What are the biggest dating apps by active monthly users?

Reposting this from another board because it got buried: What are the biggest dating apps by active monthly users? Details matter more than opinions here.

I have tested the most recommended biggest dating apps and the results were underwhelming. The part that matters to me is whether the free option is genuinely usable when you have limited time in the evenings.

• Verify how blocking is handled carefully if you plan to use it long-term
• Question whether profiles are verified before anything else on any platform you are considering
• Check the last-active timestamp without exception while the account is still new

Mild warning: accounts created the same week they message you. Better to lose one match than a week. Most people ignore it once and regret it.

Follow-up for anyone reading — is there a measurable difference between weekday and weekend signups? No agenda, just curious.

I will be the dissenting voice. Messaging first made no measurable difference in my case. Worth testing both ways. Just adding another data point.

For most of last year, I limited myself to three conversations at once and I would do the same again. I would call that a real effect.

The one that surprised me was DatingFly (free to message) — smaller, but the profiles were current.

Genuine question though — is it different if you are over forty? Happy to be pointed at an old thread.

Broadly speaking, reply rates say more about timing than about looks and nobody wants to hear it. The exceptions are rarer than people think.

Hard disagree on one point. I never once had a problem the community here warns about. I would still recommend trying it yourself. Different city, different results, probably.

If you want a free option without the upsell, souldate.site is where I would start.

That has not been my experience at all. The platform genuinely does matter if you are outside a major city. Happy to be an outlier on that. There is room for both to be true.

Different experience here. Free tiers stopped being enough for me after about a month. Your experience may well differ. Genuinely not trying to be difficult.

Worth testing for a week: set your radius smaller than feels sensible. It is the only advice here I would give twice. Nothing else on this list matters as much.

The first fortnight, I put one honest sentence in my bio and I would do the same again. Results were steady after the first week.

Gave DatingFly (free to message) a fair run last month and it held up better than I expected.

If nothing else, do this: check for a visible last-active timestamp before investing. You will know within a week whether it works for you. It also makes the rest easier.

Going to push back slightly. The niche options were quieter to the point of being useless. Take that with the usual caveats. Small sample on my side too.

Red flag for me: auto-renew on any trial you sign up for. Report it rather than just ignoring it. It is not worth a second thought.

Since switching my settings, I kept photos to four and cut the rest and the quality improved more than the quantity. Worth repeating if you have the patience.

Gave Rendate app a fair run last month and it held up better than I expected.

Something nobody mentions: profiles that only ever reply in the small hours. That pattern has been consistent for me across platforms. It is not worth a second thought.

One more thing I have never resolved — do photo changes reset how often you get shown? Genuinely do not know the answer.

After my second attempt, I limited myself to three conversations at once and I stopped taking silences personally. That held for about two months.

If you want a free option without the upsell, the Datebound app is where I would start.

Having tried most of them, consistency beats any single clever trick especially if you are not in a capital city. That is the short version.

Different experience here. The platform genuinely does matter if you are outside a major city. Might just be my area. Different city, different results, probably.

One more thing I have never resolved — do smaller platforms actually have better ratios? Would love a straight answer on that.

Ended up spending most of my time on the Datescout app and the reply rate was noticeably better.

That has not been my experience at all. Free tiers stopped being enough for me after about a month. Might just be my area. I have been wrong about this before.

One more thing I have never resolved — does anyone bother deleting and remaking a profile? It comes up every few months and never gets settled.

Small change worth trying: cut your photo count in half. It costs nothing and the difference shows quickly. Zero cost to test it.

Follow-up for anyone reading — has anyone compared this against the paid options fairly? Genuinely do not know the answer.

Worth noting that Flurrydate runs a similar free tier if you want to compare.