27 Craigslist Personals Alternatives, Site #1 is the Best Replacement!

Best free affair sites like craigslist

We wanted to know what the best craigslist personals replacement is for 2019.  So we've put together a huge list of personals alternatives (shown below) which lets everyone vote for the best new casual encounters site.

Craigslist Personals Alternatives, click the thumb to like your favorites
Site Likes Type Link
Craigslist Activities Section
2604
Classifieds
Fetlife Classifieds
1187
Social
Adult Friend Finder
844
Personals, Social
Doublelist
774
Classifieds
KinkyAds.org
768
Classifieds
Locanto
657
Classifieds
Bedpage
643
Classifieds
Ads Encounters
466
Classifieds
Gays2Fuck
456
M4M
Grindr (M4M)
438
M4M, Gay
Load More

Click the "Load More" button above to show more casual encounters sites like personals

#1) Craigslist Activities - Best Personals Alternative?

Wait, I thought craigslist was dead? Why are you talking about craigslist?

Even though personals was removed, people have been posting in craigslist activities instead!  Check out this screenshot of Atlanta's activity partners section (you can click it to zoom in).

Pretty much ALL of the posts are for casual encounters. Hundreds a day.

In this screenshot the only ad that isn't for sex is 'Bass player wanted', and who knows, this guy probably just wants to fuck a bass player.  But other than that, every post is for sex.  

Yep, the best craigslist personals alternative was hiding in plain site this entire time!  After all, hooking up and fucking is an 'activity' it makes sense to post ads for 'activity partners'.  

What are the pros of craigslist activities?

  • Lots of people
  • Easy to share contact info
  • Works like craigslist personals did

And here are some cons, activities is still a bit of a craigslist compromise:

  • No nudes allowed
  • Occasional normies post there, people who just wants study buddies for their Spanish homework instead of fuck buddies.  (Maybe they're just too shy to admit it, and they're looking to hook up, too).
  • Have to keep ad titles PG
  • Some cities haven't caught on to using the activities section as much as others

Censoring Your Ad Title 

Like the other craigslist personals alternatives, you have to keep the titles and content less dirty.  No more "I will gag on your cock for 30 minutes and call you daddy" type stuff.  There are sensitive people we have to share the space with now.  And as much as i'd love to disturb them with our titillating titles, it can end up getting your ad banned sometimes.

Here are some examples of good titles that will get you the same end result as personals.  It's fun to read through and see how creative people get:

  • Looking for Jack
  • Seeking Female Woodworker
  • Intense Workout Partner Needed
  • Tatted Woman for Companionship
  • I'm going to be your sex slave
  • Netflix and chill
  • Give me a hand please

Are you giddy with excitement yet?  Craigslist personals is alive and well.  Reincarnated and ready for action.  It's going to be a great summer!  And there's even more good alternatives too, our list is just getting started.

#2) Locanto Personals

After last years shutdown, Locanto.com has welcomed craigslist personals refugees with open arms.

Its personals are less censored than other alternatives, which has helped it become popular.  You'll find booty pics and shirtless dudes, but any more nudity than that will still get an ad taken down, sadly.

On the upside, they don't censor titles, you can fully express your horniness without fear of your sweet nothings being deleted by some mod that doesn't get it.

The downsides of Locanto aren't much.  When it comes to random classified sites you've never heard of, Locanto.com is one of the best and has a solid personals section.  Have fun playing around on this craigslist personals replacement!

#3) Fetlife Classifieds

Fetlife is a completely free social network where kinky folks post pictures of themselves pushing the limits of BDSM.

It also has a huge personals section too, which is what we're interested in.  It's mostly filled with slaves seeking mastersriggers recruiting rope-bunnies, and predators hunting for prey.

Confused yet? Don't worry, you'll get used to all the BDSM lingo with some practice.  Or just answer an ad and have a dom whip your kinkiness into shape.

Once you create an account on the homepage you can navigate to the groups section.  You'll want to search for a classified group for your city, or browse the general classifieds thread.

The main downside of this alternative is that the groups section is kind of disorganized.  It can be hard to find someone if you are in a smaller city.  My recommendation is that if you can't find a personals group for your city then create your own. Anyone can create a group, and if you start one it'll be easy to find people in your area seeking casual sex.

