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 Pennsylvania, personal ads now live mostly on Reddit boards for Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, Bucks County, and the whole state, and also on classified sites such as Doublelist and in text-first apps including AseeksB. Craigslist still runs missed connections, busiest in Philadelphia. We checked the boards and the missed connections on October 14, 2026.
Pittsburgh still looks for Craigslist. “craigslist pittsburgh personals” gets about 12,100 Google searches a month, as many as “doublelist pittsburgh,” more than eight years after Craigslist took its personals offline. In Philadelphia, the same search gets about 90 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026).
The two cities post in different places, too. In Philadelphia, a board that calls itself the better r4r gets more than four times the weekly visitors of r/philadelphiar4r, and a Bucks County board started in May 2025 already has about 81,100 members. In Pittsburgh, we found no board called r4r at all. So this page goes region by region.
Here is how each option works, from our checks on October 13 and 14, 2026:
We checked the Reddit boards and Craigslist’s missed connections on October 14, 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 pittsburgh” gets about 12,100 searches a month, level with last year, and “doublelist philadelphia” about 9,900, up 22%, with another 590 each for “doublelist philly” and, in Pennsylvania, “doublelist phila.” Elsewhere in the state, “doublelist pa” gets about 2,400, up 340% on last year; Allentown 1,600, up 173%; Harrisburg 1,300, up 85%; Reading 1,000; York 590; Erie 480; Scranton 390, up 181%; Lancaster 320; Altoona 260; and Wilkes-Barre and the Lehigh Valley 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 Pennsylvania boards are for one city or region, and the statewide boards want your town in the title. The numbers below are Reddit’s own, from October 14, 2026.
r/philadelphiar4r has about 22,900 members but only about 2,000 weekly visitors and 97 weekly contributions. r/philadelphiabetterR4R, created in 2022, is far busier, with about 40,200 members, 8,600 weekly visitors, and 612 weekly contributions. It welcomes everyone over 18 for “hookups, dates, success stories, and more”; titles carry your age and a gender tag, like “34 [m4f] Center City”; photos must be of you; and moderators can ask anyone to verify their identity and general location privately, with a permanent ban for fake or AI-made photos. r/NewPhillyHookups, created in 2022, has about 8,100 weekly visitors and 694 weekly contributions: new accounts wait 5 days before posting, you can post once every 12 hours, contact details and outside links are banned, and a Telegram link gets you banned.
In Bucks County, r/buckscountypaR4Rnsfw, created in May 2025, already has about 81,100 members, with 5,100 weekly visitors and 841 weekly contributions. It covers everything from platonic friends and “smoking buddies” to casual encounters, and it bans any exchange of money, goods, or services, lessons and gaming help included. Across the Delaware, see South Jersey on our New Jersey page.
Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s biggest Doublelist search, but we found no Reddit board there called r4r. r/realpittsburghhookups has about 14,500 members, 6,600 weekly visitors, and 1,000 weekly contributions. Pittsburgh’s busiest adult board, created in 2021, is mostly photo posts, with about 44,700 members, 14,000 weekly visitors, and 1,300 weekly contributions; it is for Pittsburgh residents, and visitors must say so in the title; and it bans selling, prostitution, and political discussion, and gives a lifetime ban for posts about drugs, alcohol and tobacco included.
Pittsburgh’s alt-weekly tried to bring the newspaper personal back. In June 2025, the Reynolds Journalism Institute reported that Pittsburgh City Paper was bringing personals back after surveying its readers, and the paper’s personals page still describes them as “a free, user-generated connection space,” with sections for “Date Me,” “Date My Friend,” “Platonic Connections,” “Crush Confessions,” and “Missed Connectyinz.” When we checked on October 14, 2026, though, its links to the listings didn’t load: one led to a classifieds site that couldn’t be found, and another to an error page.
“doublelist allentown” is up 173% on last year and “doublelist harrisburg” 85%, and Reading gets about 1,000 searches a month, but we found no busy board for any of them, so people there post on the statewide boards below, with their town in the title. Craigslist’s missed connections are slow but real here: in the three months to October 14, 2026, Lancaster had 5 and Allentown 4, and Harrisburg had 2 in the past month.
Scranton has two boards: r/Scranton_NSA, with about 19,300 members, 5,900 weekly visitors, and 1,000 weekly contributions, and r/scranton_hookups, with about 24,900 members, 2,600 weekly visitors, and 213 weekly contributions. r/NEPA_Hookups, created in 2020, is smaller, with about 17,400 members and 1,900 weekly visitors, but its rules are specific: it welcomes kink and fetish posts; titles give your age and sex, location, who you’re looking for, and what for; you can post once every 12 hours; and it is for Northeastern Pennsylvania only, where “Poconos” or “Lehigh Valley” is too vague a location. “doublelist scranton” is up 181% on last year.
r/PAhookups, created in 2019, has about 82,300 members, 7,200 weekly visitors, and 643 recent posts on Reddit’s count. Titles follow “Age [sex4sex] Location Description,” like “22 [M4A] #Harrisburg Anyone wanna grab drinks?”, and a post without the brackets and the 4 can’t go up; you can post 3 times a day; and selling of any kind gets you banned, and so do racism and homophobia. Pennsylvania’s busiest statewide board, a hookup board also created in 2019, has about 81,100 members, 12,000 weekly visitors, and 716 weekly contributions. It wants your town or county in the title, because “nepa” or “717” covers a couple hundred square miles, and it bans emojis in titles, sellers, drug ads, and any talk of “gas money,” “roses,” or “generous.”
