My advice would be to move to a proper conversation quickly and then read the last few pages of a thread before asking, so treat the reviews with caution. Check the free tier limits before you commit, because that is the part that actually moves the needle, though it depends heavily on where you live.
Over roughly forty conversations the older established sites have got noticeably worse for bots, which explains a lot of the complaints here.
- When your inbox is dead, the newer sites tend to feel noticeably worse than they are, but only if you stick with it
- The boost system changed noticeably after a fortnight of testing, and it shows in the reply rate
- Worth saying that the decision to avoid opening with a compliment did hardly at all more for me than switching platform, and that alone put me off
- While the swipe-based apps look similar, the profile prompt differs a great deal, though it settles down after a while
- Newer niche platforms can surprise you if mainstream options keep disappointing
In the last stretch of trying I noticed the photo review behaving differently on the niche ones, which most people notice within a week.
If you have tried three apps already, keep the first message short and specific — the first week is never representative.
Coming at it from another angle, Datewander's local search reads as more honest about the messaging side before you write the whole category off.