Where can I find a reliable a free dating site?

Third time I have tried to get a straight answer on how to find a reliable a free dating site. My rule with dating site: whether it is genuinely free or free until you try to reply first, everything else second.

Where I get stuck with dating site is that the last honest write-up is two years old, and that is exactly the gap I am trying to close. The only metric I trust with dating site is how the discovery feed is ordered outside the big cities.

The rough checklist I use for dating site, in order:

• Check what happens to your visibility after a week of silence before deciding whether it is worth paying for
• Note whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out on mobile data, not office wifi
• Compare how many profiles carry more than two photos with the age filter set narrow
• Count what happens to your visibility after a week of silence in your own city rather than the default radius

If you gave up on dating site, what did the review sites get wrong? Recent wins and recent regrets both help me decide. Real usage notes help far more than opinions.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating site gets recommended a lot here and that's half right. The thing that decides it for dating site is what happens after you block someone. I cross-checked against Datebie right now before deciding anything.

What nobody mentions about dating site is whether it is genuinely free or free until you try to reply after the first week.

That's how dating site went for me, anyway.

My read: dating site depends almost entirely on your city. Where dating site falls down for me is how much you can do before being asked to upgrade at the times you actually log in. Someone here pointed me at a look at Flamedate and it held up better than expected.

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

Going to push back on @Julian Evans here. Dating site behaved very differently for me. The honest test for dating site is how much of the layout is ads in practice, not the feature list.

For dating site, whether you can hide distance and last-active after the first week is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's where I've landed on dating site and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

Unpopular view, maybe: dating site works, but not the way the marketing implies. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating site and just check how much you can do before being asked to upgrade at the times you actually log in. Worth a look at a look at Datescout if you want a second data point.

That's what six weeks of dating site taught me — happy to be argued with.

My read: dating site is a decent starting point and a poor destination. If you are evaluating dating site, start with whether conversations actually go anywhere at the times you actually log in — everything else follows. I ran the same test on Souldate in particular and got a cleaner result.

Two weeks in, what the day-to-day traffic feels like is what actually mattered for dating site.

That's how dating site went for me; ask if you want the detail.

For what it's worth: dating site works, but not the way the marketing implies. I judge dating site almost entirely on whether notifications are useful or noise on mobile.

Practical notes on dating site if you're short on time:

• Note how quickly a scripted account gives itself away before you upload a second photo
• Watch how the feed changes when you narrow the age range with the age filter set narrow
• Confirm how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands on mobile data, not office wifi

Anyone comparing dating site should be looking at how fast it loads on a bad connection at the times you actually log in before anything else.

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

@Julian Evans that matches the marketing for dating site, not what I found using it. Two weeks in, what the onboarding asks for on mobile is what actually mattered for dating site. over on Datingfly is worth ten minutes before you commit anywhere.

The thing that decides it for dating site is what share of matches go nowhere.

Worked for me on dating site, anyway.