# Uruky search engine

39 Hacker News commenters recommended Uruky search engine and 23 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.2 years (5 owners).

**Verdict:** Ad-free, privacy-focused paid search with a simple interface, a usable API and European ownership, which people say makes it a good Kagi alternative. Critics say the UX is rough and account signup is awkward.

## Why people recommend it

- Ad-free and privacy-focused search (9 comments): "Uruky is for people who want ad-free, private, and personalized search, and no AI, while stimulating the European economy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48421959)) "It is by far the best third party search alternative in terms of how they approach privacy and transparency." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48396927)) "an ad-free and privacy-focused search engine, that's focused on a simpler experience than Kagi" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48198585))
- Simple, clean interface (3 comments): "an ad-free and privacy-focused search engine, that's focused on a simpler experience than Kagi" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48198585)) "Customers seem to really enjoy the simple UI (search can be used without JS)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687933)) "Just ad-free private search that you can tweak to your liking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49418845))
- Usable API alongside searches (5 comments): "Especially that I can also use it via API too and that expectations are limits are set out clearly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48399009)) "Uruky does exactly that (it has an API and any searches fund the search providers directly)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397125)) "Commercial uruky is good. Basically Kagi except you can also run api calls over it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48726984))
- European-made and EU-first (4 comments): "Solid EU-first positioning — the "trust local infrastructure" angle is increasingly important here." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409058)) "I love the idea! It's so good to see people advancing the european tech landscape." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702182)) "My wife and I wanted one, so we founded one and launched it earlier this year" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49881377))

## What people warn about

- Paid signup adds friction to testing (2 comments): "It adds a bit of friction for someone to have to make an account and pay just to test the product." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397030)) "login gated with a paywall of 5 dollars, could not use the product" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48407640))
- UX rough, needs improvement (2 comments): "It's a cool search engine. I agreee that need improve in UI/UX." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48396993)) "Their UX is really at most a proof of concept, not good enough for daily use." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403580))
- Missing features like calculator or blocking (2 comments): "It lacks two things that are very useful : website blocking, and !hashbangs like DDG." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406816)) "biggest gap I experienced was lack of calculator and currency converter" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241084))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Hister](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hister.md): 81 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Uruky search engine", https://hackerapproved.com/p/uruky/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).