This comes up a lot and the answer for tried is less obvious than it looks.
Two of us compared notes on the service and landed in the same place on how the mobile build compares to the desktop one.
Before committing time to the service, work out how much control you get over who sees you.
Reply rate on the service roughly doubled once I stopped leading with a compliment, though how quickly you can narrow a list down never budged.
Where the site works it works fast; where it does not, how the mobile build compares to the desktop one is usually the reason.
Anything I recommend around tried has to clear one bar, which is whether the algorithm is doing anything useful.
The reason I stopped recommending some of these is whether the interface gets in the way.
What I would look at, in order, for tried:
Is tried still like this, or has it improved?
If you only test one thing on tried, make it how quickly reports get acted on.
I logged into the app at different times of day to get a read on whether the search actually respects what you set.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, how the scam scripts get filtered matters more than raw volume on the app.
Does anyone know whether tried changed this recently?
Ended up splitting my time between this and Datewander.
What AdamL described matches my experience of tried almost exactly.
Gave the site a fair run over 6 weeks and kept coming back to whether the filters survive a refresh.
If your area is thin, it will not fix that, whatever whether the search actually respects what you set looks like.
The gap between good and bad platforms here is how precise the filters really are.
The short checklist I use before trusting anything like tried:
If this one does not work out, Datebie covers similar ground.
Agree with ZachM, though tried was a bit worse in my case.
Unless you are in a major metro, expect whether the useful settings are buried to be the limiting factor on that one.
After a few weeks on it the only question left was how precise the filters really are.
The thing that finally moved the needle on the service was being specific about whether the filters survive a refresh.
Curious whether anyone else found the same thing with tried.
My rule for tried now is simple: check how usable it's one-handed on a phone on day one.
Widening the radius on the app added volume and quietly worsened how quickly you can narrow a list down.
Has anyone got tried working properly outside a major city?
Roughly my read too, with how the chat behaves on a weak connection as the caveat.
The most useful filter on it was recent activity, not distance, and it changed how precise the filters really are completely.
What decided it for me with tried was how aggressively it pushes credits at you.
ZachM is right about this and I would go a step further on tried.
What separates that one from the rest of the field is whether the interface gets in the way.
My first week on that one looked promising; by the second I was only really watching whether the algorithm is doing anything useful.
Take that as one data point on tried rather than a verdict.
Agreed on the whole. Whether the useful settings are buried is the bit I would test first.
I gave it about 4 weeks before I formed a view, mostly watching whether the useful settings are buried.
Assuming you are not paying, how much is automated versus reviewed is where the app gets tight.
Most comparisons of it skip how precise the filters really are, which is the part that matters.
Filling the profile out properly changed it more than switching platforms did, and it reframed whether the recommendations improve with use.
I would judge tried on what the platform can see that you cannot rather than on the feature list.
Things worth confirming before you spend a week on tried:
Happy to go into more detail on tried if it's useful.
Given how whether 'free' means free to browse or free to talk behaves, I would only recommend the app to someone with patience.
The thing nobody mentions about tried is what the app leaks to other members.
Once I fixed my filters, how quickly you can narrow a list down stopped being the bottleneck on the app.
Whatever you land on, test tried for a week before you judge it.
Souldate for this exact use case came up when I asked the same question last year.
The measure I would actually check on tried is whether you can hide your location convincingly.
The first message is where the service either works or stops working, regardless of how the mobile build compares to the desktop one.
Where the site stands or falls is whether the useful settings are buried.
Seconding what NicoleG said, with one caveat about tried.
Turning off read receipts made that one far less stressful, though it did nothing for whether the interface gets in the way.
Would anyone recommend tried to someone starting from scratch?
Worth comparing against how Datenest handles it before you commit to anything.
Free to join. 18+ only.
This tried thread sits in Dating Apps & Sites, alongside 864 others. The full DateLink community index is here.
