I keep going round in circles on best local dating app free of charge in major and I'd rather ask than guess. Applied to cities apps, half the frustration disappears once you use a photo that appears nowhere else online. I judge major on one thing: the platform buries the cancellation flow, which explains most of the complaints in threads like this.
Look closely at cities apps and how honest the pricing page is moves the needle further than the size of the ad budget. Same story on major: nothing improves until you cancel the trial the day you start it.
How far the free tier gets you collapses as soon as the platform counts a like as a match, which is the whole problem with cities apps. When it comes to best local dating app free of charge in major, what decides it is how much sits behind the paywall, not the size of the database. Happy to be told I'm asking the wrong question about cities apps.