# Kagi Search vs Side Reader

Kagi Search records 4,647,605 monthly visits with +3.2% month-over-month growth and Free Trial, Paid pricing. Side Reader records 355 monthly visits with -36.5% growth and Freemium pricing.

| Metric | [Kagi Search](https://openaitools.app/tool/kagi-search) | [Side Reader](https://openaitools.app/tool/side-reader) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Website URL | https://kagi.com | https://www.side-reader.com |
| Categories | AI Search Engine, AI Assistant, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI Summarizer | AI PDF, AI Reader, AI Chatbot, AI PDF Summarizer |
| Pricing Model | Free Trial, Paid | Freemium |
| Monthly Visits | 4,647,605 | 355 |
| MoM Growth Rate | +3.2% | -36.5% |
| Primary Market | United States | Vietnam |
| Direct Visits | 4,381,816 | 149 |
| Review Score | 4.7 | 2.4 |
| Saved Count | 1 | 0 |
| Supported Platforms | Website | Website |

## Kagi Search

Kagi takes the familiar search box and rebuilds the incentives around it. Rather than showing ads or sponsored placements, it is funded entirely by subscriptions, which means results are ranked on relevance instead of who paid. Technically it aggregates several leading search engines, then re-ranks the combined pool and filters out spam and low-quality pages, so you get broad coverage without the clutter.

The control layer is what makes Kagi distinct. You can boost, lower, pin, or block any domain so results reflect your own judgment about trustworthy sources. Search Lenses focus a query on a category like forums, news, or academic material, bangs and snaps jump into or restrict to a specific site, and the interface itself is highly customizable, from which result sections appear to full CSS restyling.

Kagi has also grown into an ecosystem. Quick Answer and the Kagi Assistant generate responses grounded in search results, Kagi Translate handles translation, and Summarize condenses long pages. Beyond the browser, the company ships Orion Browser and related tools such as Kagi News, Maps, and Mail. Query privacy is a core promise: searches are not logged or retained after results are returned.

**Pricing & Plans:** Kagi is paid rather than ad-supported. You can run a limited number of free searches anonymously and get additional searches during a trial, after which subscription plans for individuals, families, teams, and libraries apply. Plans start at a low monthly rate, with API access and some tools billed separately. Check the pricing page for current figures.

- **Ad-free, user-funded results:** Subscriptions replace advertising, so there are no sponsored results, affiliate links, or data sales influencing what you see.
- **Boost, lower, block:** Rank any website up or down, pin favorites, or block domains entirely so your results match your own standards.
- **Quick Answer and Assistant:** Append a question mark to get an AI answer above the results, or chat with the Assistant for deeper tasks with sources included.
- **Search Lenses and bangs:** Restrict searches to categories like forums or news, or jump straight into a specific site's own search with shortcuts.
- **Privacy-first ecosystem:** Translate, Summarize, News, Maps, and the Orion Browser extend the same no-tracking, no-selling approach beyond search.

**Strengths:** Zero advertising and no tracking-based monetization of your searches; Unusually fine-grained control over ranking, sources, and interface; AI answers and summaries grounded in the search results with visible sources; A widening suite of privacy-first tools beyond the search box

**Limitations:** Requires a paid subscription for full use, unlike free ad-supported engines; Search coverage depends on the upstream engines it aggregates rather than its own index; Some ecosystem tools are newer or still rolling out compared with the core search

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/kagi-search.md)

## Side Reader

Side Reader exists to remove the friction of working with documents and AI chatbots at the same time. Normally you either paste chunks of a PDF into a chat window or juggle two tabs and lose your place. Side Reader is a Chrome extension that renders the PDF in the sidebar of ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek, so the document and the conversation sit side by side.

Once a PDF is open you use built-in action buttons to summarize, translate or explain content, and you can customize those button prompts so the AI answers in your preferred format. For content that cannot be selected — charts, infographics, scanned images — a screenshot question lets you ask about a region of the page directly. The reader itself supports zoom, page navigation and width adjustment, so it behaves like a normal PDF viewer rather than a stripped-down preview.

Privacy is handled simply: PDFs are stored locally in your browser and Side Reader does not keep your files. Because the AI work happens inside the ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek session you are already using, Side Reader adds document handling rather than a separate subscription to yet another model.

**Pricing & Plans:** Freemium. The core Chrome extension is available to install, with a paid upgrade for extended usage; check the extension listing for current limits.

