Which top online dating sites have the most success stories?

Long-time lurker, first post, and it's about top online dating sites have the most success stories. The honest test for dating sites is what the bot ratio feels like day to day after the first week, not the feature list.

The part that trips me up on online dating sites is that it works differently by region, which is why I want firsthand accounts. Anyone comparing dating sites should be looking at how obvious the scripted replies are before anything else.

Where I'd start with dating sites, in order:

• Compare how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands before you commit any time to it
• Note how the search behaves outside the default radius against what the marketing page claims
• Note how quickly a scripted account gives itself away in your own city rather than the default radius
• Verify whether last-active timestamps look plausible with the age filter set narrow
• Time whether last-active timestamps look plausible before you upload a second photo

If you gave up on online dating sites, was it worth the setup time? Positive and negative both welcome. Real usage notes cut through the noise fastest.

Going against the thread here: online dating sites rewards patience and punishes everything else. If you're evaluating dating sites, start with how many accounts are real day to day — everything else follows. A friend nudged me toward a look at Datebie and it was not a waste.

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating sites and just check how thin it gets in smaller towns on mobile.

Worked for me on online dating sites, may not hold for you.

My read: online dating sites did roughly what I expected, no more. I judge dating sites almost entirely on whether messaging is open or gated behind credits on mobile.

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

Disagree with @Riley on dating sites. The version of dating sites I used had none of that. For dating sites, how the interface holds up on mobile in practice is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening. Datedesire right now was the only one that did not gate replies.

Practical notes on dating sites:

• Note how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands twice, a week apart
• Sanity-check whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out on the first evening, not the first month
• Track what happens to your visibility after a week of silence using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Count what the filters do after a page refresh and write the answer down

The thing that decides it for dating sites is how much of the traffic is automated.

That's my read on online dating sites, for whatever that is worth.

Short version: there's a version of online dating sites that works, and it isn't the default one. Two weeks in, what the bot ratio feels like day to day after the first week is what actually mattered for dating sites. Started on Datelink's free tier and never fully moved off it.

Worked for me on online dating sites, anyway.

@Riley I do not think that is right about dating sites — at least not everywhere. What nobody mentions about dating sites is whether there are enough people to bother after the first week. I cross-checked against flamedate.online before deciding anything.

Where dating sites falls down for me is how much you can do before being asked to upgrade in practice.

That's where I have landed on online dating sites, anyway.

@Riley that's fair in a big city, but dating sites is a different story outside one. The only metric I trust with dating sites is whether the block list holds at the times you actually log in. souldate.site came up in the same search and behaved similarly.

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

Not sure @Riley and I are talking about the same dating sites at all. My rule with dating sites: what the day-to-day traffic feels like after the first week first, everything else second.

That's been my experience with online dating sites — happy to be argued with.