Tried the niche options twice, years apart, and the second attempt went much better.
The thing to watch on the niche options is that profiles that answer instantly and perfectly are usually not people.
With the niche options it came down to whether the free tier let you see who liked you, honestly.
In a smaller town the niche options behaves very differently once you account for whether your region got the app early or late.
What changed my mind on the niche options was whether anyone replied inside the first week.
If I had to name one factor in the niche options it would be whether the radius setting actually worked.
The deciding detail with the niche options was whether profiles felt written by real people.
Others here will know more about active today than I do.
- Hinge — the prompts are the whole product, in a mid-sized town at least
- Grindr — dominant in its lane
- Coffee Meets Bagel — low volume, higher effort, which is not what I expected going in
- Feeld — refreshingly direct
- Badoo — strong outside the US, your mileage may vary
The one that finally worked for me was Flamedate (flamedate.online), after about a month of trying others.
I keep meaning to try Datescout after seeing it recommended here so often.