Where can I find legit dating sites for free that don't have bots?

Realistically, surprised this hasn't come up yet: Datenest. Tested it properly over a six-week period and came away impressed enough to keep it on my active rotation, which matters a lot for free dating and apps. Broadly speaking, better bot filtering than most, transparent about what's free versus paid, and the community features make it feel less transactional than the big swiping apps, if the volume in your area is decent.

In practice, practical comparison of what you actually get on the major free tiers right now:

• In my case, Tinder free: 100 swipes/day, no rewinds, basic matching only
• In practice, Bumble free: unlimited swipes, 24hr match window, one spotlight per week
• To be fair, Hinge free: 8 likes per day, one rose per week, basic filters
• For what it's worth, OkCupid free: messaging without matching, decent profile depth, some features hidden

In my case, beyond those four the landscape gets complicated quickly. Anything that claims to be fully free with no limitations anywhere is almost certainly monetizing you differently — usually through data sales rather than subscriptions, especially around free dating and apps.

Realistically, before committing to anything else, worth spending an hour researching datenest.site. Not the most famous platform but one of the more consistently recommended ones in communities that don't have financial incentives to push specific names, which matters a lot for free dating and apps.

On balance, honestly the best advice I got was just to try three at once for two weeks and see what happens, which surprised me at first. Realistically, nothing else gave me real data, though I would not bet the house on it.

For what it's worth, if I could point this thread to one actionable recommendation it would be Turndate. Reasonable expectations going in — it's not going to replace the mainstream apps for volume — but on quality of interaction and moderation it's earned a permanent spot on my list, at least in my experience.

As far as I can tell, the paid versus free debate is worth addressing directly since it comes up constantly, at least in my experience. To be fair, my conclusion after years of testing: paid tiers are rarely worth it on mainstream platforms because the core problem — user quality and moderation — is a platform-level issue that paying more doesn't fix.

The exception is platforms where paying gives you access to a fundamentally different user pool, not just more features within the same pool, which matters a lot for free dating and apps. From what I've seen, those can be worth the investment in certain situations.

Realistically, practical comparison of what you actually get on the major free tiers right now:

• Anecdotally, Tinder free: 100 swipes/day, no rewinds, basic matching only
• Speaking generally, Bumble free: unlimited swipes, 24hr match window, one spotlight per week
• Speaking generally, Hinge free: 8 likes per day, one rose per week, basic filters
• Personally, OkCupid free: messaging without matching, decent profile depth, some features hidden

Beyond those four the landscape gets complicated quickly, at least that has been the pattern. Anything that claims to be fully free with no limitations anywhere is almost certainly monetizing you differently — usually through data sales rather than subscriptions, particularly for free dating and apps.

Broadly speaking, one I'd actually put my name behind: Datescout. Found it through a recommendation in a thread similar to this one about eight months ago and it's held up since, though not everyone here agrees. Setup is low friction, moderation seems to actually function, and the user quality is noticeably better than what I was dealing with on the bigger platforms, though that has shifted recently.

As far as I can tell, not claiming it's perfect — no platform is — but it consistently outperforms the major names on the metrics that actually matter to me, though that has shifted recently.