Editor Sebastiaan Smits ·
Published October 29, 2026 · Updated October 29, 2026
People leave Google Search over what a signed-in query feeds into, over who sets retention and ranking rules, and over a wish to know where results come from. Most land on Brave Search or Kagi for an independent index, on Startpage or DuckDuckGo for lower exposure, or on Ecosia and Qwant for a European operator.
Short answer: The closest replacements for Google Search in our search engines ranking are Brave Search, Kagi and Startpage. Choose Brave Search if you want an independent index and can accept ads on the free tier. We took the other 10 from the Best Search Engines in 2026 ranking too, and each is compared with Google Search alone, noting where staying put is the better call.
Visibility in our rankings can be paid for. Payment moves a vendor's position within the shortlist; it never adds a vendor, and it never changes a word of the review or of this page. The first three alternatives go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow in their ranked order. How it works: placement disclosure · editorial process.
Google's privacy policy says Search may process data you allow it to access in order to personalize content, ads included, and its example is a search for mountain bikes followed by sports ads on YouTube. Controls exist in My Ad Center, but the default behavior is personalization.
The retention page says some data is deleted automatically and some is kept longer when necessary. Advertising data in server logs loses part of the IP address after 9 months and cookie information after 18 months. A buyer with a stricter internal policy has to accept that schedule or move.
The ranking page lists signals such as meaning, relevance, quality, usability and context, weighted by query. We found no user-set re-ranking on the Google pages we read, whereas Brave offers Goggles and Kagi lets you shape results with Lenses.
Best replacement at the top. Each row ends with where we place that product among the 12 we rank.
| # | Alternative | Headquarters | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Brave Search | United States | you want an independent index and can accept ads on the free tier | #1 |
| 2 |  Kagi | United States | you will pay per seat to get rid of ads and tracking | #2 |
| 3 |  Startpage | Netherlands | you want Google-style results without Google seeing who asked | #6 |
| 4 |  DuckDuckGo | United States | you want one familiar box and the ability to jump to other sites with bangs | #3 |
| 5 |  Ecosia | Germany | you want a managed rollout and a German operator that funds tree planting | #8 |
| 6 |  Qwant | France | you prefer a French operator with no stored history and basic AI answers | #7 |
| 7 |  Mojeek | United Kingdom | you value a UK-built index and logs that never hold an IP address | #9 |
| 8 |  Bing | United States | you want a full-scope engine and live in a Microsoft 365 environment | #5 |
| 9 |  Swisscows | Switzerland | you want a Swiss operator and are willing to test result quality first | #10 |
| 10 |  Yandex | Russia | your work needs Russian-language coverage and counsel has cleared the vendor | #11 |
| 11 |  Baidu | China | your research targets Chinese-language sources and your team reads Chinese | #12 |
Brave's API page claims zero dependencies on Google or Bing, so the index is its own. Ads exist but are reported without personal identifiers, and a Premium option removes them inside the Brave browser only. A help page describes an optional Google fallback for thin queries, which you can leave off.
Switch from Google Search if you want an independent index and can accept ads on the free tier.
Kagi sells search with no ads. Its docs describe in-house web and news indexes (Teclis and TinyGem) plus anonymized calls to other providers and to sources such as Wolfram Alpha. There is a Team plan with an admin role and central billing, but it requires a business email domain.
Switch from Google Search if you will pay per seat to get rid of ads and tracking.
Startpage sends your anonymized query to its providers, so it does not run an index of its own. Sponsored links come from platforms such as Google AdSense. Its Anonymous View proxy opens a result page with no cookies or trackers, and the company states that any government request must come from Dutch judicial authorities.
Switch from Google Search if you want Google-style results without Google seeing who asked.
DuckDuckGo runs its own crawler, DuckDuckBot, yet says most links and images come from Bing. Its help pages describe Instant Answers, an AI chat called Duck.ai and bang shortcuts. The interface is simpler than Google's, and our fetch found no subscription price to compare.
Switch from Google Search if you want one familiar box and the ability to jump to other sites with bangs.
Ecosia's support pages say results and ads come from Microsoft Bing, Google and EUSP, with EUSP limited to France for now. An AI Overviews feature can be switched off, and there are guides for Intune and Group Policy rollouts. Ecosia states that ads fund its tree planting.
Switch from Google Search if you want a managed rollout and a German operator that funds tree planting.
