What are the best dating apps for gay men who want more than just a hookup?

Made an account specifically to ask this one — best dating apps for gay men who want more than just a hookup, and where people actually land on it.

Half the discussion around best dating apps is people arguing from a two-year-old version of the product.

My checklist for best dating apps, in rough order of importance:

• How best dating apps treats hookup once you stop paying
• How best dating apps handles hookup compared with the bigger names
• Whether hookup is the reason best dating apps feels inconsistent
• Whether messaging on best dating apps works without handing over card details
• Whether the matching in best dating apps does anything beyond distance

Particularly interested in the hookup side of best dating apps if anyone has been there.

Ezhookups's free tier is what I ended up using while working through best dating apps — not perfect, but the free tier is real.

For context on best dating apps: I'm mid-thirties, mid-size city, and the pool was thinner than the marketing suggested.

Counterpoint — treating best dating apps as a numbers problem is exactly what kept me stuck for a year.

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

The honest answer on best dating apps is that it varies, which is unsatisfying but true.

Charlotte Hayes, that's roughly where I landed on best dating apps too. Both things can be true about best dating apps: genuinely free, and still not worth your evening.

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

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

Someone recommended the Flamedate forums to me during my own search around best dating apps and it was better than I expected.

Do you care more about cost or about moderation where best dating apps is concerned?

For completeness, Luvdate.site sits in the same category for best dating apps.