Nextdoor: Neighborhood Network

Nextdoor Review: Verified Neighbors, but Ads and a Wide Feed You Can't Tune

Address check: SMS code, home location or a document under 6 months old

Joining starts with an email link, then a home address you rent, own, plan to build on or let out. Verification by text works only if your mobile plan's billing address matches it; geo-location works only while you are at home. Otherwise the help center accepts a government ID, deed, lease or utility bill dated within six months, and unverified accounts stay read-only. One account holds one residential address, so a second home needs a second account and email, and the address can change only once every 30 days. Neighbors never see your street or house number, only your neighborhood name, and you can shorten your surname to an initial. Two 2026 Play reviews describe sign-ups stuck at the location and phone steps.

Four feed filters and a 2.5–4 mile Nearby radius

The feed opens on For You, with Recent, Nearby and Trending, which ranks the past 7 days. The help center admits there is no way to save another default or limit the feed to a single neighborhood, and accounts may be auto-connected to nearby neighborhoods 2.5 to 4 miles out. Since the July 2025 redesign, Alerts from Samdesk and Weather.com sit on a neighborhood map; CEO Nirav Tolia told TechCrunch that a critical red alert takes over the whole app. News comes from about 3,500 partner publications, some of them paywalled. Faves and the newer Ask feature answer local questions with AI summaries drawn from past neighbor posts.

For Sale & Free: AI listing drafts and the August 2026 self-promotion rule

Listings need at least one photo, and the optional AI Assistant suggests a title, description, price and category from it. Personal items, homemade goods under Neighbor Made and casual services under Neighbor Services are allowed; business reselling, gift cards, duplicate listings, realtor listings and selling pets are not. There is no checkout: the help center points buyers to payment apps such as Venmo, PayPal, Zelle or Cash App. It also warns about below-market vehicles and electronics offered by sellers who ask for gift-card payment. Since August 19, 2026, anyone regularly promoting paid work must post from a free Business Page; personal accounts may offer babysitting or handmade goods once a month. At least 5 of 62 critical Play reviews from late September object to the change.

Volunteer moderators, unhideable sponsored posts and ad data

The Community Guidelines set five rules, including real names, no discrimination and moving national topics into Groups. Most reports go to volunteer Leads and Review Team members who vote on them; misinformation and discrimination reports go straight to staff, and a reporter's appeal goes to a different set of moderators. Sponsored ads, a revenue source since 2016, cannot be hidden or blocked. Google Play's Data safety form lists device IDs as shared for advertising and your address among data used for marketing, while Apple's label says contact info and identifiers may be used to track you. The privacy policy, effective January 1, 2026, lets hashed emails reach ad partners; residents of 19 states can opt out in Settings.