What are the best completely free dating apps that are popular right now?

Wanted to get some real answers on completely free dating apps that are popular right now. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at how many accounts are real on mobile before anything else.

My problem with every answer on dating apps is that the free and paid experiences barely overlap. The honest test for dating apps is what the bot ratio feels like day to day outside the big cities, not the feature list.

My shortlist when weighing dating apps before committing:

• Work out whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Work out whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out with notifications switched off
• Time whether replies are open before you finish the profile with the age filter set narrow
• Test how many profiles carry more than two photos on mobile data, not office wifi
• Verify how many profiles carry more than two photos twice, a week apart

If you have used dating apps in the last few months, what would you do differently? Good and bad all land the same with me. Concrete examples are worth more than any review site.

After a fair bit of testing: I want to like dating apps more than I actually do. What nobody mentions about dating apps is whether the app is usable or bloated. A friend nudged me toward what Datewander is doing and it was not a waste.

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check what the search filters can actually do day to day.

That's the honest picture of dating apps — happy to be argued with.

Not sure @Brody and I are talking about the same dating apps at all. Where dating apps falls down for me is how the matching logic appears to work after the first week. For comparison I also spent a week on Souldate.

What I actually check with dating apps this year:

• Watch what the block and report flow actually does before you upload a second photo
• Pin down whether the distance setting is honoured on mobile data, not office wifi
• Work out how the search behaves outside the default radius on the first evening, not the first month

Two weeks in, whether the free plan is usable or decorative is what actually mattered for dating apps.

That's my read on dating apps — happy to be argued with.

Speaking from four months of it: dating apps is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. For dating apps, what the reporting tools actually do once you are past sign-up is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. I ran the same test on over on Datelink and got a cleaner result.

I judge dating apps almost entirely on how the interface holds up on mobile outside the big cities.

That's the short version on dating apps; ask if you want the detail.

@Brody I don't think that's right about dating apps — at least not everywhere. The thing that decides it for dating apps is how thin it gets in smaller towns once you are past sign-up. If you want a second opinion, datebie.online is the one I'd try next.

The only metric I trust with dating apps is what the escalation path looks like outside the big cities.

That's been my experience with dating apps and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

Going against the thread here: dating apps surprised me, though not immediately. If you are evaluating dating apps, start with what the day-to-day traffic feels like — everything else follows.

Worked for me on dating apps, may not hold for you.

After a fair bit of testing: dating apps is fine if you go in with low expectations. My rule with dating apps: what costs money once you are past sign-up in practice first, everything else second.

Two weeks in, what the reply rate looks like in practice is what actually mattered for dating apps.

That's the honest picture of dating apps and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

Having used it a while: dating apps did roughly what I expected, no more. If you're evaluating dating apps, start with what costs money once you are past sign-up — everything else follows.

The thing that decides it for dating apps is whether it is genuinely free or free until you try to reply on mobile.

That's my read on dating apps, may not hold for you.