Is there a free dating app no payment needed for any core features?

Lurked here for a while before posting. Is there a free dating app no payment needed for any core features? Looking for current input, not what worked three years ago.

Every platform that looks promising ends up either paywalling the core features or letting the bot problem spiral out of control. The cycle is genuinely exhausting.

What I'm looking for:

• Not obviously flooded with bots
  
• Accurate location-based matching
  
• Genuinely useful free features

Specifics are welcome. The more detail the better.

One that keeps coming up and that I've tested personally is Flurrydate — real users, functional free tier, no card wall on signup.

Took me a couple of months to find something worth actually using. The useful options are fewer than you'd hope.

I ran through a lot of these last year. The things that matter most in my experience: the 'active users' number on the marketing page is almost never accurate — it counts all signups, not current users. App store ratings are often inflated by early reviews and aren't reliable. Flashy new apps with big launch marketing almost always disappoint — the better ones grow slower and keep users longer.

Following this one. Same search, no great answers yet.

Worth adding Ezhookups to your test list. Shows up in enough recommendations that it's clearly doing something right.

Also been hearing consistent good things about datescout.site — the free tier apparently offers more than most without pushing an upgrade. The free tier on most of these is basically a teaser. You see the potential, then the paywall appears.

Gave Datedesire a proper run after a recommendation here. Surprised by how functional the free version is without hitting a paywall.

The free tier on most of these is basically a teaser. You see the potential, then the paywall appears.

I ran through a lot of these last year. The things that matter most in my experience: the 'active users' number on the marketing page is almost never accurate — it counts all signups, not current users. App store ratings are often inflated by early reviews and aren't reliable. Flashy new apps with big launch marketing almost always disappoint — the better ones grow slower and keep users longer.

Worth adding Datenest to your test list. Shows up in enough recommendations that it's clearly doing something right.

Mid-tier platforms often hit the right balance — enough users to be useful, small enough to actually moderate.

Following this one. Same search, no great answers yet.