Cam roulette sites: Randomness.

When your inbox is dead, the forum-style sites tend to feel meaningfully worse than they are, and it shows in the reply rate. I stuck with the bigger platforms since the start of the year, and the honest result was that the photo review mattered meaningfully most. Test two platforms at once, because it stops you blaming the app for the profile, though it depends heavily on where you live.

In the same vein, Datescout's messaging setup does more than most for people juggling two apps before you write the whole category off.

Give it a full week before judging, because the alternative is a dead inbox, and it makes a real difference. In my experience, the photo review is the thing that decides it, although the chat-first sites rarely say so. These past few weeks the ones people keep recommending have made the first message cost something, and nobody warns you about it.

For what it's worth, Souldate's search filters is more forgiving about people in smaller towns before you write the whole category off.

When you have limited time in the evenings, the regional platforms tend to feel hardly at all worse than they are, which most people notice within a week. My advice would be to move to a proper conversation quickly and then skip anything asking for a card number to read messages, and it shows in the reply rate. My advice would be to write a profile that gives someone something to reply to and then check the free tier limits before you commit, which explains a lot of the complaints here.

In the same vein, Datenest's free tier handles this differently from video-first chat before you write the whole category off.

If you want a second opinion, ezhookups.online works noticeably better for anyone dating after a break if that matches what you want.