Very unfortunate news: was looking forward to another browser based on webkit available for the Linux community. The good news is that they're at least open sourcing the code for the community.

TLDR; Kagi is ending development of Orion for Linux and Windows, but they're open-sourcing both so the community can carry them forward. Kagi is stepping back from developing these platforms directly so the team can put more focus on Orion for macOS and iOS.

Today we have an important update. We are ending development of Orion for Linux and Windows, and we're open-sourcing both so the community can carry them forward. Kagi is stepping back from developing these platforms directly so our team can put more focus on Orion for macOS and iOS.

Orion is built by a very small team, just a handful of developers, funded entirely by Kagi users. We also chose to build it the hard way by not forking Chromium. That independence matters more than ever. The web needs more than one engine, and more than one company deciding what a browser should be.

When we announced Orion for Linux, the response was overwhelming. Many of you were thrilled, tested early builds, filed bug reports, and told us how much you wanted a WebKit-based browser on Linux that respects your privacy. Thank you. That work will soon belong to everyone.

Why we're doing this When we decided to take Orion beyond the Apple ecosystem, we knew it was a big bet for a small, independent company. We made it because we believe owning the whole experience beginning with the browser, matters.

Building a cross-platform browser is something usually done by companies backed by venture capital or by large open-source communities. Kagi is neither. One thing we hear often from members is that they want us focused. They're right. Rather than spread a small team across three platforms, we're putting our energy where we can do our best work and opening the rest to people who want to take it further.

What this means for Orion on macOS and iOS Orion for macOS and iOS isn't changing, except to get better. The team and resources that were split across platforms are now focused on making Orion on Apple devices faster, more stable, and more capable. Expect steady improvements in the coming months.

Download Orion for macOS Download Orion for iOS What open-sourcing looks like We'll release the source code for Orion for Linux and Orion for Windows. A lot of good work went into it, and it deserves a future even if we aren't the ones who finish it now. We're thinking about this carefully and will release details in the next 30 days.

We've also reached out to open-source foundations and organizations about long-term stewardship. To be clear about our role: Kagi won't be the core maintainer. These projects need people who want to own them.

Get involved If you're a developer, maintainer, or organization interested in stewarding Orion for Linux or Windows, we want to hear from you. Reach us at support@kagi.com.

What this means for current users Linux: The current Linux Beta will keep working, but it will stop receiving updates from Kagi after October 2, 2026. We don't recommend using it as your main browser.

Windows: We had planned to launch Orion for Windows in late 2026. That release won't come from Kagi. Instead, the code will be available for the community to build on. If you signed up for the Windows newsletter, this will be the last update you receive from that list.

Thank you To everyone who tested, reported bugs, and believed in an independent browser beyond the Apple ecosystem: thank you. You helped build something worth sharing, and we're glad to share it with the community.

Thank you for your patience, your enthusiasm, and your trust.

— the Kagi team

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[–] 68 points 5 days ago (14 children)

I read the article. They’re open sourcing the Windows and Linux versions, so the community can take over if they want to. So it will live or die based on what the community actually wants from it.

As a Mac user, it’s weird to see a company drop the other two in favour of maintaining the Mac version. I don’t use it, or Kagi, but I’m aware of both. It’s a good platform but we don’t have the users. Same with Linux, but it runs on more hardware, and bleeding the Windows market share benefits everyone, including Windows users.

As for iOS, there’s no winning the browser war there. It’s either Safari or compromise. I like Firefox, but it doesn’t/can’t do enough. DDG is good for YouTube because it blocks the ads. But mostly I just use Safari. On my Android phone, I use Firefox with uBlock Origin, naturally.

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  • [–] 32 points 5 days ago (13 children)

    very good argument for using orion on ios is that they actually support ublock...

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  • [–] 11 points 5 days ago* (6 children)

    Between Google taking a dump all over Android and this, I might actually switch to iOS after being an Android user for almost 20 years.

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  • [–] 22 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    Haha and here I am thinking about switching to graphene os. Although I’m reasonably happy with that iPhone. At least Apple is pretending to care about privacy and it is very clear from the start on what it can and can’t do. Biggest grieve for me is the keyboard, hate it and for some reason there are not many alternatives.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 days ago

    I made the switch a while ago and I’m much happier with the result. It’s far from perfect, but it’s free from the jankiness and random bullshit that comes with a Google product. At least you know what you’re getting with Apple. And the hardware is far superior and is supported for a long time.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 days ago

    Personally, I just don't see any point in developing anything for closed platforms like MacOS or iOS.

    At the end of the day, you're just making Apple more money for free, on very bad terms. They have all the control; you're just an unpaid intern.

    Who knows when Apple will stop supporting half the libraries your project relies on?

