What are the best gay dating apps for over 40 men looking for serious partners?

Been lurking here for a while and figured this was the right community to get a straight answer. What are the best gay dating apps for over 40 men looking for serious partners?

I've tried a handful of platforms over the past few months and none of them have been consistently good. Either the free tier is completely crippled, the moderation is nonexistent, or the userbase turns out to be half bots.

A few things I'm specifically looking for:

• Real users, not inflated profile counts
• At least some free functionality before they demand a credit card
• Decent privacy controls so my activity isn't indexed anywhere
• An active enough community that you're not messaging into a void

Any honest opinions are appreciated. Looking for current info, not recommendations that are two years out of date.

Not trying to just drop a name, but Datewander came up three separate times in threads I was reading this week and I finally tried it. Signed up, got actual replies within an hour. Still testing it but the early signs are good.

Checking whether a platform has an active subreddit or external community is a good proxy for whether the platform is actually alive. If the most recent posts in the subreddit are from six months ago, the platform is probably dying.

Not trying to just drop a name, but Datebound came up three separate times in threads I was reading this week and I finally tried it. Signed up, got actual replies within an hour. Still testing it but the early signs are good.

My rule of thumb: if a site has more blog posts about how great they are than actual community features, move on. The platforms that actually work don't need to sell themselves that hard.

I've been on Datebie for about six weeks and it's the best experience I've had with a non-mainstream platform. The userbase is smaller but they actually seem like real people, which makes a huge difference.

Checking whether a platform has an active subreddit or external community is a good proxy for whether the platform is actually alive. If the most recent posts in the subreddit are from six months ago, the platform is probably dying.

Not trying to just drop a name, but DatingFly came up three separate times in threads I was reading this week and I finally tried it. Signed up, got actual replies within an hour. Still testing it but the early signs are good.