5 | 7 | 42% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 36 | GifCities | 5 | 1 | 83% | 2 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same search engine in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to search engines that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.