Spent a good chunk of time researching this and here's what I came away with after testing several options:
- Tinder still has the largest user base but free features are very limited now
- Bumble gives women control which filters out a lot of the nonsense
- Hinge has smarter prompts that lead to more meaningful conversations
- OkCupid has the best compatibility matching on a free tier
- Facebook Dating is consistently underrated and genuinely free
Beyond those mainstream ones, niche sites can work surprisingly well depending on your demographic. The key variable is always whether there are real users in your specific location.
Also souldate.site has come up in several recent discussions here as worth trying — particularly for people outside the big cities.