Part of Notes from the Road, our city-by-city series.
The short answer: Craigslist took its Personals section offline in 2018, and no single site replaced it. In Upstate New York, personal ads now live mostly on Reddit boards for each city and region, and also on classified sites such as Doublelist and in text-first apps including AseeksB. Craigslist still runs missed connections, though in most Upstate cities only a handful at a time. We checked the boards and the missed connections on October 13, 2026.
Upstate New York’s personals boards guard their borders. Rochester’s r4r board asks members to “report all bots, 518 (that’s Albany), and NYC.” Buffalo’s biggest hookup board tells anyone living in Albany, New York City, or Syracuse to “find another group.” Binghamton’s assumes anyone with a history of posting on New York City or Buffalo boards is a spam bot, and the board for all of Upstate puts it plainly: “NYC is not Upstate NY.”
The busiest board isn’t in a city at all. r/HudsonvalleyNFSW had about 19,000 weekly visitors on October 13, 2026, more than New Jersey’s biggest board and more than double New York City’s busiest r4r board. On Google, people look for Doublelist by city: “doublelist buffalo” gets about 8,100 searches a month, up 50% on last year, “doublelist albany” about 4,400, and “doublelist rochester” and “doublelist syracuse” about 3,600 each (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). So this page goes city by city.
Here is how each option works, from our checks on October 13, 2026:
We checked the Reddit boards and Craigslist’s missed connections on October 13, 2026. We no longer count escort ads on the classified sites: the pattern has been consistent in the cities we’ve checked, and our Boston and New England page has the most recent counts. AseeksB ads can’t be read without an account. How we check.
AseeksB publishes this page and is included in it. For how each site handles the eight traits that defined Craigslist Personals, see our full comparison.
Coming from Reddit or a classified site? On AseeksB you still write an ad in your own words, but you choose who can see it, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; and no photo or real name is needed. Posting, browsing, and replying are free. How AseeksB works.
“doublelist buffalo” gets about 8,100 searches a month, up 50% on last year and about 9,900 a month from May to August, with another 1,900 for “doublelist buffalo ny” and 720 for “buffalo doublelist”; “doublelist albany” gets about 4,400, up 50%; “doublelist rochester” about 3,600, up 175%; “doublelist syracuse” about 3,600, up 52%; and “doublelist binghamton” about 480, with Utica and Poughkeepsie about 210 each (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Anyone can see Doublelist’s ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account. Posting is free for up to 3 posts, and seeing members’ photos takes a paid plan; its help center lists two, Hookup and Hardcore, at $45 and $90 a year. Its pages open with a paid pop-up and carry sponsored links to outside sites; on October 11, 2026, one of them, “Hookup Finder,” led to a page that Chrome blocked as dangerous.
We no longer count its ads place by place, because the pattern has been consistent: in most of the cities we’ve checked, escort ads were among its 20 newest ads. Our Boston and New England page has the most recent counts, from October 12, 2026.
If you’re coming from Doublelist, AseeksB works differently: you choose who can see your post, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; admins actively monitor posts; and posting, browsing, and replying are free. For more options, see sites like Doublelist.
Most Upstate boards are for one city or region and expect you to live there. The numbers below are Reddit’s own, from October 13, 2026.
Buffalo is Upstate’s biggest Doublelist search, and its main board is r/Buffalo_WNY_Hookups, created in 2023, with about 25,500 members, 5,200 weekly visitors, and 571 weekly contributions. It is for Western New York residents only; accounts must be at least 3 days old, posts with Telegram or Snapchat handles are removed, selling content and paying for sex are banned, and so are genital photos. Its moderators say men far outnumber women on the board.
Rochester has the most boards. r/rochestersneakylink, created in 2023, is the busiest, with about 30,200 members, 5,200 weekly visitors, and 770 weekly contributions: titles start with your age and gender, like “24F4M”; you can post once every 24 hours; accounts must be at least 7 days old with 25 karma; posts need at least 50 characters; and its moderators’ bot adds a link to free STD testing to every post. r/Rochesterr4r, created in 2018, is smaller, with about 6,400 members, 2,600 weekly visitors, and 336 weekly contributions; it bans usernames for other apps anywhere in a post or profile and puts its aim as “more Craigslist, less Grindr.” r/Rochesternysissies has about 5,800 members and 1,400 weekly visitors. “doublelist rochester” is up 175% on last year, the fastest growth in Upstate.
Syracuse’s busiest board is a hookup board for Central New York, created in 2021, with about 16,600 members, 5,200 weekly visitors, and 405 weekly contributions. It is for Central New York residents, and for visitors who give their dates. Money and “generous” arrangements are banned, Snapchat handles can be shared only by private message, and you can post once every 24 hours. It also has a rule few boards have: reply to the messages you get, even with “not interested,” because ghosting several members can earn a temporary ban.
r/AlbanyNYswingers, created in 2022 to replace a deleted Albany swingers board, has about 22,000 members, 3,700 weekly visitors, and 107 weekly contributions; accounts must be at least 15 days old with 15 karma, and titles give your age, sex, and location. r/albanyNYdiscreet, created in 2023, has about 15,600 members, 2,200 weekly visitors, and 207 weekly contributions; titles give your age, town, gender, who you’re looking for, and what, and every post has to include the words “NOT A BOT.” Men can post there once a week, women up to twice a day.
