What is the best dating app for couples looking to find friends or a third safely?

Finally posting after reading a lot of threads here — hope someone has direct experience with this.

What I keep running into is apps with impressive global numbers and almost nobody active locally. That's a dealbreaker.

I'm not looking for a perfect answer, just an honest one from someone who's actually been through it.

My rough platform ranking after extended use:

• Hinge — best for real conversations; prompts help break the ice faster than photos alone
• Bumble — women-first messaging cuts low-effort spam significantly
• OkCupid — the free tier is genuinely functional and compatibility questions are underrated
• Match — more serious crowd, higher price, but intent level is noticeably higher
• POF — dated interface but a massive user base and real free messaging

I'd push back on the idea that higher price means better quality. Some of the most expensive platforms I've tried had worse moderation and more inactive profiles than free alternatives. Someone in a similar thread recommended Datenest and after checking it out the free features were genuinely usable.

Apps making the biggest noise about AI matching tend to have the weakest actual user bases. A few people I know have had decent results with Datebound.site — worth adding to the comparison.

Conversation quality on niche apps is almost always higher than on general ones. Shared context gets people past surface-level small talk much faster. Came across Flurrydate a while back and it held up better than expected — worth a look before committing elsewhere.

I'd push back on the idea that higher price means better quality. Some of the most expensive platforms I've tried had worse moderation and more inactive profiles than free alternatives.