As an alternative for both, try searXNG.

https://searx.space/ for instances.

https://github.com/searxng/searxng for the code, you can run your own instance.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SearXNG for the wikipedia article.

Personally, I find it returns much better results than anything currently available elsewhere. It reminds me of a time when search actually worked. Also, no ads and no tracking.

BTW, different instances can supply poorer results than others, so shop around to find the best one for you.

Startpage=proxy Google
DuckDuckGo=proxy Bing

I know it's a controversial take around these parts, but I've fallen in love with Kagi.

If I had to rank search engines by results, in my opinion/experience:

Kagi > Brave > Startpage/Google > DDG/Ecosia/Bing

Kagi/Brave/Startpage/DDG all offer privacy to some degree. I haven't really fucked with SearXNG though I'm sure its awesome.

I’ve been using Brave Search with Zen browser. Pretty good.

I'm more biased against Google than against Microsoft, and as mentioned in another comment, the search engines are proxies of the respective companies, so it's hard to give an objective opinion.

Now, what I would suggest, trying to be as neutral as possible, is to test both and see which fit your needs more. After that, use mainly the better one and keep the other as a fallback option.

I use several search engines. All have their + and -. As main search I use Andi, apart Startpage, Mojeek, Whoogle, Ghostery Search, Groot and some others, apart some specific ones, like Forums, Pixabay, Wolphram Alpha,, etc., I find what I'm searching for. Multisearch engines are fine, but they don't show the same results of the engines which API's they use. Apart of privacy, it's mayby more important to avoid search engines which logs the searh history, because the filter bubble effect, causing an biased information.

Ddg have AI and its bad. Startpage still being a google API. I consider SP because you can run it completly without javascript