People threw out 12.1 million tons of furnishings in 2018, 80% of it to landfill, the EPA says. The websites like Freecycle under move issues on as a substitute: present teams, marketplaces with $0 listings, and apps for meals and books. Every reveals the way it differs, its numbers and what individuals discovered utilizing it.
Key takeaways
Freecycle: 12.3 million members in 5,333 cities, however its depend barely moved from 2012 to 2020, and no-shows high its latest Trustpilot opinions.
Finest present group: Purchase Nothing claims 14 million members and eight,000 Fb teams. Its app charges 2.1 on Google Play, so begin along with your native group.
Not the identical factor: Trash Nothing’s app is known as “Trash Nothing + Freecycle”, however Freecycle says freecycle.org posts do not seem in it.
Most listings: Fb Market lists 430 million gadgets a month worldwide. In at some point of free pickups, a YouTuber collected about $460 of products.
Useless ends: Listia, Yerdle, Swaptree and Freesharing.org are gone or modified, and Freegle and Geev serve solely the UK and France.
Security: meet in public, and by no means share a verification code. Craigslist calls a request for one “all the time a rip-off”.
Why Individuals Look Past Freecycle
Freecycle started on Might 1, 2003, when Deron Beal emailed 30 or 40 associates and some nonprofits in Tucson, Arizona. It’s a 501(c)(3) charity whose city teams are run by volunteer moderators, and its pointers say every thing posted have to be free, authorized and acceptable for all ages, with no swaps and no cash, not even for delivery.
Its homepage counted 12,316,762 members in 5,333 native cities on October 12, 2026. That’s almost 3 times the 4.3 million of January 2008, however the depend barely moved for a lot of the 2010s: 8.9 million in January 2012, 9.2 million in January 2020, with a dip to six.8 million in January 2014 that Freecycle’s homepage would not clarify.
Freecycle’s personal member counter, learn on archived copies of its homepage every January (2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024) and on the reside web page on 12 October 2026: 8,886,397; 6,756,698; 9,150,026; 9,135,387; 9,154,364; 9,554,167; 11,036,643; 12,316,762. Freecycle offers no motive for the 2014 dip, and doesn’t say whether or not the depend is of lively members or of everybody who ever signed up.
For years most Freecycle teams ran on Yahoo Teams, the courtroom file reveals, and the community break up greater than as soon as. Many UK teams left in 2009 to type Freegle, LetsRecycle reported. In 2010 a federal appeals courtroom dominated that Freecycle had deserted its emblems as towards a Sunnyvale, California, group it had let use them with out supervision.
For many of its life Freecycle had no app of its personal: its assist heart nonetheless stated so in July 2025. Its official iPhone app got here out in July 2026, and in October 2026 the app confirmed two rankings on the App Retailer and 5,000+ downloads on Google Play.
Sources: Freecycle’s About web page; LetsRecycle on the 2009 break up; Purchase Nothing’s Fb teams web page; Meta, 3 October 2016; Yahoo Assist; the Ninth Circuit’s 2010 opinion (Freecycle teams on Yahoo Teams); the App Retailer listings of BuyNothing and Freecycle; The San Francisco Normal, 7 November 2025.
Freecycle nonetheless works the place its city group is busy. The websites under attain extra individuals, provide higher apps, or focus on meals or books, and nothing stops you utilizing a number of without delay.
Backside line: hold your Freecycle account in case your city is lively, and add one present group and one market to widen your search.
Websites Like Freecycle at a Look
All eight are free to affix and use for giving and getting. The sizes are every firm’s personal figures, and so they depend various things, so learn them as tough scale, not a rating.
The apps differ greater than the websites. On Google Play, the massive marketplaces price 4.4 to 4.7, whereas the gift-only apps price 2.1 to three.9, every from far fewer opinions.
Rankings and assessment counts on every app’s US Google Play itemizing, learn 12 October 2026. Freecycle’s official app (4.8) is omitted: it’s too new to point out a assessment depend. On Apple’s App Retailer the order differs: BuyNothing 4.3 from 2,077 rankings, Trash Nothing 3.3 from 105, Olio 4.6 from 789.
Apple’s App Retailer offers a kinder common to BuyNothing, 4.3 from 2,077 rankings. Its latest opinions are harsher, because the Purchase Nothing entry under reveals.
