Is speed dating online actually fun or just awkward video calls?

Made an account specifically to ask this one — is speed dating online actually fun or just awkward video calls, and where people actually land on it.

Most of what's written about speed dating is either two years out of date or quietly sponsored.

The criteria I keep coming back to on speed dating:

• How speed dating handles calls compared with the bigger names
• Whether calls makes any material difference to speed dating
• What moderation on speed dating actually looks like when you report someone
• How much calls actually costs you when using speed dating

Even a 'don't bother' on speed dating is a useful answer.

Someone recommended Turndate to me during my own search around speed dating and it was better than I expected.

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

It's telling how many replies here about speed dating contradict each other — that's the honest state of it.

Disagree with RyanO slightly here on speed dating. Both things can be true about speed dating: genuinely free, and still not worth your evening.

Good thread — most discussion of speed dating online is astroturfed, so this is refreshing.

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

I keep Datescout itself open alongside the bigger names when I'm dealing with speed dating.

Worth splitting speed dating into two questions, because the answers pull in opposite directions.

GracefulT has a point about speed dating. Coming back to this one later, since the range of experience with speed dating here is genuinely useful.

This thread is drifting toward a consensus on speed dating that I don't think survives contact with reality.

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

This matches what I've seen with speed dating, where the pool in your area matters more than any feature list.

Not affiliated with anyone, but the Datingfly forums solved the messaging-paywall part of speed dating for me last year.

My own run at speed dating: three months, two platforms, and one relationship that lasted about a year — small sample, but real.