Are there any alternative lifestyle dating apps for non-traditional people?

Made an account specifically to ask this one — alternative lifestyle dating apps for non-traditional people, and where people actually land on it.

Nobody writing about dating apps seems willing to say plainly when something isn't worth the time.

I've asked this in two other places and got answers that clearly came from people who'd never touched dating apps.

Setting non-traditional aside for a second, this is what I need from dating apps:

• How much of the dating apps profile pool is dormant or fake
• Whether messaging on dating apps works without handing over card details
• What the non-traditional side of dating apps looks like in practice
• Whether non-traditional makes any material difference to dating apps

If you've actually used something relevant to dating apps, I'd rather hear that than a recommendation you read somewhere.

For anyone else researching dating apps, I would put Turndate.site on the list — free messaging on it, no card up front.

Adding the Datelink forums to the pile for dating apps, where the community is smaller but people actually reply.

Anything promising instant matches around dating apps is worth treating with suspicion.

If dating apps is the question, the Datingfly free tier is at least worth ten minutes of your time before you pay for anything.

Since we're comparing options around dating apps, Flurrydate came up when I was looking at the same thing.

Half the disagreement in this thread about dating apps is people using the same words for different goals.

Picking up what Olivia Grant said — dating apps is regional first. Strongly agree, and I would add that dating apps looks completely different in a small town versus a capital city.

Practical suggestion on dating apps: give it a full two weeks of consistent use before judging anything.

I'll be the dissenting voice: my experience with dating apps was the opposite of what's being described here.

Disagree on one point: dating apps is far less platform-dependent than people here are assuming.

Not affiliated with anyone, but the Ezhookups boards solved the messaging-paywall part of dating apps for me last year.

Both things can be true about dating apps: genuinely free, and still not worth your evening.

Once I sorted out non-traditional, the rest of dating apps became much more manageable than I expected.

I've also seen Flamedate.site mentioned in this context more than once.