Kagi mixes many different sources, including some from their own indexes. They lean heavy into the "try to answer using an integration with a more focused oracle" rather than the "throw as many sites at the user as possible" approach.

Not in my experience. Can also block or derank domains in your result, no more quora or Pinterest.

Kagi has much better results in my experience.

I'm a Kagi user and did a couple of test searches just now. Ignoring inserts like image results and "related searches" and so on, the results were completely different.

Note that if it this were true, Kagi brings features to the table that make it worth the price. For one, it allows you to prioritize/deprioritize sites, and it allows you to block sites from all search results.

Considering that Kagis’s results are actually useful and google just brings up listicles and ads, I’d say no.

Never seen that happen and I've done hundreds of comparative searches by now.