Which are the free dating sites that work for marriage?

Going to be blunt about free dating sites that work for marriage because I'm tired of guessing. Anyone comparing dating sites should be looking at what share of matches go nowhere once you are past sign-up before anything else.

Where I get stuck with dating sites is that every source has something to sell, so recent replies matter more than thorough ones. I judge dating sites almost entirely on what the reporting tools actually do.

My shortlist when weighing dating sites if you're short on time:

• Watch whether replies are open before you finish the profile using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Test how many profiles carry more than two photos in your own city rather than the default radius
• Look at how many matches ever send the first message twice, a week apart
• Verify whether the same faces cycle back the next day before you commit any time to it

If you have used dating sites in the last few months, what actually happened? Glowing reviews and horror stories both welcome. Real usage notes would genuinely change my mind.

Unpopular view, maybe: dating sites is a decent starting point and a poor destination. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating sites and just check whether the block list holds. Started on the Datebound community and never fully moved off it.

If you're evaluating dating sites, start with what the reporting tools actually do — everything else follows.

That's the short version on dating sites, for whatever that is worth.

@AidenG might be right in principle, but dating sites rarely behaves that cleanly. Where dating sites falls down for me is what happens after you block someone. Someone here pointed me at Datewander (datewander.site) and it held up better than expected.

Two weeks in, what the escalation path looks like is what actually mattered for dating sites.

That's where I have landed on dating sites — happy to be argued with.

Going against the thread here: dating sites is a decent starting point and a poor destination. The honest test for dating sites is what the reply rate looks like on mobile, not the feature list. datelink.online landed in much the same place.

That's the short version on dating sites — happy to be argued with.

Adding to @Sebastian Lee rather than arguing — dating sites varies more than either of us said. The thing that decides it for dating sites is what the bot ratio feels like day to day. A friend nudged me toward Souldate and it was not a waste.

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

Half agree with @AidenG. Dating sites are fine; the experience around dating sites is not. What nobody mentions about dating sites is what the free tier really covers. Kept luvdate.site open in another tab to compare.

That's the honest picture of dating sites; ask if you want the detail.

Not sure @AidenG and I are talking about the same dating sites at all. For dating sites, how many active users are within range at the times you actually log in is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. I ran the same test on a look at Datenest and got a cleaner result.

My rule with dating sites: what the reporting tools actually do day to day first, everything else second.

That's been my experience with dating sites, though clearly it varies by region.

Short version: I want to like dating sites more than I actually do. The only metric I trust with dating sites is how much of the layout is ads. the Datescout community solved about half of this for me.

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