Craigslist still runs missed connections across Pennsylvania, under Community. Philadelphia’s are the busiest: 36 posts from August to October 14, 2026. Elsewhere they are slow: Lancaster had 5 in three months, Allentown 4, Harrisburg 2 in the past month, State College 2, 1 of them really an ad, and Erie 1, also an ad. Pittsburgh’s had none, though “pittsburgh missed connections” gets about 320 searches a month and “philadelphia missed connections” about 480 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). That is a snapshot from one day, not a measure of the whole site.
At the University of Pittsburgh, students have sent missed connections to an Instagram account since March 2021, through an anonymous form, mostly as compliments; in February 2022, The Pitt News counted more than 7,400 followers and about 1,000 submissions.
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. Philadelphia searches for speed dating far more than for personals: “philadelphia speed dating” gets about 1,000 searches a month and “singles night philadelphia” about 390, against about 70 for “philadelphia personals”; “pittsburgh speed dating” gets about 590. CitySwoon runs speed dating by age range in Philadelphia, in Northern Liberties and at the Fashion District, with about eight short dates matched through its app; Center City has speed-dating nights for lesbian, bi, trans, and queer singles, with up to ten five-minute dates; and Eventbrite lists speed dating by age range in Pittsburgh. For more ways to meet people, with or without an app, see our guide to alternatives to dating apps.
Pennsylvania’s personal ads are much older than Craigslist. In 1892, the Pittsburg Dispatch spelled its city without the h, as the federal government then did: the US Board on Geographic Names dropped it in 1891 and restored it on July 19, 1911. The paper ran a column headed PERSONAL, and on June 5 it held 15 notices, most of them not personal at all: shirts repaired on Smithfield Street, a firm for old soldiers whose pension claims had been rejected, two astrologers selling written predictions of your future husband or wife, and the Borden Bang, a hairpiece on show at a Fifth Avenue hair parlor. Two sold introductions, a correspondence bureau in Pittsburg and a matrimonial agency in Chicago. Two came from people looking to marry, among them this:
“PERSONAL—Bachelor of 38 wishes to make acquaintance of lady of good moral character and some means: object matrimony. Address J. C. R., Dispatch office.”
Pittsburg Dispatch, June 5, 1892. Read the adJust above it, a middle-aged bachelor of means wanted a correspondent “of education and refinement.” On May 22, someone signing only K. had asked to correspond with a “bachelor or widower about 45.” In November, a young man of 19 wanted to correspond with a respectable young lady, and a “young widow of 27” who had “just sold fine home for $55,000” gave a Chicago box number.
In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Gay News ran personals from its first issue, in January 1976, in a pullout section called X; one that year came from a “gay sci-fi nut” who wanted to correspond with other fans. In 1989, during the AIDS crisis, ads asked for “safe only”; by 1999 they had become phone personals, with voicemail boxes; and by 2009 only six ran, the paper recalled in 2020. More in our history of personal ads and The Personals Archive.
Pennsylvania is wide: Pittsburgh is about 300 miles from Philadelphia by road, and the statewide boards ask for your town because a region like “717” covers too much ground. 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 Pennsylvania. 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 Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, 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 Pennsylvania. People there now post on Reddit boards for Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, Bucks County, and the whole state, on classified-style sites such as Doublelist, in Locanto’s personals section, and in text-first apps such as AseeksB. The options differ mainly in who can read your ad and how replies reach you.
No. Craigslist took Personals offline across the US on March 22, 2018, Pittsburgh included, though “craigslist pittsburgh personals” still gets about 12,100 Google searches a month. Craigslist’s Pittsburgh site still has a missed connections section, under Community, but it had no posts when we checked on October 14, 2026.
Philadelphia has two r4r boards. r/philadelphiabetterR4R, created in 2022, had about 8,600 weekly visitors in October 2026, and r/philadelphiar4r about 2,000; r/NewPhillyHookups is about as busy as r/philadelphiabetterR4R. We found no Pittsburgh board called r4r: r/realpittsburghhookups is its personals board, and a busier adult board is mostly for photos. For the whole state, there is r/PAhookups and a bigger statewide hookup board.
Craigslist still runs missed connections, under Community. On October 14, 2026, Philadelphia’s had 36 posts going back to August, and Pittsburgh’s had none. 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.