    Instead, you can develop for open platforms, which genuinely makes the world a slightly better place. In addition to you having a guarantee the project won't have to shut down overnight.

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  • [–] 57 points 5 days ago (18 children)

    Good. I use and love Kagi, but they are spread way too thin

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  • [–] 23 points 5 days ago (6 children)

    they are spread way too thin

    So they focus on macOS, the least used platform?

    I'm not in favor of Windows exclusive applications but if you only have the resources to focus on one platform, use the one with most users.

    As for the Linux version: Looked like yet another Gnome Web knockoff. A WebKit browser whose GUI actually works well on Plasma and other non-Gnome desktops would be welcome but another one of those isn't a benefit IMO

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  • [–] 2 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    I'm well aware that I can just search for this, but can anyone list a few other WebKit-based browsers on Linux?

    Obligatory, I'm running CachyOS, btw.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 days ago

    No idea who would touch this AI browser slopware.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 days ago

    I think this is the right move. They started on MacOS. They expanded to Linux and Win for reasons that were unclear (to me). If they can't keep all three going, open-sourcing the code is appropriate. If people want to keep going, awesome. If not, well… And they refocus their resources to the platform that they presumably consider their primary home, else they wouldn't have started with MacOS first.

    I have Orion installed and occasionally use it. But I'm also a browser junky and can't resist trying every new browser I read about. (I'm posting this from the recently announced Search browser and it's using impressively low system resources. I recommend test driving it if you're curious. I'm not affiliated in any way).

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  • [–] 16 points 5 days ago (21 children)

    I canceled my Kagi subscription a few years ago when they jumped back on the AI bandwagon and saw all the resources being moved off their core product and into AI features no one asked for.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 days ago

    That is unfortunate, I was looking forward to seeing them expand beyond Apple platforms only.

    Maybe the community will take interest in it. Good on them for open sourcing it

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  • [–] 10 points 5 days ago

    Tbh Orion is not stable on macos, they shouldnt have made the stable release, it still feels like a beta product. Memory hogging is a big issue in it. I stopped using it and switched to Librewolf.

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  • [–] 13 points 5 days ago (7 children)

    why did they build from scratch instead of contributing to Firefox?

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  • [–] 26 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    Firefox is incredibly complicated. It has a ton of bugs and security problems. Instead of building from scratch, I would start with Servo.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (4 children)

    When Orion started, the Servo project was kind of dead. It wasn’t until a year later at FOSDEM, that they announced the refresh that started development up again. A great choice now, but at the time, and still today, WebKit is also a decent choice, as long as one doesn’t mind that most of its development and optimization targets the Apple ecosystem.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago

    WebKit is not starting from scratch. It goes back to KHTML which was started by KDE for their web browser back in the 90s. Apple built Safari on top of KHTML, forking the engine and creating @webkit@front-end.social. WebKit continues as an open source project, with native web integration in GNOME running through @WebKitGTK@floss.social. Ironically KDE and Konqueror stopped using WebKit, using Chromium these days. But WebKit is, at least to a degree, a natural choice for anyone interested in making an independent browser for GNOME or Mac OS.

    Blink, the engine behind Chromium, is forked from WebKit, but it's monopolizing the internet and is generally worth avoiding. I don't think anyone is able to separate Gecko from Firefox, so a Gecko-based browser would just be a Firefox fork. Meanwhile @servo@floss.social competes directly with the KHTML family of browser engines by being more flexible, but it's not ready for serious use yet. Once Servo is ready I suspect we will se a lot of independent browsers popping up.

    Contributing to Firefox doesn't make much sense these days. Mozilla, or at least Firefox, runs their own ship and have turned their back on the open source community. Those concerned about the open web are getting increasingly worried that Mozilla is not going to do a whole lot to counter Google's influence, leaving it to Google to take the internet and destroy it in any way they see fit. If Mozilla does not fight for us any more the only thing we can do is to double down on independent engines such as WebKit and Servo.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    I've been using kagi for some time and have foggy idea what orion was and why would anyone use it beyond 'it's a browser'.

    At the same time it feels really weird as in they are making it bigger then it is, there were (is?) multiple webkit based browsers that were doing fine with very small teams of mainteiners.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 days ago

    Orion on iOS is my favorite iOS browser.

    It has the ability to use Firefox and chrome extensions so you can use uBlock Origin.

    Many people would rather use Brave but I don’t trust Brave as they own an ad network.

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    [–] 7 points 5 days ago

    Sad, but makes sense. I always wondered how they could fund the dev effort for Linux/Windows.

    These comments though, whoa… it seems everyone either loves or hates Orion.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    But there’s not a good way to debug for Orion on mobile without using the Kagi browser and Orion on iOS does behave differently than Safari even though in the US they are both built on WebKit

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