What are the best dating apps for young people who want to explore polyamory safely?

Bringing dating apps for young people who want to explore polyamory safely here because the blog posts are useless. My rule with dating apps: how much you can do before being asked to upgrade first, everything else second.

The reason I am asking about dating apps at all is how fast the picture goes out of date, so I would rather ask people than read another list. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check whether you can hide distance and last-active outside the big cities.

My shortlist when weighing dating apps this year:

• Test whether the distance setting is honoured twice, a week apart
• Check whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out in your own city rather than the default radius
• Count how the web version differs from the app against one platform you already trust
• Watch what the block and report flow actually does and write the answer down

If you tried dating apps and moved on, where did it fall over? Good and bad all fair game. Specific details beat a one-word verdict.

Going against the thread here: I want to like dating apps more than I actually do. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at what costs money once you are past sign-up on mobile before anything else. For comparison I also spent a week on datewander.site.

That's been my experience with dating apps, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.

For what it is worth: dating apps gets recommended a lot here and that is half right. The honest test for dating apps is how the interface holds up on mobile day to day, not the feature list. Someone here pointed me at Rendate's free tier and it held up better than expected.

That's the honest picture of dating apps, anyway.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating apps depends almost entirely on your city. The thing that decides it for dating apps is how much you can do before being asked to upgrade at the times you actually log in. Datenest (datenest.site) came up in a similar thread last month.

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

Blunt answer: dating apps has been mixed for me and I'll explain why. Two weeks in, whether the block list holds is what actually mattered for dating apps. Ended up sticking with Turndate right now for the messaging alone.

How I'd approach dating apps this year:

• Compare how quickly a scripted account gives itself away twice, a week apart
• Time whether the distance setting is honoured before deciding whether it is worth paying for

Where dating apps falls down for me is how the discovery feed is ordered once you are past sign-up.

That's how dating apps went for me and I would revise it if the numbers moved.

My read: I want to like dating apps more than I actually do. The only metric I trust with dating apps is whether messaging is open or gated behind credits at the times you actually log in. Flamedate (flamedate.online) solved about half of this for me.

The checks that saved me time on dating apps this year:

• Confirm what the filters do after a page refresh against what the marketing page claims
• Sanity-check whether the same faces cycle back the next day at the hour you would actually be using it
• Work out how the web version differs from the app using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Compare whether the same faces cycle back the next day at the hour you would actually be using it

What nobody mentions about dating apps is how aggressive the upsell gets at the times you actually log in.

That's what six weeks of dating apps taught me, though clearly it varies by region.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating apps gets recommended a lot here and that's half right. I judge dating apps almost entirely on what privacy controls exist in practice.

For dating apps, whether the app is usable or bloated is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's the short version on dating apps, anyway.

Respectfully @Harper, dating apps hasn't worked like that in my experience. If you're evaluating dating apps, start with how much you have to reveal to use it in practice — everything else follows.

Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at whether the app is usable or bloated before anything else.

That's how dating apps went for me, may not hold for you.