Meetup Alternatives in London (2026): 6 Honest Options

TL;DR: The best Meetup alternative depends on what you liked and disliked about Meetup. For structured dinners try Timeleft, for one-to-one matching Bumble For Friends, for curated experiences 222, for a completely free habit parkrun, and for spontaneous neighbourhood plans LetsLoop (ours). Meetup itself is still the right answer for established interest groups.

Quick disclosure: LetsLoop is our app, so we are one of the options below and not a neutral judge. We have kept this honest, including the cases where Meetup or another app is simply the better choice.

Why do people look for Meetup alternatives?

Usually one of three reasons: the events near them felt too big and anonymous, the group they liked went quiet, or the organiser fees crept into ticket prices. None of those are fatal flaws. Meetup has been around since 2002 and remains the deepest catalogue of interest groups in London, but the frustrations are real, and each one points to a different kind of alternative.

If your problem was "big and anonymous", you want something small and structured. If it was "my group went quiet", you want something with built-in frequency. If it was cost, you want something genuinely free. The list below is organised around that, and covers six options in all: Timeleft, 222, Bumble For Friends, parkrun, libraries and council listings, and LetsLoop.

You left because the events felt too big: Timeleft or 222

If Meetup left you lost in a crowd, Timeleft shrinks the room right down. A short questionnaire gets you a seat at a dinner with five strangers, usually on a Wednesday evening, and a table of six is too small to hide at. It is a paid option, and the people beside you are picked for you, so think of it as a good way to start rather than a way to build a circle.

222 is the more polished take on small and curated. A personality test steers you towards gatherings that have been put together with some thought, and it came over from the US to London. Expect to pay, and expect fewer dates to pick from. If Meetup felt like a free-for-all, either of these will feel like someone planned the evening for you.

You left because you wanted one person, not a crowd: Bumble For Friends

Some people leave Meetup because groups themselves are tiring. Bumble For Friends trades the room for a one-to-one: outside North America you swipe, match and chat before suggesting a coffee (in North America it has moved to a new, group-focused BFF app). It is a direct route to one new friend rather than a whole circle.

Fair warning: it feels a lot like a dating app, so a chat can drift without ever turning into a plan. If you are happy to suggest a time and place early, that matters a lot less.

You left because of the cost: parkrun, libraries and your council

parkrun is free, held on Saturday mornings, and walkers are welcome as well as runners. It runs in many London parks, so there is probably one near you. Because it happens weekly at the same place, familiar faces build up on their own. The friendships tend to come from the coffee afterwards, so stay for it. For more free options, see free things to do in London this week.

Libraries, community centres and church halls run a quieter version of the same thing: knitting circles, chess clubs, language cafes. Hardly anyone markets them, which is why they are underrated. Your local council's what's-on page often lists more free social activity than people think to check.

You left because your group went quiet: LetsLoop

LetsLoop is ours, built for the space between a scheduled event and an empty weekend: free, local, short-notice plans. Someone posts a loop (a coffee, a walk, volleyball in the park) and people nearby join in. Profiles use real names with an optional selfie check, and communities cover the recurring fixtures.

The honest caveats: we are new and London-first, so how busy things are varies by neighbourhood, and we do not have Meetup's depth of long-running interest groups. If that depth is what you want, stay on Meetup. If you would rather have this week's plans than a group to commit to, download the app, and see how it works.

Should you actually leave Meetup?

Probably not entirely, and a list of alternatives owes you that honesty. Meetup's strength, long-running groups with organisers who know what they are doing, is exactly what the alternatives have not replicated. What works for most people is Meetup for the established group plus one alternative for what Meetup does not do: a Timeleft dinner for structure, parkrun for a free weekly fixture, LetsLoop when you want something to happen this week.

Whichever you pick, the thing that makes it stick is going back. We wrote up how in how to turn a one-off meetup into a regular friend group.

For the wider field beyond Meetup, our roundup of the best apps to make friends in London compares more apps side by side.