Year Founded: 2009

For: BDSM, Kink, Casual Encounters

Features: classified ads, social network for BDSM

#4) Adult Friend Finder Instead of Personals

Is bigger better? When it comes to casual encounters websites, it definitely doesn't hurt.  Adult Friend Finder is the biggest site for casual encounters, with 116 million horny members.

In your feed you'll see explicit posts for sex in your local area.  You can get as kinky as you want with the images and titles. No need to worry about getting your ad taken down just because you posted some pulse-quickening nudes.

AFF is very popular with swingers, nymphs, and young slaves looking for masters with a bit more experience. You can also filter for what you are looking for, whether it's women, guys, couples, swingers, or trans, then send them messages.

My Experience - I've met some interesting people on AFF, to say the least, and it's gotten a lot more interesting since craigslist went down.  The people on AFF have one thing in common, they love sex, and most are complete sex addicts.  

Year Founded: 1996

Users: 116 million

For: Everyone

Features: chat, messaging, video, profiles, forums, sex courses

One girl I met worked as a dildo sculptor and had at least 50 sex toys in her closet, one was a Chilean woman who wanted to fuck anything that moved, and another girl told me about her sound healing business and DMT experiences.

Yep, all kinda crazy.  I'm not complaining though, they're also crazy in the sack.

Don't Look For Any Serious Relationships Here - Don't use AFF to find someone steady or stable.  Every person I met was the poly type and was seeing multiple people.  None of them were interested in traditional dating.

Who it's For - Like with craigslist casual encounters, AFF is for anyone looking for sex, you can set who you are looking for and what gender you identify as.  M4F, F4M, MFM, C4M, M4T, T4M and so on.

Memberships - The memberships are designed to balance the girl to guy ratio in the M4W and W4M sections.  Free members can send messages to paid members, but free members can't message other free members.  The result is most guys pay for the $25 a month membership and women use the site for free.

Click here to visit AFF

#5) DoubleList - Another Free Craigslist Personals Replacement

Doublelist is a classified site that is like craigslist, but with some new twists.  For starters, it requires you to verify your email and phone number in order to view ads or post your own.

This extra security step allows Doublelist to get around the SESTA law that caused craigslist personals to shut down in the first place.  The company can keep track of what everyone posts and permanently ban any sex traffickers from posting again.

As far as I know doublelist is the only classified alternative that is going the length to obey the new law.  Half of their staff of 140 people is tasked with verifying and monitoring ads so that they stay FOSTA SESTA compliant.  Another benefit of phone verified classified ads is that it prevents spam and fake posts.

Year Founded: 2018

Users: unknown

For: Everyone

Features: classified ads

After verifying your phone number, doublelist will prompt you with a survey to help you find the sex you're looking for.

Once you verify your phone you fill out a quick survey and pick your username.  You can't change your username without getting a new phone, so make this one count.  Then once you are logged into the site you can choose your city and your section, here are the available sections:

This is the new replacement
Doublelist sex ad listings

October results for Minneapolis M4M

While Doublelist will probably be the future of classified sex ads, at the moment it is still a very new site, created in only April 2018.  I last experimented with it in August 2018, attempting to find some hookups in Minnesota, and it was still pretty empty, but it's growing more and more.  In June they only had 21 cities, now in august there are 67! The city section can also be used to post ads for rural areas nearby.  For example, in the Minneapolis section you'll find sex ads for Brainerd, a city of 15,000 that is over a 2 hour drive away.

#6) Switter

If you used Craigslist personals to find escorts, then switter is the best replacement for you.  It is run by sex workers for sex workers, and has no ads or membership fees.

As soon as you join you can see ads posted by escorts near your location.  You can also follow escorts you like, similar to twitter.  In fact the name 'switter' comes from sex-worker twitter.  Many escorts used Twitter for posting ads and finding clients in the past, however Twitter started banning their accounts at the same time craigslist personals was shutting down.  The solution was Switter.

Even if you aren't into buying sex this site is still interesting and worth browsing.  Sex workers are very interesting people and with the feed feature you get direct access to their thoughts.