Qwant's own pages say it keeps no search history and does not resell data. Its Flash Answer and AI Chat are described as free and unlimited, while optional advanced features need an account and some sharing with partners. The About page is in French, and the company says more features are coming during 2026.
Switch from Google Search if you prefer a French operator with no stored history and basic AI answers.
Mojeek crawls and indexes on its own and reports passing nine billion pages in 2025, a fraction of what Google describes. Its logs replace the IP address with a two-letter country code. Anyone embedding search can buy a pay-as-you-go API priced per 1,000 requests, with data hosted in Europe.
Switch from Google Search if you value a UK-built index and logs that never hold an IP address.
Bing is the closest substitute in scope, with image, map, news and shopping tabs on its page. It is also the supplier behind other engines on this list, so switching to it adds no independence. Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025 and points developers to Grounding with Bing.
Switch from Google Search if you want a full-scope engine and live in a Microsoft 365 environment.
Swisscows AG operates from Egnach, Switzerland, and says it uses no identifying cookies, tracking pixels or fingerprinting. Its privacy policy cites the GDPR. The pages we read never name the source of its results, so judge the quality on your own queries before you move anyone.
Switch from Google Search if you want a Swiss operator and are willing to test result quality first.
Yandex is run from Moscow by Yandex LLC under Russian law, and its privacy policy lists location and account data among what it collects. The search product sits inside a larger set of services. Whether a company may contract with a Russian operator is a legal question for counsel.
Switch from Google Search if your work needs Russian-language coverage and counsel has cleared the vendor.
Baidu is built around Chinese-language search, and its corporate site is mostly in Chinese with an English switch. The pages we fetched named an ICP licence and a separate advertising contact, but no consumer price or retention terms. It is a regional tool for Chinese-language research, not a general default.
Switch from Google Search if your research targets Chinese-language sources and your team reads Chinese.
Stay on Google Search if staff depend on maps, local business data, or one sign-in that also covers Gmail, Drive and other Google services. Google describes ranking across hundreds of billions of webpages, while Mojeek reports nine billion and Brave offers a Google fallback for thin results. If the concern is only history, its export and deletion tools may be enough.
Pick searches your staff really make, such as vendor names, error messages, local suppliers and legal terms, and compare engines side by side. Index size and result supply differ widely between these engines, so a test on your own work beats any published benchmark, including Brave's, which it chooses itself.
Your Google Account, mail and files are separate from the search box, and Google lists export and deletion as their own steps. Switching the default engine in each browser is the whole change. Roll it out through browser policy, as Ecosia documents for Intune and Group Policy, rather than by memo.
Most smaller engines say their own coverage is partial, and Brave documents a Google fallback for that reason. Keep Google or Bing reachable for maps, shopping and rare queries, and use a bang or keyword shortcut where the engine supports one, so the fallback costs a few seconds rather than a policy exception.
Yes, in part. Google's privacy policy says you can export a copy of the content in your Google Account and delete items through My Activity. None of the engines we read lists a history import, so personalization starts from zero on the new engine.
Brave states zero dependencies on Google or Bing, and Mojeek crawls its own index. Kagi combines in-house indexes with anonymized calls to other providers, and DuckDuckGo runs a crawler but sources most links and images from Bing. Startpage and Ecosia draw on outside providers.
Usually yes, except on Kagi. Brave shows ads reported without personal data, Startpage shows sponsored links from platforms such as Google AdSense, and Ecosia shows ads from Microsoft Advertising and Google AdSense. Brave Premium removes ads, but only inside the Brave browser.
Kagi has a Team plan with Professional or Ultimate seats, an admin role and central billing, and it needs a business email domain. Ecosia publishes Intune and Group Policy guides for setting its default. Most other engines list no admin console in the pages we read.
You may. Bing's page shows a Maps tab, Kagi's docs describe a maps product built on Apple and Mapbox data, and Brave's help index lists anonymous local results. We did not test local coverage in any country, so check your own cities before committing.
Not by itself. Startpage and Ecosia say they pass queries to outside providers, and Ecosia names Bing, Google and EUSP as sources. Mojeek says its search API runs on European infrastructure. Ask each vendor where a query is processed before writing it into policy.
Each number and claim about Google Search and its competitors was taken from the vendors' own websites on October 29, 2026; expect them to drift as those sites are edited.
Sebastiaan Smits, Founder, wrote, edited and fact-checked this page.
Founder of The Interregnum and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page here; research and drafting are AI-assisted. Last reviewed October 29, 2026.
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