- **Read PDFs beside the chat:** PDFs render directly in the sidebar next to the chat, so your document and the AI conversation are visible at the same time.
- **Summarize, translate and explain:** Summarize a whole document, translate it, or have passages explained in simpler terms using the AI you are already signed into.
- **Custom action button prompts:** Built-in buttons cover the common actions, and you can edit their prompts to make the AI respond in the format and tone you need.
- **Screenshot questions for non-selectable content:** Ask about charts, scans or regions that cannot be selected by taking a screenshot question instead.
- **Local storage and a proper reader:** Files stay local in your browser and are not stored by Side Reader, and PDFs keep zoom, page navigation and width controls.

**Strengths:** Keeps the PDF and the AI conversation visible in the same window; Works with ChatGPT, Claude and DeepSeek rather than locking you into one model; Local-only file storage — documents are not kept on Side Reader servers; Customizable action prompts for repeatable workflows

**Limitations:** Requires an active ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek session to do the AI work; Chrome only — no Firefox, Safari or Edge-specific edition; Very new/small product, so the feature set is still evolving

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/side-reader.md)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do Kagi Search and Side Reader compare in monthly traffic?

Kagi Search has 4,647,605 monthly visits, while Side Reader has 355. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality.

### How do their growth rates compare?

Kagi Search has a month-over-month growth rate of +3.2%; Side Reader has -36.5%.

### How does pricing compare?

Kagi Search: Free Trial, Paid. Kagi is paid rather than ad-supported. You can run a limited number of free searches anonymously and get additional searches during a trial, after which subscription plans for individuals, families, teams, and libraries apply. Plans start at a low monthly rate, with API access and some tools billed separately. Check the pricing page for current figures. Side Reader: Freemium. Freemium. The core Chrome extension is available to install, with a paid upgrade for extended usage; check the extension listing for current limits.

## Alternatives

| # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 | [ChatGPT](https://openaitools.app/tool/chatgpt-4) | 6,048,022,723 | +2.2% | Freemium | Delivers top-tier reasoning and web search capabilities, but lacks Kagi's dedicated focus on ad-free search results. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/chatgpt-4.md) |
| 2 | [Claude](https://openaitools.app/tool/claude-2) | 1,253,439,413 | +23.8% | Freemium | Excels at complex analysis and document interpretation, but lacks Kagi's core web search engine capabilities. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/claude-2.md) |
| 3 | [Perplexity](https://openaitools.app/tool/perplexity-ai) | 88,310,223 | -3.7% | Freemium | Stronger conversational AI answers and live web citations, but lacks Kagi's pure ad-free traditional search results. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/perplexity-ai.md) |
| 4 | [Genspark.ai](https://openaitools.app/tool/genspark-ai) | 10,215,720 | -7.9% | Freemium, Paid, Contact for Pricing | Provides advanced agentic research and multi-source synthesis, though it has a busier interface than Kagi. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/genspark-ai.md) |
| 5 | [Consensus](https://openaitools.app/tool/consensus) | 6,014,388 | -1.2% | Freemium | Specializes in searching peer-reviewed scientific literature with citations rather than general web search. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/consensus.md) |
| 6 | [SciSpace](https://openaitools.app/tool/scispace) | 4,464,111 | +8.6% | Freemium | AI research platform for reading, understanding and writing scientific papers | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/scispace.md) |
| 7 | [PDFgear](https://openaitools.app/tool/pdfgear) | 2,845,280 | -3.4% | Free | A free, AI-powered PDF editor for every device | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/pdfgear.md) |
| 8 | [Sider](https://openaitools.app/tool/sider) | 2,644,740 | -10.6% | Freemium | AI sidebar and browser agent for reading, writing and research | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/sider.md) |
| 9 | [Immersive Translate](https://openaitools.app/tool/immersive-translate) | 2,392,414 | -9.4% | Freemium, Free Trial | Bilingual AI translation for websites, documents, video and images | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/immersive-translate.md) |
| 10 | [LightPDF](https://openaitools.app/tool/lightpdf-com) | 1,742,568 | -15.3% | Freemium | Free AI-powered PDF editor, converter and reader for every device | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/lightpdf-com.md) |

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Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/kagi-search-vs-side-reader

More Markdown: [Categories](https://openaitools.app/categories.md) · [Traffic rankings](https://openaitools.app/rankings.md) · [llms.txt](https://openaitools.app/llms.txt)