Looking for a Google Alternative? These Are the Top 13 Search Engines
Google is the king of search engines. Well, at least for now.
But this might change as more and more people are looking for Google search alternatives for all kinds of reasons, including:
- Privacy concerns (of course),
- Ads and spammy content that’s created for SEO purposes only,
- Interest in new AI searches,
- Need for more specific and niche-relevant search results,
- Or just the desire to try something new.
Whatever your reason is, there are probably more alternatives out there than you could think of. What are your options? Keep reading to find out.
13 top alternative search engines to Google
You could google for other search engines, which feels sort of like cheating, but it still works:) But honestly, there are way too many options out there.
So, if you don’t have all the time in the world, this selection of alternative web search engines is for you.
1. Microsoft Bing
Source: Bing
Bing is the second popular search engine after Google, and it’s been in that position for years. So, often, this is one of the first go-tos for users who want an alternative.
It is still produced by another giant — Microsoft. That’s why it is a good solution for those who are looking for something “same same but different.” But if you want to stay away from corporations, we have other options for you on this list.
On the surface, it doesn't really look like a competitor at all. After all, Google has 89% of the market share and Bing only has 4%. Still, it’s the second most popular choice out there.
Source: Statcounter
Besides, it integrates perfectly with Microsoft Office (obvious), so that’s a plus if you use this ecosystem.
And if you are big on the new AI-powered features, you can use Copilot.
Source: Copilot
While Google also has its AI solution, they’re different. Microsoft uses ChatGPT (OpenAI) and has a chat-style search, whereas Google has its own Gemini model and offers AI overviews instead of conversational answers.
What’s more? Many users actually claim that Bing returns more contextually accurate results compared to others out there.
So, if you’re serious about SEO and link building, you might want to consider Bing in addition to Google. After all, Bing has over 1.4 billion unique monthly visitors.
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Unique features:
- Enhanced security — while Bing still tracks its users, you get more visible control over your privacy settings compared to Google.
- AI conversational search with the bonus of being able to generate images directly without any additional tools.
- Microsoft Rewards — an absolutely unique feature that allows you to collect points for browsing and other activities within the Microsoft ecosystem.
Source: Microsoft
Best use cases:
- AI chatting and image generation through BingChat.
- Native integration with Microsoft tools, which is a great plus for organizations (and individuals) who use this ecosystem.
- Ability to earn rewards for browsing.
2. Ecosia
Source: Ecosia
Ecosia is another search engine people like to use instead of Google. It is a good choice for those who are conscious about their carbon footprint and want to do their bit to offset it.
The company uses its profit to plant trees, and everything runs on 100% renewable energy.
Don’t believe any brand can be that serious?
Well, they publish their financial reports each month, making it easy for anyone to confirm their claims. You can also see where they plant the trees and what causes they support.
Source: Ecosia
This is just one of the appeals it has for environmentally conscious users. And guess what? You don’t have to sacrifice privacy to save the environment either. Your data is anonymized after 7 days, and you can do encrypted online searches.
Either way, if you're looking to position yourself as a green brand and draw in customers that align with that value, then this might be a search engine for you.
Unique features:
- Strong environmental focus.
- Powered by a combination of Google and Bing. Plus, it has other info sources for additional features — you can find all of them here. So, you get pretty varied results, which might be a good solution for many who can’t choose between Google and Bing.
- Powered by renewable energy.
- Personal tracker that lets you see how much you have directly contributed to the reforestation efforts.
- It doesn’t share your personal data.
- Indicates environmentally friendly companies with a green icon and non-environmentally friendly brands with an icon of a fossil fuel in the results.
Best use cases:
- Your typical search, if you want to make it more conscious and environmentally friendly.
- Supporting global reforestation campaigns with your browsing.
- Great option for eco-friendly businesses who want to stand out as a company that cares about their impact.
3. ChatGPT search
Source: ChatGPT
Surprisingly (or not), these days, many people consider ChatGPT search better than Google.
For one, it allows people to type or talk like they normally would without thinking about keywords and still get a relevant response. Not just that, but it returns a concise, detailed, and personalized answer from several sources.
Besides, you don’t have to click on endless links, scroll past fluff before you get the meat of the answer you need. You can keep going for a while and don’t have to worry about losing the context of your query in the first place.
ChatGPT can check the web for answers in real time, and you don’t have to worry about being bombarded with ads. Still, as good as AI-powered search engines are, they are not perfect.