Year Founded: 2018

Users: 90,000

For: Escorts and Sex Workers

Features: Follow your favorite escorts and view ads near you

#7) A Personals Site That's Free For Women

Ashley Madison is a unique platform for women looking for discreet casual encounters.

Like a fancy night club, it's free for women, but men have to pay for credits to message people.  If you are a woman looking for a Craigslist replacement this is a great free site to checkout.

My Experience (Male) - After Craigslist and AFF, this is the site I've used the most.  I started off with 200 credits ($40) and that lasted me 3 months and launched me on 5 sex-capades.  

My best experience was with a 39 year-old woman named Holly. After chatting for 2 days she invited me over to her place, an amazing house in a gated community.  We used her hot tub, drank wine, and eventually fucked on her balcony overlooking gorgeous landscaping.  It turns out her lawyer husband had been cheating on her and she was looking to get back at him.

Not every woman I messaged turned out to be as amazing as Holly though, I had to dig through AM for a while to find her.  

For example, one woman I met turned out to be too shy.   We talked for 2 weeks before deciding to meet up. We met in a coffee shop and I could tell she was nervous right away. I guess she had second thoughts about actually having an affair with her husband.  After that I didn't hear from her again.  

The other 3 women were somewhere in the middle, like Cathy, a single mom and social worker, who told me she just uses the site because it's free for women.

For guys, it's not exactly a site like craigslist, especially because you have to pay.  Works great for ladies and for guys with a budget.

Click here to visit Ashley Madison

Year Founded: 2003

Users: 17 million

For: Mostly Straight Men & Women

Features: chat, voice chat, messaging, profiles, forums

#8) R4r Subreddits Instead of Craigslist Personals

Since casual encounters was removed a many new r4r (Redditor 4 Redditor) subreddits have been springing up to replace it.  How it works is each city or state has its own r4r, try googling something like "LA r4r" or "Minnesota r4r" to find yours.  If you are already a redditor, this should be a subreddit you follow and check regularly to see who's looking for a fling.

Here's a list of some of the big r4rs:

When you post an ad you include what you're looking for in the title, check out these examples of ads in the SoCal r4r.

Has it replaced craigslist personals though? While it does look promising, the main downside of this alternative is that it only works in very big cities.  If you live in SoCal or a major metropolitan area this is worth trying.  Another downside is that sometimes people use it to find people for non-sexual things.  So mixed along side "Looking to suck some small dick this morning" you sometimes see things like "Any pug owners want to meet up for a walk?".

#9) Best Gay Craigslist Personals Alternative

Gays2Fuck is a website my roommate uses a lot, so it was one of the first sites I tried after craigslist personals was taken down.

The first guy I met was a fashion design student. We watched 'Love Is All You Need' in his apartment before I sucked him off in his bedroom.  Then he used his collection of toys on me, including some kinky metal stuff like the 'njoy purewand'.  The cherry on top was when we cuddled afterward, his pet cockatoo would said "fuck me" every few minutes.  It was definitely a very good first experience from the site.

Next I met up with Greg, who was 42 and repaired iphones for a living.   We met for coffee and waffles and talked about his past-life in the US Forest Service.  After 20 years working for them, he had a bit of a mid-life crisis and decided to move to the city and explore his sexuality more.  

One of his specialties was massages and he invited me for one in his sauna.  Once there, he offered to give me a free massage, on one condition--he would get to suck my cock afterwards. Talk about a win-win!  This was about a week ago, and I will definitely be meeting up with him regularly.

Year Founded: 2011

Users: 4 million

For: M4M

Features: chat, voice chat, messaging, profiles, filters and searches

One thing I didn't like about this site is that they require you to pay to send more than 10 messages a week.  They have a free trial that let's you do even more messages, but that is only for a few days.  It's definitely not perfect, or like craigslist in this way, so i only give it 4 out of 5 stars.  But it's worth signing up for a free account just to see who is on.  Be sure to get straight to the point when you message people and give them your number to text you.  That way you can meet more people with your 10 messages a week.  

Also, I recommend trying AFF for M4M as well.  Even though the login page of their site usually shows women, it has a big male 4 male section that is always busy. Definitely the best place to find sex parties in your area or meet men with dungeons in their basements.

