The best apps for making friends in Italy in 2026

Making new friends as an adult is one of those things that seemed much easier when we were twenty.

Not necessarily because we've become less sociable. More often, it's because the opportunities have changed.

We work all day, tend to spend time in the same places, our old friends have different lives and schedules, and meeting someone new requires a certain amount of initiative. The kind we don't always have after eight hours of work and a week full of commitments.

At the same time, we have more tools than ever to connect with other people. But being connected doesn't necessarily mean actually getting to know someone.

That's where apps for making friends come in.

Over the past few years, more and more of them have appeared and, most importantly, they have started offering very different experiences. Some work through profiles and chats, others start from shared interests, while others try to get people offline through dinners, events, activities or trips.

In 2026, some of the most interesting platforms available in Italy include Tablo, Comehome, Timeleft, Meetup, Meeters, Bumble For Friends and Yubo.

There isn't, however, one app that is objectively better than all the others.

There's the one that makes it easier to meet new people in the way that feels most natural to you.

Article updated August 2026.

Why making new friends as an adult has become more difficult

When we're younger, much of our social life happens almost automatically.

School, university, sports, parties, friends of friends: we keep meeting new people without having to think too much about it.

As we get older, that mechanism changes.

Our days become more structured, we tend to spend time in the same environments, and our friendship groups become more established. Some people move away, some start families, and others simply have less free time.

So it's perfectly possible to have a full life, a job, friends and relationships and still feel the desire to meet someone new.

The problem often isn't our ability to socialize. It's the lack of opportunities.

And that's probably one of the reasons why friendship apps have grown so much in recent years.

They don't necessarily have to "find you a friend" through an algorithm. They can do something much simpler: create situations where people who probably would never have crossed paths end up in the same place.

From there, the rest happens — or doesn't — exactly as it always has.

The best apps for making friends in Italy in 2026

Not all apps for meeting people work in the same way.

Some start with the person: you look at a profile, find someone who catches your attention and start talking.

Others start with what you have in common: an interest, a sport, a language or a hobby.

And others almost completely remove the online getting-to-know-you stage and suggest something you can actually do together.

This is the real difference to consider when choosing an app for making new friends.

With Bumble For Friends, the experience mainly starts with a person. With Meetup, it starts with an interest. With Comehome, an event. With Meeters, an experience or a trip. With Timeleft, an encounter organized by the service. With Tablo, a table. With Yubo, it starts mainly through digital interaction.

Seven platforms, then, but also seven very different ways of responding to the same desire: meeting someone who isn't part of our life yet.

Tablo: meeting new people around a table

Tablo is an Italian social eating app designed to create opportunities for people to meet over lunches, dinners, aperitifs and tables organized in local venues.

The idea is fairly simple: instead of finding a person first and then deciding what to do together, you start with something to do.

Have dinner, grab a drink, play a game, talk about a shared interest or simply spend an evening with other people.

Users can look for tables available nearby or create their own by choosing the place, date, time and, if they want, a theme.

This creates a different dynamic from apps primarily based on profiles.

You don't necessarily have to choose one person, start a private conversation and slowly work your way towards the inevitable question: "Should we meet?"

The meeting is already part of the plan.

That's why Tablo can be particularly interesting for people who want to meet several people at the same time and prefer doing so in an everyday setting such as a restaurant, pub or aperitif.

The number and variety of available tables can naturally vary depending on the city and the time. If there isn't anything suitable, however, users can create a new table themselves.

Best suited to people who want to move fairly quickly from the app to real life and feel more comfortable meeting a small group than having a one-to-one encounter.

Comehome: when everything starts with an event

Comehome takes a different approach.

Here, the event is at the center of the experience: aperitifs, parties, sports activities, games, cultural experiences and other gatherings organized by hosts.

You choose something you'd like to do and meet other people who have made the same choice.

The advantage is precisely the variety.

You don't necessarily have to sign up thinking, "I need to find a new friend." You can simply choose an activity that interests you and let new connections develop naturally during the experience.

The range of activities obviously varies depending on the city, time of year and events available.

Best suited to people who enjoy going out, trying different activities and meeting others through organized events.

Timeleft: showing up for dinner without knowing who will be there

Timeleft starts from a different premise: removing many of the decisions from the user's hands.

The format it is best known for is dinner with strangers.

Users answer a questionnaire and the service creates a group and chooses the restaurant where everyone will meet.

The element of surprise is an important part of the experience.

You don't scroll through dozens of profiles or choose who you'll sit with. You book your place and gradually discover who you'll be spending the evening with.

It's an interesting model precisely because it removes the kind of pre-selection found on many social and dating apps.

On the other hand, it also means having less control over the composition of the group and the organization of the evening.

Availability in Italy is more limited than on some other platforms, so it's worth checking whether the service is currently available in your city.

Best suited to people who enjoy the element of surprise and prefer the service to handle the organization.

Meetup: interests first, people second

Meetup is one of the best-known platforms for communities built around shared interests.

