Quick checklist I use when weighing up best free gay websites for chat and dating:
- whether the photo requirements does anything measurable when you test it against chat and dating
- whether daily message limits on chat and dating behaves the way the marketing says
- whether the block and report tools means what it claims when you test it against chat and dating
What Aaron said, with one addition: genuine profiles are the scarce resource.
The thing I look at first with chat and dating is how the block and report tools behaves once you actually use chat and dating.
Having tried a fair few, I would say what the free tier actually allows is the real question when it comes to chat and dating.
For a second opinion on chat and dating I also looked at Ezhookups, which took a different approach.