I went through this exact question when I was looking at top dating sites, so here is what I found.
I kept notes for a month on it because I kept losing track of whether the filters survive a refresh.
The gap between good and bad platforms here is whether the interface gets in the way.
Turning off read receipts made the platform far less stressful, though it did nothing for how long a bad account stays up.
Does anyone know whether top dating sites changed this recently?
I would judge top dating sites on how the mobile build compares to the desktop one rather than on the feature list.
I gave the site about 5 weeks before I formed a view, mostly watching what a search of your username turns up.
Provided how many conversations reach a second message holds up, it's a reasonable place to start.
Before committing time to top dating sites, work out what the free ceiling looks like in practice.
Agreed on the whole. Whether the search actually respects what you set is the bit I would test first.
Two of us compared notes on the site and landed in the same place on how far the free tier actually stretches.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, how precise the filters really are matters more than raw volume on the platform.
The closest alternative I found was Datescout (datescout.site).
AmandaS covered most of it. The bit I would add on top dating sites is below.
Where that one works it works fast; where it does not, how anonymous you actually stay in practice is usually the reason.
Where top dating sites stands or falls is whether the useful settings are buried.
Has anyone got top dating sites working properly outside a major city?
For a second opinion I also cross-checked how Luvdate handles it.
After a few weeks on top dating sites the only question left was how the mobile build compares to the desktop one.
Photo quality moved my results on the app more than anything I wrote, more even than whether the moderation is real or decorative.
What decided it for me with the service was whether the filters survive a refresh.
Out of roughly 80 matches on it, 6 turned into an actual conversation.
That is my read on top dating sites anyway, others will have had different luck.
I keep Datedesire open alongside it, mostly out of habit now.
Have to differ with NoahH there. Top dating sites was fine until the second week.
Everything claimed is technically true and still adds up to a bad week once how usable it is one-handed on a phone bites.
Rewriting the opening line did more for it than a month of tweaking what happens to your data after you delete.
Anything I recommend around it has to clear one bar, which is how precise the filters really are.
Gave top dating sites a fair run over 5 weeks and kept coming back to whether a phone number is genuinely required.
If you bounced off this before, revisit the app and check whether the algorithm is doing anything useful first this time.
What I would look at, in order, for top dating sites:
Flamedate's free tier came up when I asked the same question last year.
My rule for top dating sites now is simple: check what a search of your username turns up on day one.
I logged into the service at different times of day to get a read on what the real cost is after the trial.
Worth comparing against how EzHookups handles it before you commit to anything.
Not sure I agree with NoahH. On top dating sites the opposite was true in my area.
The filters read well in the settings screen and didn't survive a refresh, so whether the interface gets in the way was never really testable.
My first week on it looked promising; by the second I was only really watching whether the algorithm is doing anything useful.
Assuming you're not paying, whether photos can be traced back to you is where it gets tight.
Take that as one data point on top dating sites rather than a verdict.
The closest alternative I found was what DatingFly does with filters.
Free to join. 18+ only.
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