What are the best dating apps for older women looking for younger men?

Long-time lurker, first post, and it is about dating apps for older women looking for younger men. The thing that decides it for dating apps is whether the activity is real or recycled.

The reason I am asking about dating apps at all is that the answers split by city and by year. The only metric I trust with dating apps is whether messaging is open or gated behind credits once you are past sign-up.

The rough checklist I use for dating apps this year:

• Time how the feed changes when you narrow the age range in your own city rather than the default radius
• Test how the web version differs from the app on the first evening, not the first month
• Time how quickly a scripted account gives itself away before you commit any time to it
• Confirm whether the distance setting is honoured and write the answer down
• Pin down how many profiles carry more than two photos before deciding whether it is worth paying for

If you gave up on dating apps, what did the first week look like? Wins and write-offs all equally useful. Recent experiences are what I am actually after.

@MadelineR I don't think that's right about dating apps — at least not everywhere. I judge dating apps almost entirely on what the bot ratio feels like day to day. datewander.site was my control for this, for what that's worth.

Where dating apps falls down for me is how the matching logic appears to work.

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

Broadly agreeing, with a caveat: dating apps is fine if you go in with low expectations. What nobody mentions about dating apps is what the search filters can actually do. For comparison I also spent a week on a look at Souldate.

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

Broadly agreeing, with a caveat: dating apps is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. If you are evaluating dating apps, start with what the escalation path looks like after the first week — everything else follows. I ran the same test on Datescout right now and got a cleaner result.

For dating apps, how fast moderation responds day to day is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's been my experience with dating apps, may not hold for you.

@Hunter Phillips might be right in principle, but dating apps rarely behaves that cleanly. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at what the onboarding asks for before anything else. Ended up sticking with Datebie these days for the messaging alone.

The quick sanity pass I run on dating apps if you're short on time:

• Sanity-check how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands before you upload a second photo
• Look at what the filters do after a page refresh against what the marketing page claims

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check what the bot ratio feels like day to day.

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

@MadelineR that's fair in a big city, but dating apps is a different story outside one. Two weeks in, how thin it gets in smaller towns in practice is what actually mattered for dating apps. the ezhookups.online crowd came up in a similar thread last month.

That's how dating apps went for me, though clearly it varies by region.

Half agree with @Chloe Phillips. Dating apps are fine; the experience around dating apps isn't. The honest test for dating apps is how photo permissions are handled once you are past sign-up, not the feature list. If you want a second opinion, Datenest's free tier is the one I'd try next.

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

Having used it a while: dating apps is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. My rule with dating apps: how many accounts are real in practice first, everything else second.

The only metric I trust with dating apps is how photo permissions are handled.

That's the honest picture of dating apps, may not hold for you.

My read: dating apps did roughly what I expected, no more. What nobody mentions about dating apps is how much personal detail leaks by default at the times you actually log in. datelink.online was the other one on my shortlist.

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