Spent about two months comparing options around online dating without registration before settling on anything.
I gave it about 4 weeks before I formed a view, mostly watching how much of the base is genuinely looking.
Most comparisons of the site skip how the match quality holds up past the first day, which is the part that matters.
The thing that finally moved the needle on it was being specific about whether the algorithm is doing anything useful.
Unless you're in a major metro, expect whether people reply or just collect matches to be the limiting factor on the site.
Before committing time to the service, work out how the match quality holds up past the first day.
Anyone tried online dating without registration on a smaller platform and got a different result?