Uruky (EU-based Kagi alternative) now has Image Search and URL Rewrites
You can get a 2h free trial by solving a proof-of-work captcha when topping up your account for the first time.If you'd like to learn more, an independent interview was posted a couple of weeks ago [1], and the FAQ [2] has a lot of information as well.For the source code sharing, we've talked with lawyers and are inclined to no longer require the NDA/NCC for privacy reasons shared with us before (signing requires identification), but instead use a source-available permissive license that doesn't allow competition, like PolyForm Shield [3] (we do still have about 6 months before finalising a decision, here).This does come with a lot more risks for us (it's harder to track down if someone publishes the code or uses it against the license), but given we've already passed 100 monthly active accounts, we're feeling more confident it's an acceptable risk.The plan is to give logged in accounts (who are 12 months old or more) a way to download a ZIP of the current code base that's in the server.Obviously there's no easy way to prove that's the case, but we're open to ideas/suggestions if someone here has them.[1]: https://theprivacydad.com/interview-with-the-engineer-of-uru...[2]: https://uruky.com/faq[3]: https://polyformproject.org/licenses/shield/1.0.0
FL score
out of 100
Verdict
medium confidence
Competition
No competitor data yet
Trend
No signal yet
EU privacy-focused search engine with image search and URL rewriting, positioning against Kagi with source-available licensing and proof-of-work onboarding.
The pain
The gap
Build angle
Strengths
- Founder has technical credibility and transparency (published interview, public roadmap)
- EU regulatory tailwind, GDPR, DMA, and privacy sentiment favor local alternatives
- Proof-of-work onboarding is novel friction that may filter for committed users and reduce bot abuse
- Source-available licensing (PolyForm Shield) balances transparency with competitive moat
- Image search + URL rewriting show feature parity thinking vs Kagi
Risks
- 100 MAU is pre-product-market fit scale. No evidence of paid conversion rate, churn, or LTV. Could be 100 free-trial users who never pay.
- Kagi already owns the 'paid search' narrative and has 100k+ users. Uruky is a direct clone with smaller network effects and brand recognition.
- Source code release in 6 months creates existential risk: competitors fork it, or users wait for free version instead of paying. Licensing enforcement is hard.
- Proof-of-work captcha is a UX tax. If it's annoying, it kills conversion. If it's trivial, it doesn't stop abuse.
- No clear go-to-market beyond 'privacy + EU + open source.' Kagi has the same positioning. What makes Uruky win?
- Search is a scale game. Crawling, indexing, and ranking cost money. Unclear if 100 MAU generates enough revenue to sustain infrastructure.
- Founder is solo or very small team. Scaling search requires hiring. No evidence of funding or runway.
Fly Labs Method
Is the pain real, is there a gap, is it the right time, can one person build it.
Value Equation
Dream outcome and how likely it feels, against the time and effort it costs.
One-Person Business
Curiosity pull, identity fit, and a path from free value to paid for a solo creator.
Viral Frameworks
Hook strength, shareability, and how cheaply it can be tested.
Builder Lens
Evidence the problem exists, timing, defensibility, and a model that fits on a napkin.
Five lenses, one composite. How scoring works
The angle
No market research recorded for this idea yet.
Semble – Code search for agents that uses 98% fewer tokens than grep
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Postgres extension for BM25 relevance-ranked full-text search
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Consus (YC F24) – LLM gateway for companies handling sensitive data
Hey Hacker News! I'm Eric, the founder of Consus. We route all AI requests to ITAR restricted and controlled unclassified information (CUI) compliant infrastructure. Consus itself satisfies ITAR restrictions, and we recently completed our FedRAMP equivalency audit against the 410 FedRAMP High controls. FedRAMP High is the U.S. government’s strictest security baseline for cloud services handling sensitive unclassified data. A breach of this data could cause severe or catastrophic harm. Achieving FedRAMP equivalency, or authorization, is required before processing CUI information.Demo: https://youtu.be/6MYxJe6P4oYAerospace and defense is experiencing rapid growth. Unfortunately, most companies are struggling to use AI because of necessary data protections & compliance risk. These companies can move even faster if they could use the AI tools that most other industries take for granted.I spent most of my career prior to Consus in aerospace & defense. I launched national security payloads at SpaceX, and was an early employee at Castelion. I’ve watched first hand how compliance red-tape makes it difficult for companies to adopt new technologies and trust vendors that touch their sensitive data. For example, I worked with a satellite manufacturer that doesn’t allow any AI tools, even for non-sensitive work.Even as AI has become extremely useful over the past 9-12 months, I was surprised by how many aerospace & defense companies refused to touch it. They could see how it could be helpful, but they were scared about model providers training on their data, violating an ITAR rule, or risk losing new business because of a failed cyber assessment. These are all rational fears.There were a lot of ways to solve some/all of these problems, but we focused on building a compliant AI inference layer that can "plug" into any AI tool or workflow. Just as OpenRouter integrates with most tools, Consus can connect to tools like ChatGPT or Clau
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