The 10 Best Craigslist Alternatives

Key Points:

• Facebook Marketplace is a great place to buy, sell, or trade electronics (new or used), home decor, clothes, tires, cars, and pretty much everything in-between.
• From old cell phones and laptops to Blu-rays and books, Decluttr is the best alternative for selling your used technology. You have the option to sell in bulk as well.
• Not only does Poshmark offer an affordable way to update your wardrobe as a buyer, but it’s a trustworthy way to sell clothes and make a quick buck. 

When it comes to selling your stuff online, finding a babysitter, or posting personal ads, Craigslist is a go-to site for so many. As the grandfather of online classifieds, it’s hard to imagine that any site could fill the giant shoes of Craigslist—but competitors are plentiful. 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of websites have surfaced over the years, all claiming to be better than Craiglist. If you’d like to try an alternative, potentially one that is more narrowly focused on one or two things rather than many, you won’t suffer from a lack of options. 

After weeks of trying to see which Craigslist competitors are worth your time, here is our ranking of the best alternatives in 2022: 

• Best Overall: Facebook Marketplace
• Best for Selling Technology: Decluttr
• Best for Garage Sales: Nextdoor
• Best for Clothes: Poshmark
• Best for Homes: Apartments.com
• Best for Personals: Doublelist
• Best for Jobs: Indeed.com
• Best for Cars: Carvana
• Best for Services: TaskRabbit
• Best for Kids: Kidizen

Best Overall: Facebook Marketplace

For better or worse, Facebook Marketplace is the best alternative to Craigslist. The bread and butter of the Craigslist experience has always been buying and selling stuff, and with nearly 3 billion Facebook users all over the world, it’s the next best thing. 

Facebook Marketplace is a great place to buy, sell, or trade electronics (new or used), home decor, clothes, tires, cars, and pretty much everything in-between. There’s no shortage of what you can find within the Marketplace. 

Selling as an individual within Facebook’s Marketplace ensures you can place a free listing since there are no seller fees. It’s also easy to communicate with potential buyers or sellers via Facebook Messenger for direct contact. 

Unlike Craigslist, Facebook also adds purchase protection when you sell directly through Messenger (as opposed to meeting offline). Purchase protection is free and is automatically available for eligible orders, marking a huge differentiator from Craigslist. 

Best for Selling Technology: Decluttr

One of Craigslist’s biggest benefits has always been that it’s an easy way to make quick cash selling technology you no longer want or need. When you need an alternative, Decluttr is the next best thing. 

From old cell phones and laptops to Blu-rays and books, there’s plenty of cash to be made. And, if you want to sell in bulk, you can do that as well. How much you will make on your items varies greatly but it’s still a reliable way to make cash without worrying about meeting up with strangers. 

The process is easy as getting a quote online in a few seconds by answering a few questions about the make, model, and condition of your item. Then choose direct deposit or PayPal cash for payment along with printing a free shipping label. 

You’ll need to provide your own box for mailing to Decluttr but there are no fees whatsoever for selling. 

Best for Garage Sales: Nextdoor

Who doesn’t love a good garage sale? It’s not as frequent as it once was, but every garage sale is a chance to find a hidden treasure.

Today, Nextdoor is the best Craigslist alternative for finding out about garage sales or any neighborhood activity. You can quickly find times, locations, and pictures previewing what’s going up for sale and also see comments on individual threads to see if there is likely to be a rush of people. 

Of course, Nextdoor is also great as a place to post that your kids are having a lemonade stand or about any news affecting your neighborhood. It’s one of the most local apps around and works great for supporting your community and all types of local businesses. 

More than 295,000 neighborhoods are supported globally in 11 different countries, so there’s likely to be plenty of conversation in your area. 

Best for Clothes: Poshmark

Like electronics, selling used (or new) clothes on Craigslist is a staple of its business. Instead, look to Poshmark as the best alternative. Not only is this an affordable way to update your wardrobe as a buyer, but it’s a trustworthy way to sell clothes and make a quick buck. 

It’s helpful to think of Poshmark as something of an online consignment shop that features brand names. More than 80 million registered users account for one sale every second in the U.S. 

For any sale under $15, Poshmark takes a flat fee of $2.95 with the seller keeping the rest. For any sales over $15 or more, the seller keeps 80% of the sale and Poshmark keeps 20% with the buyers paying for shipping. That’s a stark difference from Craigslist’s independent shopping experience but both buyers and sellers are protected through Posh Protect. 

Even with the costs, Poshmark offers well-known clothing and accessories through a brand you can trust. That alone makes the fees worth it. 

Best for Homes: Apartments.com

Another long-time staple of Craigslist has been its rental section for finding a new apartment or roommate. We can safely look to Apartments.com as the best alternative to Craigslist for finding an apartment online. 

As the leading online apartment listening website, Apartments.com is home to more than one million available places to rent. Its search feature can help you narrow down exactly what you want, including the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, whether it is pet friendly, and more. 

On top of finding a place to rent, you can use Apartments.com to advertise your rental as well as complete the entire leasing process online. This makes it a far more full-featured alternative to Craigslist which is mostly peer-to-peer rentals with no middleman. 

Apartments.com is only featured in the U.S. which might be its only negative compared to Craigslist. 

Best for Personals: Doublelist

While the face of Craigslist has always been its quick ability to sell goods and services, its personal section is its worst-kept secret. Looking to fill the Craigslist void is Doublelist, which is about the closest you will get to replicating what made Craigslist Personals so popular. 

A “dating service” for both casual and long-term relationships, you can find everything you’re looking for and then some. All of your relationship needs can be met through this site, and new members should find the interface extremely easy to navigate and learn. 

Filters make it super easy to search on a local city level with availability in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the U.S. Users should be happy to know that spam users are kept out, as Doublelist has strong anti-spam technology to make sure fake profiles are a thing of the past. 

