Scruff and CNM
Scruff occupies a specific position in the gay dating landscape: it's Grindr's closest competitor, but with a more community-oriented culture and historically stronger representation of bears, leather-identified men, and those with kink interests. For gay and bi CNM men, this community orientation makes it a useful complement to Grindr's grid-based proximity model.
Like Grindr, Scruff benefits from the general normalisation of non-monogamy within gay male culture. Open relationships are common, explicitly stated in profiles, and not the subject of disclosure anxiety that characterises mainstream apps. The culture within Scruff accepts CNM as a normal relationship configuration.
Scruff vs Grindr
The two apps serve overlapping communities with different emphases:
Grindr is proximity-first, speed-optimised, and has a larger overall active user base in almost every market. It's the first choice for volume and immediate local connections. The profile format is shallow, and the cultural default leans casual.
Scruff has a richer profile format, longer bios, more photos, additional fields for context, and a set of community features (events, groups, Venture for travel connections) that Grindr lacks. The cultural orientation is somewhat more toward community and medium-term connections, though it's fully capable of casual use.
For CNM use specifically, Scruff's longer profile format is an advantage: there's more space to explain your relationship structure, what you're looking for, and any relevant context. On Grindr, a CNM bio is often two sentences squeezed into a minimal space.
Most active gay CNM men use both. They draw from overlapping but not identical pools, and the user who is on Scruff but not Grindr is a different person from the one who's on Grindr but not Scruff.
CNM features
Scruff includes relationship status options that cover common CNM configurations: "open relationship," "partnered," "dating," and others. These are surfaced on profiles and are commonly used. As with Grindr, the normalisation of these status options within the user base means they function as genuine information rather than surprising disclosures.
There are no dedicated CNM features beyond status options, no partner linking, no poly-specific filters, no CNM community spaces within the app. For explicit CNM infrastructure, Feeld remains the better choice. Scruff's advantage is community depth and user base quality within specific subcommunities, not CNM-specific tooling.
Community features
Scruff has several community-oriented features that distinguish it from Grindr:
Events. Scruff integrates gay and queer event listings, parties, community gatherings, leather events, directly into the app. This makes it useful for finding CNM-relevant events beyond what you'd encounter through the profile grid. The leather community in particular uses Scruff's events feature actively.
Groups. Scruff has interest-based groups that allow users to connect around shared interests, leather, kink, bears, and more. These function as community spaces rather than just dating pools.
Venture. Scruff's Venture feature shows profiles of users who are travelling or planning to travel to a location. Useful for CNM travellers wanting to make connections in cities they're visiting, or for finding visitors in your city.
Match. Scruff's Match feature allows users to opt into a more traditional matching system, both parties express interest before chat opens, as an alternative to the grid's open messaging. Less relevant for most CNM use cases but available.
User base
Scruff's user base is primarily gay and bi men, with strong representation of bears, leather-identified men, and men with kink interests. In cities with significant leather communities, London, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Sydney, Scruff has a substantial active presence within those subcommunities.
Outside major urban centres, Scruff's active pool is thinner than Grindr's. In cities where the gay community is large enough to sustain two major apps, Scruff is worth being on. In smaller cities, Grindr will have meaningfully more activity.
Scruff is not meaningfully used by queer women, non-binary people, or straight users, it is a gay male app, more definitively so than Feeld or OkCupid.
Scruff Pro
Scruff Pro (~£9.99/month) is cheaper than most comparable app paid tiers. Key paid features include:
- Unlimited profile views and filters
- Full access to Venture (travel profiles)
- See who viewed your profile
- Ad-free experience
- Priority in search results
For CNM users, the most relevant paid features are unlimited filters and Venture. The free tier is functional for most uses. At ~£9.99/month, it's the cheapest meaningful upgrade among the apps covered in our reviews, worth considering if you're active on Scruff.
Who should use it
Scruff is for gay and bi CNM men who want community depth beyond what Grindr's grid provides. If you have leather, bear, or kink interests, or if you want event integration and group community features in your app, Scruff offers things Grindr doesn't.
Run it alongside Grindr. The pools overlap but aren't identical; the community features complement rather than duplicate. If you're choosing between the two for a first-time installation, start with Grindr for volume, add Scruff once you want more community depth or if your interests align with Scruff's subcommunity strengths.
Not relevant for queer women, straight users, or anyone outside gay and bi male CNM dating. For those use cases, Feeld and OkCupid are the better starting points.
Compare: Grindr review · Feeld review · Best apps for queer CNM · Best CNM dating apps