8 Websites Like Freecycle for Free Stuff Close to You
Purchase Nothing
Purchase Nothing is the closest factor to Freecycle, with one distinction: you can too ask, borrow and lend, and thank givers in public. Its guidelines say “No shopping for, promoting, bartering, buying and selling”. The primary group began on Fb in July 2013 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and the venture claims 14 million members in over 50 international locations and eight,000 Fb teams.
There are two methods in. A neighborhood Fb group makes use of your private profile and its volunteer admins’ native guidelines. The app, launched in June 2021, retains your own home handle personal and reveals Offers and Asks inside a radius you select; you have to be 18 or older.
Normal membership is free. A paid Professional tier provides saved areas, a radius of as much as 100 miles, alerts and submit bumps; it price $54.99 a 12 months or $5.49 a month in November 2025, The San Francisco Normal reported. Purchase Nothing additionally has no common one-group rule, although some teams set one.
The app is the weak spot. It charges 2.1 on Google Play, and 39 of the 50 latest opinions on its US App Retailer web page, from February to October 2026, gave one or two stars, largely over bugs after a redesign and over logins. 4 had been in regards to the paywall, corresponding to needing Professional to restrict posts by distance.
Our depend of the 50 latest opinions of the BuyNothing app on the US App Retailer, posted 17 February to eight October 2026, every by its essential topic: 25 gave one star, 14 two, 3 three, 2 4 and 6 5. All got here after the app’s 2026 redesign. A pattern, not a survey of customers.
Teams have their very own hassle. DCist discovered Washington-area members eliminated or banned for suggesting a sale or a spot to donate, and in October 2025 Fb took down an unregistered 116,000-member San Francisco group over the Purchase Nothing title; it returned renamed every week later. Purchase Nothing says it has no plan to shut registered teams.
Value it? Sure. Begin along with your native Fb group, the place Purchase Nothing started, and use the app in the event you’d relatively keep away from Fb. Skip Professional until you reside someplace rural and want a wider radius.
Trash Nothing
Trash Nothing places many native free-stuff teams in a single web site and app: teams with Freecycle of their names, the UK’s Freegle and its personal. You submit Presents and Requests, select who will get your merchandise, and might submit with out becoming a member of any group. It claims over 8 million individuals.
It’s free and reveals advertisements, which a donation removes, and its App Retailer itemizing names one developer, Andrew Trusty; the iPhone app dates from August 2013. Its guidelines enable solely free, authorized, family-friendly gadgets, with no promoting, buying and selling, alcohol, weapons or prescription gadgets, and every group’s volunteer moderators can add their very own.
It isn’t freecycle.org. The app known as “Trash Nothing + Freecycle”, however Freecycle’s assist heart says the 2 are unrelated and freecycle.org posts do not seem in it. That blend-up was the topic of twenty-two of the 50 latest opinions on its US App Retailer web page, posted from 2016 to 2023.
Current reviewers are happier: 4 of the seven since September 2024 gave 5 stars, one for a toaster oven and a microwave acquired free. It charges 3.9 on Google Play and three.3 on the App Retailer.
Value it? Sure, particularly for Freecycle-style teams with out Fb. Discover your city’s teams on its US map earlier than you submit.
Fb Market
Fb Market isn’t a present website: free gadgets sit amongst issues on the market. It’s the greatest pool, although. Meta says 430 million gadgets are listed every month worldwide, and to offer one thing away you enter 0 as the worth.
You want an lively Fb account and, within the US, have to be 18 or older. A free merchandise has nothing to pay for, so that you message the giver and prepare a pickup. Looking “free” close to you, or its Free Stuff class, brings up the giveaways.
In January 2026 the YouTuber SarahGrace spent a day selecting up solely free Market gadgets, aiming for $2,000 price. She made about eight pickups, together with chairs, a toaster, an air air purifier nonetheless in its field and a ceiling gentle, price about $460 by her personal estimate. Replies got here slowly, and plenty of listings had been junk individuals needed hauled away.
Brick Underground’s Celia Younger furnished a Brooklyn house over a 12 months in 2024, partly from Market and stoop finds. A free sofa and a cherry-red credenza joined a number of low cost buys, for a web spend of about $60.
Market is the primary of 4 websites on this checklist the place free gadgets sit amongst issues on the market. Every retains them in a special place and handles the pickup otherwise:
Value it? Sure, for the very best odds of discovering one thing at the moment. Reply quick, have a automobile prepared and count on to haul it your self.
