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I went on quite a few dates on Bumble & Tinder, which have pay options, but you don't HAVE to pay.
Facebook dating seemed a little higher quality (somehow).
Please create a good profile that has: Some of your own words, at LEAST three RECENT pics, and NO fish pics. It didn't work for me, but good luck!
NO fish pics
Are you referring to fishing or phishing?
Guy holding fish he caught pic. I get it you don't take a lot of pictures and that was one you had. Put in some effort and go take some damn pics.
thx! are you able to chat/message people without a paywall?
Yes, but you won't be able to view who swiped on you, so you can only chat if you both swipe right.
I didn't pay and used bumble three years ago and found my wife that way. She had, however, paid for a membership for some of the extra perks it gives you, so dunno if we would have matched otherwise.
Heck, are there dating sites that work at all anymore? Over a decade ago I had some success with OkCupid but my impression is that ever since swipe apps became a thing, online dating went from bad to terrible for everyone except gay men looking for hookups. Now I might have to go low-tech and ask my grandma to introduce me to her friends' single granddaughters...
If any work it's a bug. "Dating" apps don't want to be dating apps, they want to be hookup apps because that's how they can keep repeat customers. The only way dating apps would remain dating apps under for profit companies is if they found a way to charge a subscription for long term relationships.
Ugh, the "swipe" is the worst feature for every company to jump on. I get paralyzed between, "What if they just took a bad picture? I don't know enough about them and dismissing them for a bad photo could mean missing out," and "What if I'm swiping right on a creep and don't realize it? Now they'll know my picture, my name, where I live, and they'll think I'm definitely interested."
I haven't used it in a couple years, but I did meet my current boyfriend on OK Cupid. I'm poly, and I met my girlfriend last year on a queer dating/social app called Lex. The cool thing with Lex is that it's text-based, originally modeled off of old newspaper classified ads. You get to know people through them voicing their thoughts and asking original questions. No pressure to "swipe or get off the pot," you can get to know someone through comments on posts before sending a message. It's a smaller community (as expected for queer folk) so I don't know how popular it is outside of highly populated areas. It's not for everyone, but if you're in the LGBTQ+ community and sick of being forced to make snap-judgements about strangers who might end up being a massive part of your life, it's a relief.
With the very big caveat that Iβm 15 years out of date, you might see if OKCupid or Plenty O Fish are still around.
I would check for you but Iβd rather not cause my wife to worry. I met her on OKCupid. If I remember correctly, searching was free but messages always were a paid service regardless of platform.
Messaging used to be free on OKC too. Paid stuff was only better search placement, maybe seeing your matches immediately, etc. No idea about now, I was also found by my wife there over a decade ago.
The model necessitates that they restrict your access in crummy ways or they wouldn't be solvant. I met my partner on Hinge but I was paying to be able to reach people. Glad to be done with those apps.
I hate to be a downer, but...
Building,, running and maintaining a website isn't free. Building, running and maintaining a popular website is fucking expensive. Somebody's got to pay those bills.
As the saying goes, if it's free, you're not the customer, you're the product. Corollary, if it's not free, you still might be the product.
Furthermore, these days I would assume that 99.9% of profiles on a "free" dating site are scammers, or bots, or scammer bots, many of which are probably run by the people running the website.
And to double down on the downerism, subscription based dating sites/apps are financially motivated to keep you paying for as long as possible. They are not motivated to help you find a match, cancel your subscription, and live happily ever after.
In an attempt to not be a total downer jerk, my suggestion would be to find local meetup groups that interest you (even if just barely) and start going to those consistently.
That's how I met my spouse almost 14 years ago. We were both on the dating apps but not finding each other. Eventually we met through a meetup group that I ran, and after months of casually chatting occasionally at group meetings, sparks spontaneously started flying. π€·
Honestly, apps (web included) in 2025 are just profit farming. It will be hard to get anything substantial from the experience.
Best suggestion is avoid OLD and just meet people in person. Get a hobby and attend things and eventually you will find like minded people.
Things like rock climbing, board games, cycling, etc. Hobbies that have places you go to and do a thing.
Sorry I donβt have any better suggestions π€·ββοΈ
I believe most apps can be used for free... to an extent. Just like mobile games they can very much be pay to win with many QoL features locked behind a subscription. I know you prefer web, so I'm mostly thinking of apps that also have a web interface. I'm also a woman and a similar age as you; I've given up on dating sites and apps to meet people. I do have friends that have had decent success with Bumble, Hinge (no web interface), and Boo. I've not looked into the full web-based ones in a long time, but even then I remember them being very limited without a subscription; I can't imagine that's changed. Best of luck girl π©· Online dating is a complete drain!
It's called outside!
Joking aside, its fundamentally unlikely as if you're not paying you're the product and maintaining a dating network is a lot of work both in admin tasks, technical tasks and legal tasks.
A friend of mine met her now husband and father of her child on the free tier of Plenty Of Fish. That was a decade ago though. I'm not sure if the service has degraded since.
What differentiates a dating site from something like Lemmy? The secret matching algorithm?
You could definitely use lemmy for dating if you wanted to. But dating apps offer eg. geographic filtering and (at least should!) do a much better job of guiding users to make meaningful profiles. Lemmy has no need for such.