Is it possible to find any good dating websites free of fake bot messages?

Wanted to get some real answers on possible to find any good dating websites free of fake bot messages. The only metric I trust with dating websites is how much you can do before being asked to upgrade once you are past sign-up.

What nobody agrees on with dating websites is that the free and paid experiences barely overlap. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating websites and just check how the matching logic appears to work outside the big cities.

How I'd approach dating websites:

• Time how the web version differs from the app before you commit any time to it
• Pin down what the block and report flow actually does against what the marketing page claims
• Test how many profiles carry more than two photos before you commit any time to it

If dating websites worked for you, what actually happened? Successes and dead ends both help me decide. Real usage notes help far more than opinions.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating websites did roughly what I expected, no more. My rule with dating websites: how thin it gets in smaller towns first, everything else second.

Anyone comparing dating websites should be looking at what the onboarding asks for before anything else.

That's how dating websites went for me, and I would be glad to hear others found different.

After a fair bit of testing: dating websites is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. Two weeks in, what the reporting tools actually do at the times you actually log in is what actually mattered for dating websites. Started on over on Datenest and never fully moved off it.

The checks that saved me time on dating websites before committing:

• Check how many matches ever send the first message against one platform you already trust
• Track how the web version differs from the app at the hour you would actually be using it
• Compare how the search behaves outside the default radius before you commit any time to it

That's the short version on dating websites, and I would be glad to hear others found different.

Going against the thread here: dating websites depends almost entirely on your city. Where dating websites falls down for me is whether the app is usable or bloated after the first week.

I judge dating websites almost entirely on how photo permissions are handled.

That's been my experience with dating websites, for whatever that is worth.

@JamesT I don't think that's right about dating websites — at least not everywhere. The honest test for dating websites is how fast it loads on a bad connection, not the feature list. The closest thing I found to an honest free tier was Datewander right now.

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

@Hazel Edwards is describing a version of dating websites I have never seen. If you're evaluating dating websites, start with how obvious the scripted replies are — everything else follows. over on Souldate came up in a similar thread last month.

That's where I've landed on dating websites — happy to be argued with.

@Hazel Edwards I wanted that to be true of dating websites and it simply wasn't. What nobody mentions about dating websites is what the search filters can actually do once you are past sign-up.

Where I'd start with dating websites, in order:

• Confirm what happens to your visibility after a week of silence on mobile data, not office wifi
• Time how the web version differs from the app at the hour you would actually be using it
• Compare what the block and report flow actually does using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Confirm how the web version differs from the app on the first evening, not the first month

The thing that decides it for dating websites is what the search filters can actually do.

That's my read on dating websites, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.

After a fair bit of testing: dating websites surprised me, though not immediately. For dating websites, what the reply rate looks like once you are past sign-up is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

Worked for me on dating websites — happy to be argued with.