Morse vs Duck.ai: who reads your prompt, where history lives, and what each costs

The Morse teamPublished November 1, 2026Facts checked November 1, 20269 min read

In Morse vs Duck.ai, both hide who you are from GPT and Claude, and they part ways on who reads the words. As of November 1, 2026, Duck.ai needs no account and passes your prompt, minus your IP address, to OpenAI, Anthropic, or Mistral's host, who read it under contract. Morse does the same in Anonymous mode, and adds E2EE chats your own browser verifies before sending, open-weight models on hosts that keep nothing, and history stored encrypted in your browser. Choose Duck.ai if you want no account and a VPN in the same subscription; choose Morse if you want to decide, chat by chat, whether any provider reads your words at all.

On November 1, 2026, we read DuckDuckGo's Duck.ai help pages, its Duck.ai privacy terms (last updated October 1, 2026), its general privacy policy (last updated June 3, 2026), and its subscription help, and set each line beside Morse's own facts. Duck.ai asks for no sign-in, removes your IP address before any provider sees a request, bars every provider from training on your chats, and runs two free models in a trusted execution environment. This page goes attribute by attribute between the two. For more options, see Duck.ai alternatives; for Duck.ai's retention terms in detail, our comparison with Lumo and Brave Leo.

Morse vs Duck.ai at a glance

As of November 1, 2026. Every Duck.ai cell comes from DuckDuckGo's own pages, linked below and in the two pages above.

Verdict by attribute. Morse wins on who reads your words, who checks the enclave, refusals, model range, and a free allowance you can count. Duck.ai wins on needing no account at all and on bundling a VPN. They tie on training, which neither allows, and come close on history, which both keep on your device.

What does each one send with your prompt?

Duck.ai sends a few details along with your prompt, and none of them names you. DuckDuckGo says requests to Anthropic, OpenAI, and together.ai, which hosts Mistral, include "Today's date," "Your timezone," and a "Preferred unit system based on global region," worked out "without saving your actual IP or precise location" (DuckDuckGo).

The same page describes an optional setting, Use Approximate Location, "turned off by default," lets Duck.ai "privately share your city-level location with AI model providers," with your IP address still stripped. If you turned it on for local answers, the provider now knows your city along with your words, so leave it off for anything you wouldn't want tied to a place. DuckDuckGo also keeps topic labels from a random sample of messages, described in Duck.ai alternatives.

Morse's Anonymous mode removes your account, email, and IP address and sends the message under Morse's own account, so the provider gets your words without knowing it's you. Morse has no advertising trackers or third-party analytics. For what stripping identity hides and what it doesn't, see how to use ChatGPT anonymously.

Who can read your words?

On Duck.ai, the provider of the model you pick reads the prompt, under a contract to delete it, except on the two Tinfoil models, which run in an enclave. The retention terms and their exceptions are laid out in our three-way comparison.

On Morse, it depends on the mode you choose. In E2EE, your browser checks the enclave's hardware attestation against versions pinned in the app, then encrypts the message so only that enclave can read it, and Morse's servers relay ciphertext they can't read. How to verify AI enclave attestation explains what such a check proves.

Where does your chat history live?

On your device, on both. Duck.ai keeps up to 100 recent chats locally, with optional Sync & Backup encrypted on DuckDuckGo's servers, and pinned chats survive the Fire Button that clears the rest (DuckDuckGo).

Morse stores chat history, Studio images, characters you make, and settings in your browser, encrypted, and locks them when you sign out. Unlocking takes two keys, one that never leaves the device and one Morse's server gives you at sign-in, so a copy of the browser data alone can't be read. Clearing the browser or losing the device deletes the chats, and Morse can't recover them, so keep a copy of anything you need.

Which one refuses more?

Duck.ai passes on each provider's moderation, and its terms bar sexually explicit use and regulated advice; Duck.ai alternatives quotes the rules.

On Morse's paid plans, you can pick an unfiltered model for the answers other apps refuse: dark fiction, straight medical and legal answers, and help testing your own security. The Free plan's models aren't unfiltered. What an uncensored AI model is explains how these models differ.

Which models does each offer?

Duck.ai has six free models, two more on Plus, and two more on Pro (DuckDuckGo). DuckDuckGo's own pages disagree on which Claude Opus Pro includes. Its chat models page and privacy page name Claude Opus 5.5, while its plan comparison and subscription pages name "Claude Opus 4.8" (DuckDuckGo; DuckDuckGo). If Opus is why you'd pay, check the model menu before you subscribe. Files, voice, and images on Duck.ai are covered in the alternatives page's section on what Duck.ai can do.

