Does anyone know a good site for free local personals now that Craigslist is gone?

Not sure if this has been asked before but I couldn't find a good answer. Does anyone know a good site for free local personals now that Craigslist is gone? Any help is genuinely appreciated.

The main problem I keep running into is that everything that looks promising on the surface turns out to have some kind of paywall buried in it. Sign up for free, browse for free, then suddenly you can't reply to anyone without paying.

What I'm actually looking for:

• Free to message without upgrade prompts
  
• Active community in 2025/2026
  
• Straightforward cancellation if I do pay

Thanks in advance. Any real experience beats another sponsored article.

Someone here recommended Datelink to me a while back and it ended up being one of the better options I tested. Worth a look before committing to anything paid.

Watching this thread closely. Asked almost the exact same thing a few months ago.

datebie.online is another one worth adding to your test list — the free tier seems more honest than most. Read the terms before signing up. The 'free' feature list shrinks fast once you're actually in the app.

Short answer: yes, some good free options exist. Long answer: it takes patience to find them.

One that keeps coming up and that I've personally tested is Souldate — the free features are genuinely functional and the user base felt real when I checked.

Location is everything with these. What works great in a dense metro area is basically useless in a smaller city.

Location is everything with these. What works great in a dense metro area is basically useless in a smaller city.

Worth checking out Datebound — been around long enough to have built something real and doesn't lock you out of messaging immediately.

Happy to share what's worked for me after going through a lot of these. The big mainstream apps — Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid, Facebook Dating — have the volume but also the most noise. Bots, inactive profiles, people who haven't opened the app in two years. The smaller niche platforms can actually be better if your profile fits their community well.

The things I look for before committing to anything: is there a subreddit or forum where real users talk about it? Are there dated reviews — like, from this year? Can I actually test the core features without handing over a card number? Those three filters eliminate most of the garbage immediately.