Even now, ChatGPT can and will happily make up fake answers rather than “admit” it doesn’t have one.
For example, when we asked ChatGPT about Ecosia’s unique features, one of them was the following:
Source: ChatGPT
But if we go to Ecosia’s official website, we’ll see a different story:
Source: Ecosia
So, if you have to verify all the info, is it then making your search easier?
At any rate, marketers and SEO experts now have to account for ChatGPT optimization as tons of people are turning to it. And of course, it is a fantastic achievement in the technological sense (hands down).
Unique features:
- It understands conversational, everyday language.
- You can ask follow-up questions as you go.
- It summarizes answers and works with links.
- You get real-time results, even though they're still limited.
- It recalls the context and explains every detail you might not understand.
- No ads.
Best use cases:
- Best for people who need straight answers rather than just links after links.
- People looking to skip all the SEO fluff.
- Context–heavy, long research.
4. Perplexity
Source: Perplexity
Perplexity is another alternative search engine to Google that shares tons of similarities with ChatGPT. To be fair, though, it was offering the search feature before it was introduced by OpenAI.
You can talk to it using natural language and get voice answers, or you can go with a chat-based option. It finds real-time answers for you and gives you a detailed, concise result with links for further research.
Direct citation of each source was always one of the most attractive features for many users because it is really easy to fact-check information.
Source: Perplexity
Besides, you can tailor your results to your preferred sources, like web articles or forum conversations. You can also choose which model you want to use since there are several AI models on the platform, including Grok, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini, DeepSeek, etc.
Source: Perplexity
Unique features:
- Perfect for conversational searches that are based on the most up-to-date information.
- Source citations for easier fact-checking.
- Great for deep yet fast research (especially with the Deep Research feature).
- Labs feature that allows you to turn your research or any information into charts, dashboards, code, or other more complex elements.
- Also ad-free.
Best use cases:
- Deep research (especially with the Pro features).
- Easy fact-checking with all the sources and citations next to any statement.
- Using multiple AI models in one place.
5. You
Source: You.com
You is another option that is somewhat similar to Perplexity. It has many features that look quite the same, including the chat interface and answers with source citations. So, why include another AI-powered search engine on this list?
Well, there are some significant differences. With You, you can tweak your experience so that it fully reflects your preferences. For example, you can downvote specific sources you don't like so it knows not to use them in the future. Or you can prioritize your favorite sources.
Another great thing about this option is that it has tons of agents that help you with very specific and even niche tasks. They can assist with pretty much anything, from creating Python function code to checking your investment assumptions based on real industry data.
Source: You.com
Besides, you don't have to stress over your data being sold to the highest bidder, as this search engine doesn’t track clicks or IPs when selecting the Private mode.
Unique features:
- Chat searches with sources.
- Option to upvote/downvote or block completely any source, which is perfect if you have some strong preferences.
- Great data privacy when you enable Private mode.
- AI agents that can help you with a variety of things (even very niche ones).
- Allows you to use several AI models.
Best use cases:
- For those who need to customize their experience.
- Safety-conscious web users.
- People who want to go beyond just searching and use different AI tools within one platform (possible thanks to You’s agents).
6. Yandex
Source: Yandex
Yandex is another alternative for those looking to find a different Google similar search.
It has 2.52% of the search engine market and is ranked third after Google and Bing. But that’s not the situation in Russia and some other neighboring countries, where it holds more than half of the market share.
So, if you’re targeting those regions, then you definitely want to get familiar with this one.
You’ll notice that there isn’t anything too special about this option. It has a lot of the same features you see in Google, including Weather, Maps, Translation, etc.
That’s why if you're not marketing to that particular area, you might find that depending on this one entirely would give you limited global reach. Then there's the hassle of trying to adapt to SEO rules different from what you're used to with Google.
Last but not least, there is the potential issue of data privacy, as the laws might be quite different compared to what you get in the West.
Unique features:
- Relevant results for the target region (mainly Russia) and in the Russian language.
- Great compatibility with the Yandex ecosystem (Yandex Mail, Yandex Maps, etc.)
Best use cases:
- Those marketing to people in Russia and some other CIS countries.
- People looking to get a feel for how SEO works in those regions.
- Those hoping to get their hands on pirated content (obviously, not recommended).
- People who want to access information that they think is censored in the West.