Morse bundles over 30 models in one account, including DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, and Grok, none of which Duck.ai's model page lists. It adds Characters, for roleplay and companion chats, and Studio, for images. Files you attach are sent with the message and never stored by Morse. E2EE chats run open-weight models with no web search or image generation, so start a Private chat when you need those.

What does each cost?

Duck.ai's free tier has a daily limit with no published number, and its larger models come only in a subscription with a VPN: Plus at $9.99 a month and Pro at $19.99 in the US (DuckDuckGo). The limits and the bundle are covered in Duck.ai alternatives.

Morse Free is 15 messages a day with GPT-6 Luna, Claude Haiku 5.5, GLM 5.3 Flash, and more, 3 images a day, and web search, with no card. Pro is $19 a month, or $17 billed yearly, and includes unlimited Pro models such as Claude Sonnet 5.5, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, and Grok 4.7, E2EE chats, unfiltered models, memory across chats, and 250 credits a month for frontier models. Max is $49 a month.

Set side by side, Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $9.99 a month on Duck.ai Plus and $19 on Morse Pro. The extra buys E2EE chats your browser checks, unfiltered models, and more open-weight models in Private mode; the Duck.ai price buys a VPN. Free private AI chat sets both free tiers beside the others.

What could each hand over to a court?

Very little, on either, for different reasons. DuckDuckGo's privacy policy says "it's not possible for us to provide search, chat, or browsing histories linked to you in response to legal requests," and that if compelled it would give "the very limited personal information that we might have," such as a newsletter subscriber's email (DuckDuckGo). Duck.ai's free tier has no account, so there's no name or email behind a chat at all.

Morse's account holds your sign-in details, plan, balance, and a usage ledger with no message content, and Morse's servers don't keep messages or log what you write. Because we don't store chats, we usually have very little to give authorities. The provider that reads your prompt is a separate question on both: Duck.ai's providers may keep chats where law requires, and in Morse's Anonymous mode the provider may keep a message for a limited time to check for abuse, without knowing it's you. Can AI chats be subpoenaed covers how courts reach them.

Where Duck.ai is better

• No account at all. Duck.ai's free tier needs no sign-in. Morse lets you try one chat without an account, but keeping chats takes an emailed code or Google.
• One bill for AI and a VPN. If you'd pay for a VPN anyway, Plus at $9.99 covers both, plus Identity Theft Restoration.
• Voice and files without a subscription. Duck.ai takes images, PDFs, voice chat, and dictation on its free tier.
• History on more than one device. Sync & Backup merges chats across your devices, encrypted.
• Built into DuckDuckGo. It sits in DuckDuckGo search and the DuckDuckGo browser, and you can hide it there if you'd rather not see it.

How Morse lets you choose who reads each chat

On Duck.ai, every chat except those with its two enclave models takes the same route: a relay, then a provider bound by contract. On Morse, you pick the route for each chat.

• E2EE, for a chat no provider should read. Your browser checks the enclave's proof before anything leaves your device, seals the message for that enclave only, and decrypts the reply only in your browser. Each E2EE reply has a lock you can open to see every check that passed, and a full report you can download. The guarantee rests on the enclave hardware and attestation working as designed. E2EE comes with Pro.
• Anonymous, for the GPT, Claude, and Gemini you'd use on Duck.ai. The provider sees the message without knowing it's you, and may keep it for a limited time to check for abuse, under its own policy, so leave your name and identifying details out.
• Private, for DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, and Grok. Morse has zero data retention agreements with its inference, search, and other providers, so they keep nothing. Where a provider confirms zero retention on each reply, Morse checks it and refuses a reply that doesn't. Private is the default for a new chat.

A health question you'd never want read goes in E2EE. A coding question for Claude goes in Anonymous, without your name in it. A long draft for DeepSeek goes in Private. In every mode, your history stays in your browser, encrypted. Morse doesn't train AI on your content, sell your data, or show ads (privacy policy).

Choose Duck.ai or Morse

• Choose Duck.ai if you want AI with no account, voice chat on the free tier, Sync & Backup across devices, or a subscription that also covers a VPN.
• Choose Morse if you want E2EE chats your own browser verifies, GPT and Claude with your identity stripped, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, and Grok on hosts that keep nothing, unfiltered models on paid plans, and a free allowance with a number on it.

Try a chat from the home page without an account, or start free with 15 messages a day and no card.

Morse publishes this comparison. We've tried to keep it fair; if something's wrong or out of date, email hello@trymorse.ai.

DuckDuckGo and Duck.ai are trademarks of Duck Duck Go, Inc. Morse is not affiliated with or endorsed by Duck Duck Go, Inc.