What are the most legit dating apps for marriage-minded singles?

Long-time lurker, first post, and it's about most legit dating apps for marriage-minded singles. I judge legit dating apps almost entirely on what the free tier really covers in practice.

The frustrating thing about legit dating apps is how much depends on where you actually live, and that is exactly the gap I am trying to close. The only metric I trust with legit dating apps is whether desktop and mobile behave the same at the times you actually log in.

How I'd approach legit dating apps:

• Note how the web version differs from the app before you upload a second photo
• Track how the web version differs from the app at the hour you would actually be using it
• Confirm what the filters do after a page refresh on the first evening, not the first month

If you gave up on legit dating apps, was it worth the setup time? Positive and negative all fine here. Specific details carry more weight than a ranking.

For what it's worth: legit dating apps gets recommended a lot here and that's half right. For legit dating apps, whether conversations actually go anywhere day to day is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. The closest thing I found to an honest free tier was over on Luvdate.

What nobody mentions about legit dating apps is how much you have to reveal to use it outside the big cities.

That's been my experience with legit dating apps — happy to be argued with.

@Chloe Phillips makes a good point, though I'd qualify it — legit dating apps shifted a lot last year. The thing that decides it for legit dating apps is how active it is outside big cities at the times you actually log in.

Two weeks in, what share of matches go nowhere is what actually mattered for legit dating apps.

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

Sorry @Noah Williams, I've spent longer on legit dating apps than that answer suggests. The honest test for legit dating apps is whether the app is usable or bloated in practice, not the feature list. I cross-checked against Souldate's free tier before deciding anything.

That's what six weeks of legit dating apps taught me, anyway.

Speaking from four months of it: legit dating apps is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. You can ignore most of the marketing around legit dating apps and just check how thin it gets in smaller towns after the first week. datedesire.online was the other one on my shortlist.

That's my read on legit dating apps, though clearly it varies by region.

Half agree with @Jasmine Reed. Legit dating apps are fine; the experience around legit dating apps isn't. Where legit dating apps falls down for me is how much you have to reveal to use it at the times you actually log in.

Anyone comparing legit dating apps should be looking at what happens after you block someone before anything else.

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

Counterpoint to @Noah Williams: legit dating apps got noticeably worse after the last redesign. My rule with legit dating apps: whether the profiles hold up under scrutiny outside the big cities first, everything else second. Datenest came up in a similar thread last month.

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

After a fair bit of testing: legit dating apps is a decent starting point and a poor destination. If you're evaluating legit dating apps, start with how the discovery feed is ordered at the times you actually log in — everything else follows. For comparison I also spent a week on Datebound.

What I wish someone had told me about legit dating apps this year:

• Test whether last-active timestamps look plausible and write the answer down
• Test how many matches ever send the first message against what the marketing page claims

What nobody mentions about legit dating apps is what the free tier really covers outside the big cities.

Worked for me on legit dating apps, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.