7. Brave Search
Source: Brave
If you're big on privacy, then Brave Search might be for you. It is one of the sites like Google, but with much more attention to privacy and independence.
You don't have to worry about being tracked or your data being harvested while you browse.
This search engine also has a very interesting approach to ads. It’s either ad-free or you can choose to view ads to earn points that you can then spend on selected things.
Source: Brave
Then there is the fact that since the layout is similar to Google, it is easy for you to feel at home.
No wonder it has a growing user base among safety-conscious internet users. Plus, you get AI summaries that are locally generated, meaning that they aren’t sent to any third-party solutions.
Before, Brave Search relied on third-party APIs for some of the results. But recently, they’ve become 100% independent, which was a big step for their company values.
Now, it uses an independent indexing engine, so the results are not supposed to be manipulated in any way. It’s also quite rare because most similar alternatives use Google’s or Bing’s index.
Source: Brave
Unique features:
- 100% independent search index, which is quite a rare feature.
- No tracking, profiling, or cookies.
- AI-powered summaries as well as regular results.
- Ad-free, unless you choose to view ads to get rewards.
Best use cases:
- Perfect for safety-conscious people.
- Great for checking out how well your content actually does in an environment free from algorithm biases. You might just learn new insights about your target audience that help you create better buyer personas.
- People looking to escape the SERPs full of ads.
- Doing research on topics that can be sensitive without being tracked.
- Marketers who want to know how ad-free space might affect their posts.
8. Openverse
Source: Openverse
Openverse is one of those highly specialized search engines. Say, you are looking for copyright-free media assets for your campaigns. Or do you need a couple of good-quality images for your blog? If so, this is a place you should check out.
Openverse is perfect for marketers or SEO writers looking for free stock images for their blog posts or ads. Besides, you get audio in your results. And if you need some special visuals and don’t want to choose overused stock pics, there are millions of options for you here.
Sure, you can search for this on Google or some other engine. But Openverse gives you high-quality, curated results. So, you don’t have to scroll through tons of weird images.
Source: Openverse
Besides, you won’t need to worry about copyright issues, as everything is clearly stated next to each visual. Compare this with when you find an image on Google. There, you have to confirm that it's actually copyright-free. No one wants to get into this trouble.
While it's not a general-purpose search engine, if you are searching for images or audio tracks, this is one of the best places to go to.
Unique features:
- Find media assets (images and audio) with a clear licensing policy that you can also filter easily.
- Free legal media for your campaigns.
- Easy to copy attribution text — you can basically do it with one click and avoid any potential issues.
- No ads or profiling.
Best use cases:
- Those looking for copyright-free images for their marketing purposes.
- Businesses that want to find quite unique images that aren’t everywhere.
9. Searx
Source: Searx
Most of the time, when people look for a search engine to use besides Google, they’re looking for a solution that doesn’t track and profile them or harvest their data for ads. Well, that’s what Searx offers.
This is another search engine that is not exactly a search engine. It is more like a meta-search engine. Confusing, but let's explain this.
This means it does not have its own results to display when you type a query. Instead, it fetches the result for you from other engines.
On one hand, you get to skip the ads and other privacy-invasive practices with those solutions. But on the other hand, they may not respond correctly sometimes. This can lead to error messages or even just irrelevant responses.
A way to get around this is to go into Searx preferences and specify the search engines you want to use.
Still, Searx can be a bit technical for many users if you choose the self-hosted option. In this case, you’ll have to go through the installation process that has several steps — easy for some, but complex for others.
Source: Searx
Alternatively, you can choose a public instance where you simply click on a link and start searching. This won’t give full independence and total customization, but it will be much easier to use.
Source: Searx
Unique features:
- Data privacy with anonymous searches.
- No ads, tracking, or profiling.
- Open source.
- You can either self-host it or go for a public instance.
- Pulls information from different forums, search engines, and platforms.
Best use cases:
- You can use the unbiased results to judge how your content would actually rank. You know, without the algorithmic noise that Google uses to filter out results.
- Checking results from multiple sources in one search. That’s why it could be perfect for testing SEO strategies across several engines.
- Those who want their search engine deployed on a private server.
10. Swisscows
Source: Swisscows
Want a free search engine other than Google that has no ads or surveillance, and is family-friendly? Say no more. Likely, you won’t get a better option than the Swiss-designed search engine affectionately named Swisscows.
