I can't say I'm liking DDG. The first page gives me the same domain links. Like when I search for "eye washing gifs", the first three links is the same website. Where I'd expect it to give me three separate websites (and combine searches).
I've been dogfooding Searxng for a week or so now and I'm sold on it over DDG and certainly over Google. Besides good results out of the box and being selfhosted so I have some search privacy (sorta), you can tune it to get better results for your particular situation.
Setup was a quick docker compose and env file, and then add it to FF with a rightclick on the URL bar to set it up in my search engines.
i am using a public instance right now, might host one in the future. its just been two days since i started using it and i am still trying to get accustomed to it.