An Honest Review of Les Amis (2026)

I found Les Amis through an Instagram ad that showed a group of women at a pottery workshop somewhere in Barcelona. It looked curated in a way that usually means "stock photo," but I clicked through anyway. A women-only friendship app that plans actual events for you? After months of dead-end Bumble BFF matches where nobody ever commits to a plan, that sounded like exactly what I needed.

I downloaded Les Amis, went through their verification process, and RSVP'd to my first event. Here's the full breakdown of what it's actually like.

How It Works

When you download Les Amis, the first thing that happens is verification. You submit a photo, confirm your identity, and wait for the team to approve you. It took about a day for me. The point is to keep the community women-only — not just in policy, but in practice. Once you're in, you land on an events feed that shows upcoming activities in your city. Pottery classes, wine tastings, hikes, dinner parties, book clubs. Each event has a description, a date, a cap on attendees, and a vibe that gives you a sense of who's going.

You RSVP to whatever catches your eye. Some events are free, some cost credits that you purchase in the app. There are also interest-based groups — think "runners in NYC" or "film lovers" — where you can chat with other women before ever meeting in person. The groups function like a low-pressure warm-up for the real thing. You can also message anyone directly, though I found most conversations happened in the group chats or at the events themselves.

What I Liked

The events do the heavy lifting

This is the single biggest advantage Les Amis has over every other friendship app I've tried. You don't match with someone and then spend two weeks trying to figure out when you're both free for coffee. You browse a list of real events, tap RSVP, and show up. The pottery workshop I attended had eight women, a shared table, an instructor, and two hours of clay and conversation. By the time we were washing our hands, I'd exchanged numbers with three people. The activity was the icebreaker. Nobody had to manufacture small talk because we were all trying not to destroy our bowls. That shared struggle is worth more than any personality quiz.

The women-only space changes the energy

I've been to co-ed meetups, mixed-gender dinners through apps like Timeleft, and networking events where I spent half the night deflecting. The energy at a Les Amis event is fundamentally different. Everyone is relaxed in a way that's hard to describe unless you've felt the contrast. Women talked openly about their jobs, their roommates, their weird dating lives, their anxiety about making friends in a new city. There was no performing. No sizing anyone up. Just women being honest with each other in a room full of wet clay. I hadn't realized how much I'd been adjusting my behavior in mixed spaces until I didn't have to.

Verified profiles mean real people

Every single woman at my pottery workshop was a real person who had been through the same verification I had. No bots. No spam accounts. No profiles that haven't been active since 2023. The community is small enough that it still feels curated, and the verification process means everyone you interact with actually went through the effort of proving they're who they say they are. After years of apps where half the profiles feel like ghosts, this was refreshing.

Interest groups are a smart on-ramp

Before I even attended my first event, I joined a "new to NYC" interest group and a hiking group. Both had active conversations. People were sharing restaurant recommendations, asking about neighborhoods, posting about weekend plans. It reminded me of the Forum feature on Kndrd — that same feeling of a group chat where people actually want to be helpful. The interest groups gave me a sense of the community before I committed to showing up somewhere in person, and that mattered. Walking into a pottery workshop is less scary when you've already been chatting with two of the women who'll be there.

What I Didn't Like

The US community is still tiny

This is the big one. Les Amis launched in Europe and it shows. Barcelona and Amsterdam have the most events and the most active communities. New York and Austin are listed as available cities, but when I opened the app in NYC, there were maybe four or five events in the next two weeks. Compare that to what I've seen friends post from Barcelona — multiple events per week, packed groups, a real sense of momentum. In New York, it feels like the app is just getting started. I got lucky that the pottery workshop happened to be scheduled during my first week. If it hadn't been, I might have waited days before finding something that worked with my schedule.

You can't bring male friends

The women-only policy is the app's identity, and I understand why it exists. But there are times when I'd love to bring a friend's boyfriend to a dinner party, or when the group hike would be more fun with a mixed crew. Les Amis doesn't allow it. Every event is women-only, full stop. For some people, that's a feature. For me, it occasionally felt like a limitation. My social life isn't exclusively women, and an app that only serves half of it will always feel like a partial solution.

Premium credits add friction

The app is free to join and some events are free to attend. But the more interesting experiences — the pottery workshops, the wine tastings, the curated dinner parties — cost credits. You buy credits in bundles within the app. It's not expensive per se, but the credit system adds a layer of mental math that I don't love. "Is this pottery class worth three credits? How many credits do I have left? Should I save them for the dinner party next week?" It turns something that should feel spontaneous into a budgeting exercise. I'd rather just pay a flat subscription and have access to everything, the way a gym membership works.

Event quality depends on city and timing

Because the US presence is still small, event variety is hit or miss. Some weeks there are multiple interesting options. Other weeks, the only event near me was a coffee chat that didn't fit my schedule. The European cities don't have this problem — they've had years to build density. But in NYC, I found myself checking the app every few days hoping something new had been posted, which isn't the experience you want from a platform that's supposed to make socializing easier.

Who Should Try Les Amis

If you're a woman in Barcelona, Amsterdam, or one of their more established European cities, Les Amis is a no-brainer. The event density is there, the community is active, and the women-only format creates a space that genuinely doesn't exist anywhere else. If you're in NYC or Austin, it's still worth downloading — the events that do exist are high quality, and the community is growing. Just go in knowing that options will be thinner than what you'd see in Europe.

If you want a co-ed experience, or if you need a packed events calendar every week, this isn't your app yet. Bumble BFF has more users everywhere, and Kndrd has a denser community in New York specifically. But neither of those offers what Les Amis does: curated, real-world events in a verified, women-only space where the vibe is genuinely different from anything else out there.

The Verdict

Les Amis is doing something that most friendship apps only talk about. It's not another matching app that leaves you to figure out the hard part yourself. It organizes real events, verifies real people, and creates a space where women can show up and be themselves without the usual background noise. The pottery workshop I attended was the most natural social experience I've had through any app. No forced icebreakers, no algorithm-selected group, just eight women making terrible pottery and laughing about it.

The limitation is geography. If you're in one of their strong European cities, this app is already delivering on its promise. If you're in the US, you're essentially an early adopter betting that the community will grow. Based on what I've seen, I think it will. The bones are good. The events are well-curated. The women-only verification actually works. Les Amis just needs more women in more cities to reach its potential, and in the meantime, the ones who are there are having a really good time.