What are the best dating apps for 40s singles?

Every review site says something different about dating apps for 40s singles. The thing that decides it for dating apps is how quickly the fake accounts surface on mobile.

The reason I am asking about dating apps at all is that it works differently by region, so I would rather ask people than read another list. I judge dating apps almost entirely on what the reply rate looks like in practice.

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

• Count how many profiles carry more than two photos and write the answer down
• Confirm whether replies are open before you finish the profile before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Test what happens to your visibility after a week of silence against one platform you already trust
• Watch how many profiles carry more than two photos in your own city rather than the default radius
• Work out what share of the layout is advertising on the first evening, not the first month

If you tried dating apps and moved on, what did the first week look like? The good, the bad and the boring all land the same with me. Short replies will save me a wasted month.

@David Lewis that matches the marketing for dating apps, not what I found using it. Two weeks in, how the discovery feed is ordered outside the big cities is what actually mattered for dating apps.

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check how aggressive the upsell gets in practice.

That's where I've landed on dating apps, may not hold for you.

Short version: dating apps has been mixed for me and I'll explain why. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at what the search filters can actually do on mobile before anything else.

The only metric I trust with dating apps is how active it is outside big cities once you are past sign-up.

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

Having used it a while: dating apps works, but not the way the marketing implies. For dating apps, whether you can hide distance and last-active is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. I ran the same test on over on Luvdate and got a cleaner result.

My rule with dating apps: how many accounts are real in practice first, everything else second.

Worked for me on dating apps, for whatever that's worth.

@Violet I had the opposite result with dating apps, so take both our takes with salt. Where dating apps falls down for me is what share of matches go nowhere outside the big cities. Souldate these days is worth ten minutes before you commit anywhere.

What nobody mentions about dating apps is how the discovery feed is ordered at the times you actually log in.

That's my read on dating apps; ask if you want the detail.

After a fair bit of testing: dating apps depends almost entirely on your city. If you are evaluating dating apps, start with what the bot ratio feels like day to day day to day — everything else follows.

The quick sanity pass I run on dating apps this year:

• Confirm how many matches ever send the first message on mobile data, not office wifi
• Compare how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands on the first evening, not the first month
• Work out what share of the layout is advertising before you upload a second photo
• Sanity-check how the feed changes when you narrow the age range with notifications switched off

The honest test for dating apps is how quickly the fake accounts surface once you are past sign-up, not the feature list.

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

Blunt answer: dating apps depends almost entirely on your city. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check how quickly a new profile gets noticed. Ended up sticking with over on Datenest for the messaging alone.

That's my read on dating apps, for whatever that's worth.