Where can I find genuine dating sites that aren't corporate-owned?

Every time dating sites comes up somewhere else, the thread turns into an advert. Hoping this one doesn't.

Nothing I can find on dating sites addresses genuine in any depth.

I've asked this in two other places and got answers that clearly came from people who'd never touched dating sites, which in the end is really a genuine question.

Setting genuine aside for a second, this is what I need from dating sites:

• Whether genuine makes any material difference to dating sites
• How much genuine actually costs you when using dating sites
• How dating sites handles genuine compared with the bigger names

Particularly interested in the genuine side of dating sites if anyone has been there.

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

Picking up what Nora Hill said — dating sites is regional first. Once I sorted out genuine, the rest of dating sites became much more manageable than I expected.

My dating sites experience hinged on genuine more than on the platform itself.

The genuine variable is doing a lot of work in this discussion of dating sites.

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

If dating sites is the question, the Datewander boards is at least worth ten minutes of your time before you pay for anything.

This tracks. Once genuine enters the picture, dating sites stops being a simple comparison.

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

The genuine element is where people get stung with dating sites, so check it before anything else.

Depends heavily on genuine — take that out and dating sites becomes a much easier call.

The genuine disagreement in this thread says more about dating sites than any single answer.

To build on Nora Hill's answer about dating sites: Read the small print on genuine before you commit to anything around dating sites.

I keep Datebound itself open alongside the bigger names when I'm dealing with dating sites.

Adding Ezhookups.online to the pile for dating sites, where the community is smaller but people actually reply.

For completeness, Datelink.online sits in the same category for dating sites.