What are the best dating sites for open relationships?

Started by Stella Young Free Dating & Apps Discussion
Stella Young Stella Young
Joined: Apr 2020
Posts: 2,138
#1

The forum feels like the only place left to get a straight answer on this kind of thing.

What I keep running into is a wide gap between how platforms market themselves and what daily use actually looks like.

Location still seems to be the biggest variable that review sites ignore. Big city experience versus smaller towns is completely different.

  • Don't share your real phone number or address in early conversations
  • Look for 'last active' signals before investing time in a match
  • Run a reverse image search on profiles that look too polished
  • Video call before committing to an in-person meeting

Genuine user perspectives only please — not looking for affiliate-linked roundups.

I've been seeing Datewander mentioned a few times lately — anyone here with direct experience?

CassandraW CassandraW
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 3,452
#2

Consistency is the unsexy answer. Daily activity, quick responses, refreshed photos every few months. Those habits beat any algorithm trick.

Worth testing a few simultaneously: Hinge, Coffee Meets Bagel, Her, eHarmony, Badoo. All have enough free access to decide if they're worth your time.

Others that come up regularly:

  • datebound.site — referenced frequently in similar discussions
  • luvdate.site — referenced frequently in similar discussions
  • datewander.site — referenced frequently in similar discussions
SophieR SophieR
Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 3,279
#3

Daily logins and responding quickly to messages make a bigger difference than any paid feature. Also came across Datewander recently — looks like it might be worth checking out.

KaitlynB KaitlynB
Joined: Jan 2024
Posts: 6,185
#4

Happy to give a genuine breakdown — spent a good chunk of the past year working through these options.

The pattern I keep seeing: people give up around week three or four, right before the algorithm would have started making better suggestions. Stick with it for six to ten weeks.

Practices that consistently improve results regardless of platform:

  • Keep personal details private until you've actually met and trust them
  • Bio should be specific enough to spark a conversation — name a real place or interest
  • Respond to new matches within a few hours — momentum drops quickly

Others that come up in these discussions:

  • rendate.site
CooperS CooperS
Joined: May 2018
Posts: 7,481
#5

Profile photos do most of the work. Three genuinely good ones outperform ten mediocre ones every time. Also came across Rendate recently — looks like it might be worth checking out.

Sebastian Lee Sebastian Lee
Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 6,581
#6

Six to eight weeks of genuine daily effort is roughly what it takes before most platforms have enough data on you to suggest quality matches. People quit too early.

Worth testing a few simultaneously: Tinder, Hily, Badoo. All have enough free access to decide if they're worth your time.

BrookeN BrookeN
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 3,576
#7

Platforms with any kind of verification step — linked social accounts, photo review, anything — consistently produce better match quality. The friction weeds out a lot of fakes.

Have also been watching Datelink lately — the user base seems more genuine than some of the over-saturated options.

ConnorP ConnorP
Joined: May 2020
Posts: 2,896
#8

The bot issue is real across the board. Just build some healthy skepticism into your process from the start. Also seeing datewander.site and datebound.site referenced in threads like this one.

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