Nextdoor
Nextdoor differs in who sees your submit: neighbors who’ve verified their handle. Free gadgets go in its For Sale & Free part, and its native pages name them “Free Finds”. It had 22.9 million weekly lively customers within the second quarter of 2026, by its outcomes, and its annual report says it reaches 1 in 3 US households.
Its assist heart verifies an handle by your location at house, your cellphone invoice’s handle or a dated doc. It asks you to maintain your cellphone, electronic mail and handle out of listings and use its chat, and its promoting pointers name reselling one thing you bought free “a breach of belief”.
Value it? Sure, in the event you’d relatively give to verified neighbors than to strangers. Put up in For Sale & Free, not the primary feed, the place Nextdoor might take away merchandise posts.
Craigslist
Craigslist has a “free” class below “on the market” on each metropolis website, and posting is free; charges apply to a couple classes, corresponding to jobs and vehicles bought by proprietor. It’s a classifieds board, not a present group, and its official app charges 4.7 on Google Play.
Its final printed truth sheet, from 2018, counted greater than 60 million US customers a month. Its rip-off recommendation is blunt: deal head to head, by no means pay earlier than assembly, and deal with any request for a “code” as a rip-off.
Value it? Sure, in cities and for giant gadgets individuals need gone quick. Meet the place its security web page suggests, corresponding to a financial institution or a police station.
OfferUp
OfferUp has no free part, however givers checklist gadgets at $0, usually with “free” within the title. Search “free” close to you and kind by worth, low to excessive. It claims 40 million lively US customers on its promoting web page.
Its edge is security. Its belief and security web page lists 1,960 Neighborhood MeetUp Spots throughout the US and strongly advises towards assembly at personal houses, and id checks by way of its TruYou characteristic are optionally available.
Value it? As a second market after Fb, sure. Free gadgets are blended in with gross sales, so looking out takes longer.
Olio
Olio is free of charge meals first, plus home items, garments, books and toys. Neighbors submit what they do not want, and its volunteers acquire unsold meals from outlets. It claims 9 million customers, and its assist heart says meals has been shared in additional than 51 international locations.
Within the US, although, its retailer web page lists surplus assortment solely in California’s Bay Space, so elsewhere you rely upon neighbors who submit. It has 789 US rankings on the App Retailer (4.6) and charges 3.3 on Google Play.
Value it? Within the Bay Space, sure. Elsewhere, open its map earlier than counting on it, and see our checklist of locations that supply a free meal.
Little Free Library
Little Free Library is a Freecycle for books. It counts greater than 200,000 registered book-sharing containers in 128 international locations, open across the clock and free to anybody, and the St. Paul, Minnesota, nonprofit says 500 million books have been shared.
There is not any account and nothing to submit. Discover containers on the world map in its app or on its web site, then take a guide or depart one.
Value it? Sure, for books close to house, with no sign-up. It will not assist with the rest.
What Occurred When Individuals Tried Them
No newsroom has printed a side-by-side take a look at of those websites that we might discover. These are the documented accounts, oldest first, and most are about Purchase Nothing and Market.
The CBS Mornings phase reveals what a busy group can do. Over six months, the Texas member gave away garments, books, dishes and furnishings, and after an emergency C-section a minimum of 15 neighbors introduced her child components.
CBS Mornings, January 2022: a Purchase Nothing member in The Woodlands, Texas, leaves a present on a neighbor’s porch and explains what her group gave and acquired. Purchase Nothing’s app and a few group guidelines have modified since.
EcoWatch’s Paige Bennett noticed her Los Angeles group break up in two after it handed 1,000 members, which she discovered unhappy however extra handy.
Evaluations inform the opposite aspect. Freecycle charges 1.8 from 254 opinions on Trustpilot, and among the many 55 latest, the most typical topic was individuals who promised to gather and by no means got here, adopted by posts caught ready for a volunteer moderator.
Our depend of the 55 latest opinions of freecycle.org on Trustpilot (254 in all, TrustScore 1.8), every by its essential topic, learn 12 October 2026. About 16 of the 55 had been clearly written in Britain. A pattern, not a survey of members.
5 of these 55 described faux Freecycle pages or emails, and two reviewers had typed card particulars right into a faux sign-up web page. Freecycle’s replies on Trustpilot say it by no means costs or asks for a card.
Backside line: free stuff goes to individuals who reply quick and acquire after they say they are going to. Flaky takers and gradual approvals are the most typical complaints.