This one does not store your personal data or history, and it does not use tracking cookies. That's part of what makes it very confidential. Plus, you get the encryption that safeguards your data.
And it is based in Switzerland (the country known for strict privacy laws), so it means legal compliance is not an issue.
While often safeguarded search engines attract people who want to play around with the dark web. But that’s not the case for Swisscows.
Instead, the focus is on providing family-friendly content. It is intentionally designed to filter out anything inappropriate and to prioritize safe browsing for children. That’s why it is a very popular option for schools and some workplaces.
Yet, if it’s just about your personal use, you might find some of its filters too limiting.
A cool thing, though, is that you get additional tools, like encrypted email, secure messenger, a VPN, etc.
Source: Swisscows
Unique features:
- Anonymous family-friendly search with automatic content filtering.
- All servers are hosted in Switzerland, so you don’t have to worry about privacy laws.
- No cookies, tracking, or data storage.
- Modes that have no ads available.
- Its own independent index.
- Additional tools that include VPN, messengers for individuals and businesses, secure email, etc.
Best use cases:
- Privacy-focused research.
- Finding keywords for family-friendly content.
- Perfect for schools and other places where content restrictions are necessary.
11. Startpage
Source: Startpage
Still looking for another search engine that is not owned by Google? Then, maybe Startpage can be the one for you.
It has something similar to Searx in that it can pull results from Microsoft Bing and Google, but does so anonymously. Still, it doesn’t have the variety of sources Searx offers.
But here is where it gets better — it is GDPR compliant, as it has its HQ in the Netherlands. This means that data privacy is a priority. Each search is conducted without tracking, so none of your browsing can be associated with your personal profile.
And there are no AI-based features, making it ideal for people who don’t want to deal with artificial intelligence despite current trends.
Unique features:
- Anonymous browsing with no tracking, IP logging, cookies, etc.
- Very clean and beginner-friendly interface.
- Protected by GDPR.
Best use cases:
- Quality search results without tracking.
- For those who want to have a European privacy standard.
12. DuckDuckGo
Source: DuckDuckGo
If you want search engines other than Google for Android, you could consider DuckDuckGo.
Apart from having apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, it also offers a privacy-focused experience.
Still, DuckDuckGo doesn’t have its own index, so it pulls results from multiple sources. They swear they never share your data with any of those, so that’s got to be a relief.
But you do get ads with this one, though. This is how the company itself talks about it:
Source: DuckDuckGo
One of the most special features this engine has is its bangs. These are basically shortcuts, which let you search for certain sites by typing custom commands like !yt for YouTube or !r for Reddit.
They say that bangs are part of their “geek roots,” and it’s definitely a cool addition.
Source: DuckDuckGo
Unique features:
- Bangs shortcuts.
- The option of clearing your tabs with the Fire Button.
- Website grading system (from A to F) based on their privacy features — helpful for anyone who wishes to avoid unsafe pages.
- Mobile apps and a browser extension.
- Encrypts data locally so your search isn’t shared with anyone.
Best use cases:
- Those who want to escape Google's personalization bubble.
- Private, anonymous, and unbiased SERPs.
13. Mojeek
Source: Mojeek
The idea behind Mojeek is simple — create an alternative to Google that is 100% independent. Since 2004, the company has been working to provide no-tracking and profiling search services with its own index. In fact, it was the first to do so.
You might think that it’s quite similar to Brave Search we’ve mentioned before, and it’s true. Yet, they’re also quite different. While Brave has more pages in its index, Mojeek gives you that raw and unbiased experience.
You get absolutely no ads, no AI, no distractions. Everyone gets the same results without any personalization. So, here, you really can dig up some obscure things that most other search engines tend to pass over.
Unique features:
- Independent index, which means complete autonomy.
- Everyone gets the same results, which makes them unbiased.
- Simple, clean interface.
- No extras or fillers, just pure search experience.
Best use cases:
- Perfect for niche keyword research and non-personalized results (just as they are).
- People who want privacy and an easy, protected browsing experience.
If you're still wondering who can replace Google for you? Try to test as many options as possible and find your perfect fit. Because frankly, any search engine on this list is worth your attention. It just depends on what you need.
Conclusion
That’s it — this was our favorite lineup of search engines that are (and aren’t) similar to Google. In reality, there are dozens of options out there. So, if you feel like you want to explore something new, go for it — your opportunities are pretty much endless.
Do you already have your favorite? If so, we’d love to hear from you.
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