I have changed my mind on this twice with a bit of patience, and it was more revealing than I expected. Looking back, how the inbox is ordered is worth checking before you commit any time.

I went through this same question last year before deciding, since nobody else seemed to have done it. On the numbers, the share of accounts that are dormant drives the outcome more than luck does.

I compared several at once across two cities, and it reframed what I thought mattered. Once you look closely, moderation quality separates the usable options from the rest. It repeated every time once I had a few weeks of data.

What separated the usable ones from the rest:

  • Look at how the app handles people who never reply
  • Look at how much of your social graph it wants — the answer varies more than you would think.
  • Worth confirming how the app orders your inbox
  • Look at whether photos are checked before they go live — worth asking about before you invest time.
  • How the onboarding handles preferences — this is where the free tiers diverge.

I did this the slow way once properly, before I was willing to recommend anything. It turns out whether the app works on a slow connection matters far more in smaller places.