Best for Jobs: Indeed.com

Finding jobs on Craigslist has, like selling, been one of the site staples since its inception. Fortunately, there is no shortage of sites online to help you find work or hire help. The best place to start is Indeed.com, one of the largest job sites in the world. 

More than 250 million unique visitors go to Indeed every month on top of more than 225 million resumes on Indeed at any given time. Between the app and the website, navigating Indeed is super easy and you can look for full-time, part-time, and freelance work. Alternatively, you can look to hire for any of the same criteria by posting your open positions online in under a few minutes. 

Going well beyond Craigslist, Indeed also offers career guides, resume help, reviews of companies, and salary expectations, just to name a few added benefits. 

Best for Cars: Carvana

Buying or selling cars on Craigslist has always been a great way to cut out the middleman and go straight to another buyer or seller. Unfortunately, car transactions on Craigslist have always been an opportunity for someone to get scammed with no recourse. Instead, turn to Carvana as the best Craigslist alternative. 

If you’re selling, you can get a quick quote online in less than five minutes and have a Carvana team member pick up your car a few days later. 

On the other hand, you can purchase a car directly from Carvana with financing, along with using your car as a trade-in. Every car purchase has a seven-day test period and a 100-day warranty on top of any car manufacturer warranty. 

The entire process is online so you never have to leave your home—something the industry has been moving towards in the future of car buying. 

Best for Services: TaskRabbit

Craigslist is full of people looking for help, from moving items small and large to hiring handymen for all kinds of tasks. The best Craigslist alternative for all of this work and more is easily TaskRabbit. When you want to have a desk assembled, you can find someone locally. Need to have someone clean your kitchen? TaskRabbit can help. 

More than 350,000 hours have been saved thanks to errands run by TaskRabbit, as well as 4 million stair steps saved by using ‘taskers.’

Partnering with IKEA, you can easily pick up furniture from your local store or have it shipped and a tasker will come out and help you build everything. For this service alone, it’s easy to see why TaskRabbit is such a strong alternative to Craigslist which offers no such partnership. 

You can work online or download the TaskRabbit app on iOS or Android to enroll yourself as a tasker or find your TaskRabbit ‘team’ for your next project.

Best for Kids: Kidizen

Parents have often found Craigslist as a less expensive way to find clothing another family is selling. Skip Craigslist next time and look to Kidizen as a safe and well-rated alternative. Whether it’s books, clothing, toys, or nursery room decor, Kidizen is the go-to place for parents to both sell and buy. 

For those looking to sell, you can handle it all yourself or ‘hire’ a personal seller who can list all of your items for you. The site gives you all of the important tips you need to know to help you best photograph all of your items and even choose the right time to list your items. 

The site is simple to navigate with categories for girls, boys, and even moms. Want to filter by brands? You can do that too!

All you have to do is add the items to your cart and purchase comfortably knowing that Kidizen offers buyers plenty of protection. 

How To Pick The Best Craigslist Alternative: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you have been a Craigslist user for years, moving away from the site to one of these best alternatives can feel like you’re abandoning a tradition.

But, when you are ready to make the move, consider these 3 factors: 

• Services
• Trust
• Pricing

Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail. 

Services

Craigslist is a jack of all trades with dozens of services available for choosing. When you’re ready to swap to an alternative, make sure it’s one that offers a similar service for your needs.

Are you looking to sell items that you no longer need? Facebook Marketplace or Decluttr are some of your best options for electronics, while Poshmark is great for clothes. Trying to find the nearest garage sale? Nextdoor is the perfect solution.

Rest assured that you can find everything you love from Craigslist available on one of these 10 great alternatives. 

Trust

Craigslist is not known for its buyer or seller protection, so knowing that many of the best Craigslist alternatives offer both buyer and seller protection is a huge benefit.

Facebook Marketplace, Poshmark, Kidizen, and more all offer protection to both buyers and sellers so you’re never out of money if a transaction goes wrong. This is a major benefit to making the transition from Craigslist. Indeed.com has also established itself as a premier site for those looking for work or for new employees and has built up significant trust in the job market. 

Pricing

Whereas Craigslist is mostly free outside of the transaction you are looking to accomplish with another buyer or seller, that’s not the case with many of these great alternatives.

Poshmark, Kidizen, and TaskRabbit are among those that all have costs associated with their services. However, considering the level of trust and protection you receive by using one of these sites, the fees and costs are well worth having a reliable marketplace to conduct business. 

Using The 10 Best Craigslist Alternatives: What It’s Like

Considering we’ve used many of these sites regularly, it’s easy to give them lots of praise.

Facebook has seen its share of troubles lately, but Facebook Marketplace is a definite go-to to quickly get rid of things collecting dust in your closet. Having the security of Facebook’s buyer protection is the biggest plus in our opinion. Meeting strangers in public is worrisome, so shipping with Facebook and having that protection allows for a lot of confidence. 

The same goes for Poshmark, as we have sold a ton of clothes through there to clean out our closets. The fees are a little disappointing, but it’s the price of doing business with a reputable site that allows you to quickly reach a wide audience. We’ve had nothing but success here and would absolutely recommend using it. 

If you can look past the typical neighbors arguing about who left their trash bin out too long, Nextdoor is a great app and site. Whether it’s getting rid of an old sofa or finding a local garage sale, it’s been a great experience. Still, you might have to dig through the irritating noise of neighbors who just can’t get along to find the posts that matter most to you. 

As used car prices skyrocketed over the last 18 months, Carvana has been a go-to to sell two of our last cars. The process has been simple and, both times, thanks to the used car market getting a major boost, we’ve sold above value, so we’ve been able to pay off both cars and pocket some money. That’s a win-win in our book!

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