[darsoli]

Does this use one of the bigger search engines (Bing, Google) as an API, or is it fully custom rolled?

[chris_f]

For the organic web results, it is using Google right now, Any Deep Search results provide the specific data source at the top of the result box.

[mgreg]

While I didn't use them and have no comments on their search quality I did admire Cliqz for their ambition. They were building and running their own index until earlier this year. (https://cliqz.com/announcement.html)

They open sources some components e.g. https://github.com/cliqz-oss/keyvi.

I think any long-term search engine competitor will eventually need their own index though DDG is doing well financially so far.