Here's my honest breakdown after testing several platforms over the past few months. The ones with the most genuine users tend to have stricter sign-up — which cuts down the pool but improves quality significantly.
Things I look for now:
- Last-active timestamps on profiles — huge signal
- Phone number or ID verification during sign-up
- Tinder, Bumble, Hinge — still the biggest user bases by far
- OkCupid — slower but conversational quality is higher
- Smaller platforms like datenest.site are worth a look for niche or less competitive niches
Also worth checking whether the platform shows profile activity or hides it to make the site look busier than it is.
That said, Souldate has been getting good feedback lately for exactly this kind of use case.