Websites on Older Lists That Will not Assist in the US
Many “websites like Freecycle” lists nonetheless title these. We checked each on October 12, 2026.
The best way to Keep Protected Giving and Getting Free Stuff
Meet in public for something you’ll be able to carry. Craigslist suggests a financial institution or police division, OfferUp lists 1,960 MeetUp Spots, and a few police departments, corresponding to Bellmead, Texas, put aside camera-watched alternate zones.
Go away it on the porch. Freecycle’s pointers recommend a porch pickup or a public drop-off in the event you reside alone, and Trash Nothing says most pickups occur on the porch, the curb or a public place.
By no means share a verification code. The FTC warns of people that ask somebody promoting on Craigslist or Market for a Google Voice code “to confirm” them, then use it to arrange a quantity for their very own scams.
By no means pay for a free merchandise. Freecycle bans asking for cash even for delivery or couriers, and Craigslist flags any provide that entails delivery or movers.
Test the handle earlier than you join. Freecycle and Trash Nothing by no means ask for a card to affix. A web page that wishes card particulars to “activate” a free account is a faux.
The stakes are actual. People reported dropping $2.1 billion to scams that began on social media in 2025, extra of it on Fb than on another platform, the FTC reported in April 2026.
When to Promote As a substitute of Giving It Away
A present group is the unsuitable place for a working cellphone, a console or a field of video games. Decluttr buys telephones, tablets, consoles, CDs, DVDs, video games, books and LEGO, with free delivery and a $5 minimal order, and pays the subsequent enterprise day after your gadgets move its checks.
Our Decluttr assessment has the small print, and our checklist of internet sites to promote stuff domestically covers furnishings and every thing else.
Our Verdict
Use multiple. For most individuals within the US, which means a Purchase Nothing group for gifting with neighbors, Fb Market for quantity, and Trash Nothing or Freecycle the place their city teams are lively.
Value doing
Your native Purchase Nothing group on Fb
Market’s $0 listings if you want one thing at the moment
Trash Nothing in the event you’d relatively keep away from Fb
Nextdoor for giving to verified neighbors
Olio within the Bay Space, Little Free Library for books
Skip
Purchase Nothing Professional, until you want a wider radius
Freegle, Geev and different websites outdoors the US
Older lists’ picks: Listia, Yerdle, Swaptree
Anybody asking for a code, a charge or delivery cash
Totally free issues that come by mail, our checklist of internet sites to get free stuff and our information to free samples cowl lots of extra provides.
How We Researched This
We learn every website’s personal guidelines, assist pages and app listings, Freecycle’s member counter on archived copies of its homepage again to 2008, Nextdoor’s SEC filings and the 2010 courtroom ruling. We learn and counted the 55 latest Freecycle opinions on Trustpilot and the 50 latest US App Retailer opinions of BuyNothing and of Trash Nothing, plus each documented account we might discover from reporters and YouTubers. Rankings had been learn on October 12, 2026, and what occurs inside every app is credited to the individuals who recorded it.
Websites Like Freecycle FAQ
What’s the finest different to Freecycle?
For gifting, Purchase Nothing: it claims 14 million members and eight,000 native Fb teams. For essentially the most listings, Fb Market, the place givers checklist gadgets at $0.
Is Freecycle legit?
Sure. The Freecycle Community is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Tucson in 2003, and membership is all the time free. Beware of faux sign-up pages that ask for card particulars: the true website by no means does.
Is Trash Nothing the identical as Freecycle?
No. Trash Nothing is a separate app that reveals many native free-stuff teams, some with Freecycle of their names, however Freecycle says freecycle.org posts do not seem in it. Freecycle now has its personal official app, on iPhone since July 2026 and on Android.
What’s the distinction between Purchase Nothing and Freecycle?
Each are free present networks run by volunteers. Purchase Nothing additionally helps you to ask, borrow and lend, largely in native Fb teams or its app, whereas Freecycle runs city teams by itself web site and bans swaps.
Is there an app free of charge stuff close to me?
Sure. BuyNothing, Trash Nothing, Nextdoor, OfferUp and Olio all have apps, and Freecycle now has one among its personal. Fb Market lives contained in the Fb app.
Is the Purchase Nothing app free?
Sure. Normal membership is free for giving, asking and saying thanks. An optionally available Professional subscription provides extra areas, a wider radius and alerts.
