When we are talking about search alternatives we are really talking about alternatives to bussiness model (otherwise why bother?), and Kagi is the only alternative out there in the sea of ad-supported search engines.
Of course Kagi is a real alternative. It's not Google search and you can verify that by trying searches and comparing the results you get from either engine.
It is different than say Ecosia that's pretty much just reskinned Bing.
1 ) https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm...