KF.SocialWhat Timeleft does well, and it is a lot
Coverage is the thing we cannot match. Timeleft's homepage says it runs in 48 countries and more than 160 cities, so if work sends you to Lisbon one month and Toronto the next, one account follows you. It runs drinks and running groups as well as dinners. It matches on age range, personality and language, which is thoughtful, and a dinner seats you with five other people. If you want an evening in a city we do not operate in, Timeleft is the answer and we are not.
Where KF.Social is different
We only do London, and we are built around one situation: you are in London for work, your days are full and your evenings are not. A table is six people. A seventh booking is not turned away, because we open another table of six rather than refuse the seat. You pay 15 pounds for the seat, and your food and drinks at the restaurant, the same as Timeleft. There is no membership to hold in order to book.
Two timings are worth knowing, because they are what people actually ask about. The restaurant lands about six hours before the dinner. Who you are sitting with lands about an hour before, and that is when the group chat opens. Those are deliberate. Where you are eating and who you are eating with are two different pieces of information, and the second one is meant to arrive as you are leaving the hotel.
Pricing, and what each of us publishes
KF.Social is 15 pounds a seat, per dinner, shown before you pay. Food and drinks are yours at the venue.
Timeleft is subscription-only. Its help centre article "What Subscription Plans Are Available?" says a subscription "gives you access to book events in your city", lists one, three and six month periods, and adds that "available options may vary by region and are displayed during sign-up". It does not publish a figure, so you find out the price during sign-up. Food, drinks and venue costs are paid on the day, which it states plainly.
Which is better value depends entirely on how often you go. A subscription rewards somebody who goes most weeks in one city. A per-dinner fee suits somebody who is in town for eleven nights and wants two of them planned. If you are the second person, do the arithmetic before you subscribe to anything.
Cancelling, which nobody compares and everybody eventually needs
KF.Social publishes a ladder. Cancel more than 72 hours before and the 15 pounds goes back to your card. Between 72 and 24 hours it comes back as KF Points. Inside 24 hours it does not come back. If we cancel the table, you are refunded in full wherever the clock sits.
Timeleft's help centre says subscriptions are "generally non-refundable once a new billing period has started", including when you cancel on the day it renews, and that anything bought through the App Store or Google Play has to be refunded by Apple or Google rather than by Timeleft. It also says there is no in-app way to switch between plans: you cancel, wait for the current period to expire, then buy the new one. None of that is unusual for a subscription. It is worth reading before you pick a six month period.
Safety
Both put you in a public restaurant with several other people, which is a different proposition from meeting one person you found online. The honest answer to "who am I sitting with" is symmetry: everyone at that table chose to be there and paid to be there, on both apps. If you want to think it through properly, read our guide on meeting online friends in real life safely.
Which should you pick?
Pick Timeleft for coverage: if you are in a city we do not run in, or if you will go often enough in one place that a membership pays for itself. Pick KF.Social if you are in London for work, you want to pay for the two evenings you actually need rather than a month you might not use, and you would rather book a seat than hold a subscription. When you are ready, see the tables coming up in London.