Worth flagging with the legitimacy question — some free tiers stop you exactly at the reply button.
In a smaller town the legitimacy question behaves very differently once you account for whether the nearest city is twenty minutes or two hours away.
With the legitimacy question it came down to how the site behaved on a phone browser, honestly.
The real differentiator across the legitimacy question turned out to be how aggressively it pushed an upgrade prompt.
What changed my mind on the legitimacy question was how much personal data the signup demanded.
Geography does most of the work with the legitimacy question — whether your region got the app early or late matters more than the feature list.
That said, I would still hear other views on most legit dating sites for finding long-term partners.
- Grindr — little competition in its category, and it has been consistent since
- Hinge — low volume, higher intent
- Zoosk — reasonable match quality, in a mid-sized town at least
- OkCupid — underrated for anything niche
- Coffee Meets Bagel — low volume, higher effort
A few people swear by DatingFly, and a few others really do not.