The idea is simple: search for something you like and find other people who are interested in the same thing.

Photography, technology, hiking, books, foreign languages, games, entrepreneurship, sports.

The advantage is that when you arrive at an event, you already have something to talk about.

For anyone who finds it difficult to start a conversation completely from scratch, that can make a big difference.

Meetup, however, isn't exclusively designed for making friends. Some groups have a strong social element, while others focus more on learning, professional networking or practicing a particular activity.

A lot therefore depends on the communities available in your city.

Best suited to people who have a specific hobby or interest and want to meet others through something they already enjoy.

Meeters: getting to know people by doing something together

Meeters brings socializing into more structured experiences.

Excursions, activities, weekends and group trips allow people to spend more time together than they would during a single aperitif or dinner.

And that's one of the interesting things about the format.

Going for a walk, discovering somewhere new or spending a weekend together naturally creates plenty of opportunities to talk and get to know each other.

Of course, it also requires a different level of commitment: joining a trip or excursion isn't the same as deciding at the last minute to grab a drink after work.

Best suited to people who enjoy travelling, activities and meeting others through shared experiences.

Bumble For Friends: starting with one person

Not everyone wants to immediately sit down for dinner with five strangers.

And that's perfectly fine.

Bumble For Friends follows a model closer to the dynamics we're familiar with from social and dating apps: you browse profiles, find people who seem compatible and start a conversation.

The key difference is the intention: the goal here is friendship.

This approach can feel more natural for people who prefer getting to know someone gradually before meeting them in person.

It does, however, require more individual initiative.

Once you find an interesting profile, you need to start talking, see whether you get along and, eventually, arrange something together.

Best suited to people who prefer meeting one person at a time and see chatting as an important part of getting to know someone.

Yubo: when meeting people is mainly digital

Yubo operates more in the territory of social networks.

Profiles, shared interests, chats and live features allow users to meet people who may live far beyond their own city and build relationships primarily online.

This makes it a different experience from platforms that mainly use the app as a bridge towards an already planned offline meeting.

It can be interesting for people who want to expand their social circle beyond geographical boundaries and don't necessarily feel the need to meet people offline straight away.

Best suited to people looking for a more digital and international kind of social experience.

Which app should you choose for making friends?

Ultimately, choosing a friendship app is mainly about understanding which obstacle you'd like to make easier.

For some people, starting a conversation is difficult. For others, it's walking into an event alone. Others would simply like to meet new people but wouldn't know where to begin.

Some prefer getting to know someone online first, while others find it much more natural to meet while they're already doing something. Some enjoy large events, others small groups, dinners or trips.

So rather than asking which app is the best overall, it might be more useful to ask:

Which kind of situation would I genuinely feel like joining?

Because the most effective app is the one that manages to turn a fairly vague thought — "I'd like to meet new people" — into something you actually want to do.

Apps for making friends in Rome, Milan and other Italian cities

When choosing an app for meeting people, there's something far more important than the total number of users a platform claims to have: how active is it in your city?

An app may have a huge national or international community, but that matters relatively little if there are no events, groups, tables or people nearby.

Rome and Milan naturally offer a wide range of dinners, aperitifs, events, international communities, sports groups and activities.

Cities such as Turin, Bologna, Florence, Naples and many other Italian destinations are also offering more and more opportunities for people looking to expand their social circle.

Before choosing a platform, it's therefore worth looking at what's actually happening near you.

Not how many users theoretically exist.

But how many real opportunities do.

Do friendship apps really work?

No app can promise that you'll meet your next best friend on Thursday at 8:30 pm.

What it can do is something much more concrete: increase the number of opportunities you have to meet new people.

Friendship rarely begins because an algorithm has decided two people are compatible.

More often, it begins because you meet. Then you meet again. You discover something in common. Someone sends a message. You decide to do something else together.

Apps can mainly help with that first step: creating the opportunity.

Everything after that remains very human.

Meeting new people online safely

Whichever platform you choose, meeting new people also requires a little common sense.

For first meetings, it's preferable to choose public places, check the available information about the event or person, and avoid immediately sharing sensitive personal information.

It's also a good idea to arrange your own way home and let someone know where you are, especially when meeting someone from online for the first time.

If something makes you uncomfortable during the encounter, you're under no obligation to stay.

Group events and meetings in public venues can offer a more structured setting than a private meeting, but normal precautions still apply.

From online to real life

Perhaps the most interesting thing about friendship apps in 2026 is that many of them are trying to make us spend less time inside apps.

It almost sounds like a contradiction.

We use a smartphone to find a running group, people to go away with for the weekend, someone who shares our interests or strangers to have dinner with.

But perhaps that's exactly the point.

The app doesn't necessarily have to become the place where a new friendship begins and lives.

It can simply be the tool that creates an opportunity that didn't exist before.

Then you have to go out.

Show up.

Sit down.

Say hello.

And see what happens.