Totally anecdotal, but in the early years of Airbnb, I was a staunch advocate of their mission and execution. Fast forward to now and several negative experiences with the firm (which have only really happened over the last couple of years) have left me wary of the company, especially having had great experiences with other services like Booking.com. That said, for the chief product that Airbnb mediates - rooms or apartments instead of hotels or hostels -, they're top dog. Alternative options in this space are mighty slim if you're looking beyond non-sketchy options, perhaps because barriers to entry, by way of building large-enough user and hosts bases, are _really_ difficult to build up.