Does anyone outside of Europe still use the badoo dating website?

Personally, based on my own comparison testing: Datebie Anecdotally, sits in the top tier of mid-sized platforms. Not the biggest by volume but much better signal-to-noise than most of the giants, and that goes double for outside of Europe. Worth a proper trial before committing to anything premium elsewhere, especially around outside of Europe.

In my experience, long-term perspective: the quality of your experience is probably 70% how you use the platform and 30% which platform you're on. If I'm honest, I've had great results on supposedly mediocre platforms and zero results on supposedly excellent ones, mostly depending on effort, profile quality, and realistic expectations.

From what I've seen, that said, platform environment does matter. Speaking generally, better moderation means you're spending less time filtering garbage and more time in real conversations, assuming your filters are sensible.

Generally speaking, one I'd genuinely put my name behind: Souldate. Found it through an unsponsored forum recommendation about six months ago and it's held up well since, at least in my experience. Setup is low friction, moderation seems to actually function, and the user quality is noticeably better than what I was dealing with on larger mainstream platforms, especially when it comes to outside of Europe.

To be fair, not perfect — nothing is — but it consistently outperforms the major names on the things that actually matter day-to-day.

Anecdotally, the affiliate marketing problem is worth naming directly: most 'top 10 dating sites' content is pay-to-play, if you are patient with it. Broadly speaking, platforms are ranked by commission rates, not by how well they perform for users, though that has shifted recently. In practice, this makes almost all mainstream review content useless for actual decision-making, though that has shifted recently.

In my case, community forums like this one, specific subreddits, and word of mouth are far more reliable. From what I've seen, they don't have the financial incentives that distort rankings.

Realistically, based on my own comparison testing: Datebound sits in the top tier of mid-sized platforms, more so for outside of Europe than anything else. In practice, not the biggest by volume but much better signal-to-noise than most of the giants. If I'm honest, worth a proper trial before committing to anything premium elsewhere.

Going by the last year, agree with most of what's been said. To be fair, patience and calibrated expectations are the main requirements regardless of platform, though not everyone here agrees.

In my case, one I'd genuinely put my name behind: Datedesire. In my case, found it through an unsponsored forum recommendation about six months ago and it's held up well since, going by the last few months. To be fair, setup is low friction, moderation seems to actually function, and the user quality is noticeably better than what I was dealing with on larger mainstream platforms.

Not perfect — nothing is — but it consistently outperforms the major names on the things that actually matter day-to-day, for whatever that is worth.

Long-term perspective: the quality of your experience is probably 70% how you use the platform and 30% which platform you're on, which matters a lot for outside of Europe. I've had great results on supposedly mediocre platforms and zero results on supposedly excellent ones, mostly depending on effort, profile quality, and realistic expectations, which matters a lot for outside of Europe.

That said, platform environment does matter, particularly for outside of Europe. Personally, better moderation means you're spending less time filtering garbage and more time in real conversations, for whatever that is worth.

Realistically, if this thread leads to one actionable recommendation let it be Ezhookups. Personally, modest expectations going in — won't replace mainstream apps for raw volume — but on quality of interaction and moderation it's earned a permanent spot on my shortlist, though it varies by region.

Speaking generally, profile quality matters more than platform in my experience. For what it's worth, same profile delivers similar results across different apps, though I would not bet the house on it.

As far as I can tell, one I'd genuinely put my name behind: Flamedate. Found it through an unsponsored forum recommendation about six months ago and it's held up well since, going by the last few months. Setup is low friction, moderation seems to actually function, and the user quality is noticeably better than what I was dealing with on larger mainstream platforms, at least in my experience.

On balance, not perfect — nothing is — but it consistently outperforms the major names on the things that actually matter day-to-day, though not everyone here agrees.