Binghamton’s hookup board, created in 2024, has about 9,100 members, 1,300 weekly visitors, and 187 weekly contributions. It covers 75 miles around Binghamton, takes no image posts, wants tags in brackets, like “[M4F],” and treats coded words for payment, “generous” or an ice-cube emoji, as solicitation. “doublelist binghamton” gets about 480 searches a month.
r/HudsonvalleyNFSW is the busiest board in this guide, with about 31,500 members, 19,000 weekly visitors, and 1,400 weekly contributions. It is for the Hudson Valley only, and its moderators have announced that it will move to approved posters and then to verification for newcomers.
r/upstatenyr4r, created in 2015, has about 29,400 members and 2,400 weekly visitors. It is for ages 20 and up; titles follow “27 [F4M] #Albany,” with a town name only; single men must use a “solo male” flair; posts from New York City are banned; and, unlike the Albany board, writing “human” or “not bot” gets you banned. A second Upstate-wide hookup board, created in 2024, calls itself the biggest between the Hudson Valley and the Capital Region, with about 27,000 members, 6,200 weekly visitors, and 198 weekly contributions; it requires “NOT A BOT” in every post and limits men to one post a week.
Craigslist still runs missed connections Upstate, under Community, but slowly. In the three months to October 13, 2026, Buffalo had 8, 1 of them really an ad; Rochester had 7; the Hudson Valley 3; Binghamton 2, 1 of them an ad; Syracuse and Albany 1 each; and Ithaca none. That is a snapshot from one day, not a measure of the whole site. Buffalo searches for missed connections far more often than it posts them: “buffalo missed connections” gets about 590 searches a month and “craigslist buffalo missed connections” about 260, and “rochester missed connections” about 210 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026).
AseeksB has a missed connections category too: say where and when, and only the audience you choose can see the post. For how to write one that the right person will recognize, see our guide to missed connections.
Beyond the apps. Upstate searches for speed dating more than for personals: “rochester speed dating” gets about 480 searches a month, “buffalo speed dating” 390, and “albany speed dating” 260, against 140 or fewer for each city’s “personals.” Eventbrite lists speed-dating nights by age range in Rochester and Albany. For more ways to meet people, with or without an app, see our guide to alternatives to dating apps.
Upstate’s personal ads are much older than Craigslist. The Buffalo Evening News sold small ads at two cents a word, and personal notices ran among them, beside dancing academies and sewing-machine sales. On December 10, 1897, it carried this:
“CLEO: Meet brother Wednesday, 2 o’clock; usual place. Karl.”
Buffalo Evening News, December 10, 1897. Read the adIt may be a family message or a lovers’ code; the notice doesn’t say. The same column carried a respectable widow of 25 who wanted to meet a middle-aged gentleman. By July 1903 the paper had a column headed PERSONAL, still at two cents a word, with replies left at the paper’s office. It had a lonesome widow seeking correspondence, a gentleman looking for a lady 30 to 50, a young man who gave his worth as ten thousand dollars, and a note to “L. R.” asking to hear from them early in the week. More in our history of personal ads and The Personals Archive.
In an r/Syracuse thread from spring 2026 asking which dating app works there, one commenter argued that apps need a big city to reach critical mass, and advised widening your search radius to at least 60 miles. Every AseeksB post shows how far away it was posted, and anyone can search by distance.
One honest difference: AseeksB ads can only be read inside the app after signing up, unlike Craigslist’s missed connections and most of the classified sites above. That is the trade for choosing exactly who sees each post.
Every post makes AseeksB busier for the next person in Upstate New York. Post what you’re looking for, and if there’s a feature you’d want, tell us through the app, from the profile tab; we’d love to hear it.
Text-first personal ads for Upstate New York, from Buffalo to the Hudson Valley, in your own words, with distance and other controls in Supporter.
Craigslist took its Personals section offline in the US on March 22, 2018, after Congress passed FOSTA, including in Upstate New York. People there now post mostly on Reddit boards for each city and region, and also on classified-style sites such as Doublelist, in Locanto’s personals section, and in text-first apps such as AseeksB. Missed connections still run on Craigslist, though slowly. The options differ mainly in who can read your ad and how replies reach you.
Yes. Each city has at least one personals board, and most are for hookups. Rochester has r/Rochesterr4r, Albany has r/albanyNYdiscreet and r/AlbanyNYswingers, and Buffalo and Syracuse each have a busy hookup board for local residents. r/upstatenyr4r covers all of Upstate for ages 20 and up, and r/HudsonvalleyNFSW, with about 19,000 weekly visitors in October 2026, is the busiest of them.
Craigslist still runs missed connections Upstate, under Community, but slowly: in the three months to October 13, 2026, Buffalo had 8 and Rochester 7, and Syracuse and Albany had 1 each. AseeksB has a missed connections category too.
Yes. AseeksB is a free personal ads app for iOS and Android. Every post shows how far away it was posted, anyone can search by distance, and Supporters can also set a maximum distance on their own posts. A free account keeps one active post, and someone can send one message per post until you reply.