How do you find local singles in my area without using Tinder?

I've spent about three months poking at local singles and I still don't have a clean answer.

I've read maybe a dozen articles on local singles and they all recommend the same five names in a different order.

For what it's worth I did test a couple of options around local singles before posting.

My checklist for local singles, in rough order of importance:

• Whether local singles has real users outside the big metros
• How local singles handles area compared with the bigger names
• Whether the local singles experience holds up after the first fortnight
• Whether area makes any material difference to local singles

Any first-hand experience with local singles would help more than another list.

Adding Datescout to the pile for local singles, where the community is smaller but people actually reply.

This tracks. Once area enters the picture, local singles stops being a simple comparison.

Since we're comparing options around local singles, the Datebie community came up when I was looking at the same thing.

Worth splitting local singles into two questions, because the answers pull in opposite directions.

Ezhookups itself is what I ended up using while working through local singles — not perfect, but the free tier is real.