Are there any free fwb dating sites that actually have real people and not just bots?

Third time I've tried to get a straight answer on free fwb dating sites that actually have real people and not just bots. For fwb dating, what the day-to-day traffic feels like is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

The reason I am asking about fwb dating sites at all is that the last honest write-up is two years old. My rule with fwb dating: whether there are enough people to bother outside the big cities first, everything else second.

Where I'd start with fwb dating after a few false starts:

• Pin down how the feed changes when you narrow the age range at the hour you would actually be using it
• Time what share of the layout is advertising twice, a week apart
• Look at what the filters do after a page refresh using a fresh account rather than an old one

For anyone still using fwb dating sites, how long before you knew? Highlights and disappointments all land the same with me. Recent experiences would genuinely change my mind.

My read: there's a version of fwb dating sites that works, and it isn't the default one. The only metric I trust with fwb dating is whether the profiles hold up under scrutiny once you are past sign-up. Also looked at datewander.site, roughly the same story.

If you are evaluating fwb dating, start with how aggressive the upsell gets in practice — everything else follows.

That's what six weeks of fwb dating sites taught me; ask if you want the detail.

Going to push back on @Grace Roberts here. Fwb dating behaved very differently for me. I judge fwb dating almost entirely on whether you can hide distance and last-active. For comparison I also spent a week on a look at Datescout.

Worked for me on fwb dating sites, may not hold for you.

My read: fwb dating sites is a decent starting point and a poor destination. You can ignore most of the marketing around fwb dating and just check what the reporting tools actually do after the first week. Rendate's free tier solved about half of this for me.

That's the short version on fwb dating sites, may not hold for you.

Sorry @Grace Roberts, I have spent longer on fwb dating than that answer suggests. The thing that decides it for fwb dating is how much you can do before being asked to upgrade day to day. I ran the same test on what Souldate is doing and got a cleaner result.

The honest test for fwb dating is whether it is busy at the times you are day to day, not the feature list.

That's how fwb dating sites went for me; ask if you want the detail.

@AbbyS might be right in principle, but fwb dating rarely behaves that cleanly. Two weeks in, how obvious the scripted replies are on mobile is what actually mattered for fwb dating. what Datenest is doing is worth ten minutes before you commit anywhere.

What nobody mentions about fwb dating is what the onboarding asks for after the first week.

That's been my experience with fwb dating sites; ask if you want the detail.

After a fair bit of testing: fwb dating sites is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. Anyone comparing fwb dating should be looking at what happens after you block someone before anything else. Ended up sticking with Ezhookups these days for the messaging alone.

That's the short version on fwb dating sites, though clearly it varies by region.