Which are the top 5 free dating apps that don't limit your daily messages?

Third time I've tried to get a straight answer on top 5 free dating apps that don't limit your daily messages. The only metric I trust with dating apps is how quickly the fake accounts surface once you are past sign-up.

What makes dating apps hard to pin down is that the last honest write-up is two years old, so recent replies matter more than thorough ones. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating apps and just check what the reporting tools actually do.

The three things that decide dating apps if you're short on time:

• Count what happens to your visibility after a week of silence twice, a week apart
• Check how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands before you upload a second photo
• Verify whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out with notifications switched off
• Test what share of the layout is advertising on mobile data, not office wifi
• Track whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out and write the answer down

For those of you deep into dating apps, what would you do differently? Positive and negative all fine here. Recent experiences will save me a wasted month.

Half agree with @Aiden Garcia. Dating apps are fine; the experience around dating apps isn't. Anyone comparing dating apps should be looking at how clean the member base looks before anything else.

That's how dating apps went for me, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.

Going to push back on @Aiden Garcia here. Dating apps behaved very differently for me. The honest test for dating apps is what the bot ratio feels like day to day, not the feature list. For comparison I also spent a week on a look at Luvdate.

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

After a fair bit of testing: dating apps did roughly what I expected, no more. Two weeks in, how clean the member base looks is what actually mattered for dating apps. Datewander was the only one that did not gate replies.

That's the short version on dating apps, and I'd be glad to hear others found different.

Speaking from four months of it: dating apps is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. What nobody mentions about dating apps is how much of the layout is ads at the times you actually log in.

That's where I have landed on dating apps, though clearly it varies by region.

Having used it a while: dating apps gets recommended a lot here and that's half right. Where dating apps falls down for me is what happens after you block someone once you are past sign-up.

I judge dating apps almost entirely on how much you have to reveal to use it.

Worked for me on dating apps and I'd revise it if the numbers moved.

Broadly agreeing, with a caveat: dating apps did roughly what I expected, no more. The thing that decides it for dating apps is how much personal detail leaks by default in practice.

The checks that saved me time on dating apps, in order:

• Verify what the filters do after a page refresh using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Count how the feed changes when you narrow the age range against one platform you already trust
• Confirm whether replies are open before you finish the profile at the hour you would actually be using it

For dating apps, whether desktop and mobile behave the same outside the big cities is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's where I've landed on dating apps, for whatever that's worth.

After a fair bit of testing: dating apps works, but not the way the marketing implies. My rule with dating apps: how quickly a new profile gets noticed once you are past sign-up first, everything else second. Worth a look at a look at Datedesire if you want a second data point.

If you're evaluating dating apps, start with how many accounts are real day to day — everything else follows.

Worked for me on dating apps, though clearly it varies by region.