I compared several at once here, and a few things became obvious quickly. Realistically the size of the local pool stays invisible until it bites you. The difference persisted again and again in every week I bothered to measure.

I started sceptical a while back, rather than just skimming a couple of apps. Looking back, how quickly fake profiles get removed separates the usable options from the rest. The effect stayed in a way I could measure across the whole period I tracked. Not universal advice honestly, if your experience points elsewhere.

I looked at this from a few angles across two cities, and stopped assuming the obvious answer was right. If I had to pick one factor, the quality of the profile prompts matters far more in smaller places. It was measurable more than once for both of the accounts I tested. Test it cheaply first genuinely, depending on where you are.

The handful of things that made a real difference:

  • Find out whether the app shows when a profile was last online
  • Worth confirming whether the distance filter goes wide enough — most apps are quiet about this.
  • How the onboarding handles preferences

I looked at this from a few angles on this, instead of going on impressions. In practice moderation quality matters far more in smaller places.