Welcome to Uruky, AlternativeTo's new official partner!
Following closely the arrival of our first partner, we are absolutely thrilled to announce that Uruky has joined AlternativeTo as our second official partner! This is an exciting moment for our team, as welcoming Uruky represents a powerful step forward in our mission to support a community-driven platform that helps millions of users discover new apps and find relevant alternatives. Their arrival brings a surge of energy to our ecosystem, reinforcing the idea that we are building something special together.
Why Uruky?
We are partnering with Uruky because they embody the privacy and independence we cherish. Based entirely within the EU (in Portugal, more specifically), Uruky is a private search engine that doesn't show ads, track users, or utilize analytics. They don’t store personal data like names or email addresses, requiring only an anonymous account number, similar to Mullvad. Unlike many competitors, Uruky integrates no AI features, focusing instead on pure search with personalization options to boost or exclude specific domains.
The team describes their product as “what Kagi was, originally”, boasting EU-based servers, storage, payment processing, and search providers like Marginalia and Mojeek. While not being open source, paying customers receive a full copy of the source code after 12 months of subscription, allowing for complete inspection and transparency. Despite being a newcomer, Uruky stands out as a robust alternative to major search engines cluttered with ads and sponsored content. For anyone seeking a privacy-focused, EU-based solution for both web and image search, it is a very strong and reliable choice. Uruky is available at €5 per month, with unlimited searches, and 14-day money-back guarantee.
We are incredibly happy to have Uruky on board as we continue building something valuable not just for our partners, but for the whole AlternativeTo community. Their commitment to privacy and independence mirrors our own, making them a perfect ally in our journey. If you represent a company that shares our values and are interested in becoming one of our official partners, we would love to hear from you; please reach out to us at partners@alternativeto.com.
- Web Search Engine
- Paid
- Proprietary
Comments
I dont really get the unique selling point against something like DuckDuckGo, who also does not display any AI stuff and is free? Also the 12 Month to get NDA SourceCode is really weird... So we need to trust them for 12 Months upfront? I dont see how that is in the OpenSource spirit of data sovereignty at all.
DDG has ads (AND offers AI services outside of search, which still bothers some folks), and no result down/upranking or blocking, that's the difference (also applies to kagi). the main point of receiving the source code after 12 months, i imagine, is to incentivize self-hosting it after those 12 months, so it is basically like a perpetual license in a way.
Great questions. https://uruky.com/duckduckgo-alternative goes into the main differences if you're curious.
Note the source code now won't require an NDA (to avoid identification / loss of anonymity). It'll simply become available once your account hits twelve months. It's simply a way to protect our IP a little bit more, while we're trying to see if this can become a viable business long-term.
need to get away from chrome. maybe i'll try this one
This is a really cool partnership. I like that Uruky is taking the privacy-first route without trying to force AI into everything just because it is trendy.
The anonymous account model, no ads, no tracking, and EU-based setup all sound like strong trust signals. Also really interesting that paying customers can inspect the source after 12 months.
Congrats to both AlternativeTo and Uruky. Always good to see more independent, privacy-focused tools getting proper visibility.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Imgur pulled service from the UK so here are some alternatives. I picked some that have minimal trackers and not terrible privacy policy: imgtree.co, imagur.org, imgbb.com, postimages.org, freeimage.host
Thanks for sharing! Those are image hosting services, not image search, or am I missing something?
Yes, these are image hosting services. I suggested a few in the hopes one could be used instead of imgur in the future.
I like it a lot in theory, BUT... I am dead tired of EU companies saying they are fully EU-based and then not disclosing what are their infrastructure providers. Given that the CLOUD Act and FISA 702 exist, having a physically EU-based infrastructure served by US vendors makes the claim practically meaningless. I am so big on this I think AlternativeTo should have an ad-hoc tag for it.
Hey, Uruky co-founder, here! This is something that can be easily inspected, but you're right we could share some more details. Currently we use Hetzner for the server (app, database, index, etc.), and Mollie for payments. Our search providers are also listed in the FAQ and are all EU-based, and we're upfront that Serper is the only "contentious" one we've decided to allow (UK, proxying Google), but isn't the default. Hopefully our choices are clear.
Thank you for answering and great choices! Indeed, a comprehensive sub-processor list in your privacy policy would be a great addition. I will test the product and recommend it. You are surely a better partner than the first one (which I zapped using uBO) for AlternativeTo.
Thank you for the kind words!
"what Kagi was originally" is definitely an interesting sentence, and even though I do like what they're doing overall, I'll check this out as well
While not being open source, paying customers receive a full copy of the source code after 12 months of subscription, allowing for complete inspection and transparency.
This is an interesting choice, I don't understand it but still better than fully closed. Are they sacred to build using the open source philosphy? Would this really make them loose money?
I've never heard of Uruky and will definitely give it a look 👀
You also have to sign a NDA/NCC and can only use the code for personal use (no distribution), making impossible to financially profit from the project.
As Uruky is stating on its website, it's a small team focusing only on search engine with limited resources, like Kagi when it started (and offered then a $5/mo subscription with unlimited searches), then Kagi added AI and pricing hiked (up to $25/mo) without offering a better search engine experience.
I don't see what experience Uruky could offer that would be better than other search engines (except integrating no AI), but it may struggle to get enough funding for its plans because the 5€/mo is not a subscription but a purchase to use the engine for about 30 days (hence the money back), with no possibility to automatically renew (because Uruky doesn't even store user email).
At a time where nearly all services are subscription-based, it's not necessary a bad thing, but if you've got to re-enter your credit card details every month to continue to use the search engine, it could be annoying.
You can then buy yearly and might get notification on the product itself. Like: Your subscription is coming to an end, if you want to continue using Uruky please renew your purchase.
Hi Darlene, our concerns are mostly around competition and AI scraping. We're devising a way to avoid the NDA/NCC (so you don't have to identify yourself and lose anonymity), though that'll make us less "protected" (but also give more rights to the customers); We're OK with that.
UserPower: Like Darlene said, you can buy Uruky for 360 days and only worry about paying once per year, and we're betting that we can provider a better search and personalization experience (picking search providers based on searches and preferences, tweaking the interface, etc.). We don't know if this will be sustainable long-term, but we've nearing 150 monthly active customers, which is amazing.
Sorry, but that makes no sense, either have it open source or not. Just one person paying 12 months can get "hacked" and open source it.
It becomes eventually open source. After 12 months you get a copy of the source code, licensed with BUSL into AGPLv3 after 2 years. And yes, the first person to get the source code can release the source code, but it won't be "open source" until after 2 years, and it's a copy of the code at that point in time, not the "current" code. This license was invented/popularized by MariaDB and seems to offer a good compromise of IP protection and freedom to licensees.
According to Wikipedia: "In October 2023 the Linux Foundation addressed this with an article, and used the Business Source License as the defining representation of this threat to open source."
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/how-open-source-foundations-protect-the-licensing-integrity-of-open-source-projects
So I hope that your business will be sustainable and that in the near future you will open your code publishing it under a Free /Libre license.