Other M4M craigslist alternatives include Grindr, but since most people already know about that I reviewed Instant Gay Hookups instead.

Click here to visit the site

#10) Bedpage - Free Classifieds

This was a site I saw mentioned in reddit and something that came up occasionally in google.  When I did see it mentioned in Reddit, i'm pretty sure the owner was the one posting the link, because it seemed kind of biased.

Anyways it has a very similar look to craigslist personals and backpage.  Even though the name makes it seem like it's for sex, the listings contain all kinds of sections, like what you'd find on craigslist.

But it wasn't good at all for actually hooking up.  There are a lot of fake ads of people that just want you to follow their snap chat or go to some other dating site.  I tried messaging at least 20 people but didn't get any responses.

If you are looking for a free classified alternative for sex than i'd say you are much better off with doublelist, which has more users and a large team behind it.

Year Founded: 2018

Users: unknown

For: M4M

Features: free classifieds

another site like backpage

Other Sites Similar To Craigslist

Even though all sites we've listed on this page have a free option some also have a membership.  This list goes over completely free options for hooking up. 

I've had to remove some from this list because they either decided to shut down or were forced to months after Fosta was passed (think backpage).  Thank you for leaving comments and suggesting some of your own sites!  I will keep adding new suggestions to this list.

If you enjoyed backpage as much as craigslist personals you should check out switter and slixa, which are new classifieds for escorts.

Lucky App and Casual X are new apps that are trying to replace craigslist.  I gave Casual X a quick try, but it required me to pay before I could message anyone and I wasn't sure how real the people were.

Of course, Grindr is also great for finding gay casual sex.  It's not exactly a new craigslist alternative(it's been around for years) and is always a fun app to start chatting people up online.

I through in some more mainstream dating apps to this list too.  On these you can find anyone, from casual sex to long-term relationships.  Using it instead of craigslist for casual stuff can be more of a grind, but people also used personals for finding relationships and dating, I've kept things well rounded, the more the merrier.

What Happened To Craigslist Personals

The FOSTA and SESTA bills now require people to sign up for sex dating sites in some way.  Usually this means creating an account and verifying your phone number or email address. Until the bills are overturned as unconstitutional, which there is a good chance of, the best craigslist alternatives are membership sites.  New sites online like craigslist have both a free membership and a premium membership option.

My Craigslist Experience: When I first discovered personals in 2012 I quickly realized I could summon sex from online.  Checking my inbox was an addiction that consumed entire days, I even had to resort to turning on password filters so I could get a break.  I toned it down a bit during recent years but it's still a pretty big shock.

The best we can hope for is that the sesta ruling is withdrawn and sites like craigslist personals and backpage will return.  If you are missing BP as much as CL, be sure to check out our guide to backpage alternatives here.

If you liked this list or have other craigslist replacements to recommend please leave a comment below.  

Written by Roy Steitz


I may be 55 but I still enjoy the joys of sex, and this site is where I blog about it all, including the exotic partners that I casually (and sometimes not so casually) encounter.

Leave a Comment:

8 comments
Ron says September 13, 2018

Roy, a note to thank you for your work providing those older citizens who still enjoy the joys of sex, extra marital or with.

Live in White Bear Lake yet travel the world. Please continue your good work … some do appreciate your work.

Regards, Ron

Reply
He cums and says October 28, 2018

Grindr is my fav

Reply
Rick K says November 23, 2018

Had some luck with AFF last week, looking forward to trying these new sites out… thanks for putting together this huge list

Reply
B_Yung says December 23, 2018

nice guide Roy as always. two thumbs up for AdultFriendFinder, been using it long as personals, glad it still up!

Reply
Gregory says December 24, 2018

What about Tinder? Can you add that to the list. Its maybe not an exact replacement but definitely and alternative

Reply
Patrick says January 7, 2019

You forgot healthyfling.com?

Reply
    Roy says January 8, 2019

    Nice one Patrick, looks like a substitute with potential, added it to the list !

    Reply
TwistList says January 31, 2019

We started TwistList to fill the gap CL Personals have left behind (and so much more) Check it out at twistlist .org – spread the word and help get our community up and running!

Reply
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