This is a follow-up to my post about Google Alternatives that I wrote in 2022 and kept updating it ever since, but it didn't get enough likes and views yet, I guess.
Google as a search engine 🔎
- Ecosia
- DuckDuckGo 🦆
- Wolfram Alpha
- startpage.com (thanks @patricktingen) for suggesting!)
- MetaGer (German non-profit meta search engine) 🇩🇪
- (Meta)Searx (thanks @vivekkj)
- Qwant (thanks @dlepenven)
- Bing by Microsoft
- using site search forms and browsing documentation sites and man pages
- Perplexity, if you prefer even more AI
Maps and Navigation 🗺️
- Treeday.net 🌳
- Open Street Map
- OsmAnd (Open Street Map Android client with offline option)
- mapy.cz (also based on Open Street Map, with a very useful Android app, especially for hiking in Europe) 🇨🇿
- maps.me ("maps with me")
- Sygic 🇨🇿
- bike citizens 🚲
- komoot (German) hiking community with navigation option
Calendar, Contact Sync, Documents 📅
- owncloud ☁️
- Nextcloud (thanks @vivekkj) ☁️
- WEchange.de 🇩🇪
- cal.com (formerly known as Calendso)
- Mega.NZ (thanks @webbureaucrat) 🇳🇿
- skiff.org
- Disroot.org
- Proton mail / calendar
- LibreOffice + Thunderbird 🐦 (offline *)
(*) 2026 Update: Last, but not, least, don't forget local software. No, it's not in the cloud, but you can upload and exchange documents. And your data is still there when you don't have a network connection.
P.S. Don't ask yourself why you might need a Google Alternative. It's 2026 and here are 26 Google Alternatives that every developer MUST use in 2026! But if you do, my original post about Google Alternatives has more background and even more alternatives.
Seriously, in 2026, there are more reasons than ever for not relying on U.S. American software and service providers. Apart from ethical considerations against the so-called broligarchy, political tensions and trade wars between former allies make business owners and managers look for more reliable alternatives to Google and other American companies.
Top comments (16)
If we have learnt one thing from history, its CHANGE!! If not for change, companies like Kodak, Blackberry, Nokia, Xerox, IBM, Blockbuster, Cisco would have been the ruling the world today. So, thanks to the AI wave, we might be looking at an alternate very soon. One of them from this list could be a big possibility. Perplexity, ChatGPT are at the top of the list....
AI is disruptive, but it's not a search engine.
Yesterday I found a site targeting European alternatives, european-alternatives.eu. It are not only Google alternatives.
Google is only one of the organizations beyond our control that we still rely on, Meta is another example. Ideally, every alternative should be open-source, but often commercial solutions look nicer and appeal to the average non-techy user.
Wikipedia is of course always wonderful for most information related things. Great list!
A couple of years I go I changed to DuckDuckGo, Brave and proton solutions.
Issues of Google as a search engine: results get worse, allegedly on purpose to keep users "engaged" beyond "top" results, unsolicited "AI" results that are often wrong and misleading and always a waste of resources, plus collecting user data and collaborating with dubious American services and agencies. Issues of Google as a docs/sheets/cloud and as an AI provider similarly wasting precious resources and spying on users to produce mediocre and misleading output.
But, however, what is the alternative? Alternative search engine often provide less accurate results. Alternative cloud suites don't integrate comfortably with the Android ecosystem across devices. At least, alternative AI providers promise more helpful answers and there are European, Asian and Arabic providers that don't send user data to the USA at least.
Searching 🔍:
Webcrawler
I feel like Perplexity is getting really close to competing with Google (especially with endless follow-ups) and you know, google is just flooded with ads these days.
Perplexity had a promising start but I feel that it's currently the most unreliable AI stubbornly insisting on made-up facts throughout a session.
I commented that a year ago 😂 I have heard many people say that but I don’t feel the same about my perplexity pro. but I still cross-check the facts myself whenever it feels fishy
A few years ago, I never would have thought that anything could replace Google. Tech moves so fast :)
Honestly Kagi is a good option, especially if you struggle when trying to find results.
I use the professional plan since I wouldn't use the extra features of the Ultimate, and usually do about 800-1100 searches per month
I found myself utilising more and more chatgpt or deepseek instead of a search.
Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.