If you’re single and looking for love, you’ve probably considered using a dating site/app. Once seen as an unusual and even shameful way to meet your partner, couples who met online would often come up with a ‘cover story’ for their friends and family. But these days, online dating is absolutely the norm and with online matchmaking software getting more and more sophisticated, nobody is shocked when their friends tell them that they’ve met their soulmate online.
Whether you’re looking for something casual or want a serious relationship with a future life partner, there’s a dating site option for you. We’ve taken a look at six of the most popular dating sites in terms of users, popularity, features, and pros and cons to help you pick the online dating app that’s most suited to your needs when looking for love.
My top 6 picks for dating Apps
#1 Best Dating App (excellent platform & App) - eHarmony
Important points:
- Gender ratio of 51% men and 49% of women
- Over two million people have found love on this site
- Users can easily filter match recommendations
- The Compatibility Quiz improves your chance of finding a match by identifying common interests, life goals and more
- Ideal for daters who are looking for something serious
- Free and paid subscription options
Launched in 2000, eHarmony is one of the major players in the online dating game, and is highly recommended to singles who are serious about finding their future life partner and settling down. It is mainly used by straight singles, although there are some success stories of gay and lesbian relationships found on eHarmony too. For the past twenty years, this dating site has endeavored to find the perfect formula for love, with a 32-dimension personality test that users need to take when they sign up in order to identify areas of compatibility between individuals and increase your chance of finding the one.
Active monthly users: 10 million
Pros
Cons
#2 Best Dating App (Best for professionals) - Elite Singles:
Important points:
- Dating site designed for educated professionals
- Includes a personality survey to help you find highly compatible matches
- 82% of members have a university degree
- 90% of members are aged 30 and above
- Premium features available
- The Elite Singles online magazine allows you to get tips and insights from dating experts
Elite Singles is a dating site that aims to create a mature dating pool for educated professionals. If you’re unwilling to budge when it comes to your partner’s qualifications and career goals and want to find someone who understands the demands of your career, this site aims to offer a more specific approach to its competitors.
Active monthly users: 13 million members worldwide
Pros
Cons
#3 Best Dating App (Best for hook-ups) - Adult Friend Finder:
Important points:
- This site is not for you if you are looking for a serious relationship or marriage, although it’s not completely impossible to find here
- You can register in 30 seconds with some basic information
- There’s a personality test option similar to eHarmony or Match.com that you can take if you like
- Sexy questionnaire options are available like the ‘purity test’ where you can answer questions about how far you are willing to go sexually
- Matching is based more predominantly on physical appearance and physical preferences
- This site is for you if you want to see x-rated photos in your personal feed
Adult friend finder is a sex-positive community and one of the most well-known sites for finding regular hookups, friends with benefits, quick sexual encounters, and perhaps even something serious. Anything remotely related to sex goes with this website whether you’re looking for a no-strings-attached partner or want to explore a kink. Anyone looking for a good time will definitely find it here with thousands of users all up for the same thing - some sexy fun.
Number of users: An average of 25 million monthly users
Pros
Cons
#4 Best Dating App (Reliable - Around since 1995) - Match.com
Important points:
- Geared towards singles looking for love and marriage rather than something casual
- Comes with a mobile app that is easy to download
- One of the oldest dating sites founded almost 30 years ago
- Basic and premium features to choose from
- Ideal for straight, gay or lesbian singles with the option to choose a gay preference on sign up
- Profile building tool allows for easy profile creation
Match.com is one of the most long-standing dating sites out there, founded in 1993 in order to prove the feasibility of online dating. Since its official launch in 1995, it has grown to become one of the most popular dating sites available. They offer a guarantee that if you are unable to find an ideal match in 6 months of using the site, they will give you additional free membership months. And, Match.com claims to have produced more successful relationships and marriages than any other dating site. They also run a variety of singles events that are great for meeting new people and even making friends if you don’t find your special somebody.
Number of members: 21.5 million
Pros
Cons
#5 Best Dating App (Most popular) - Tinder
Important points:
- More commonly used for hookups and casual relationships than those looking for serious long-term relationships and marriage
- Easy to use and set up; you can sign up with email or import your profile information from Facebook
- There are no features like personality quizzes to find more compatible matches compared to other dating sites
- Free and premium features are available
- You cannot send messages to users who do not swipe right on your profile
- You can connect to other apps like Spotify and Snapchat
Tinder is a hugely popular dating app that is predominantly used for hookups and casual dating, although there have been many relationship success stories out of Tinder, with some users even going on to get married and start families. Users tend to like Tinder for its ease of use; you can set up a profile using your Facebook account easily and start exploring potential matches straight away. You can set your preferences to include potential matches in a certain radius, making it much easier to find somebody who is close to you. Users browse profiles by swiping left for not interested and right for interest. If two people swipe right on one another, this will unlock the messaging feature, making it easier to only receive messages from users you have shown an interest in.
Number of users: An average of 50 million people worldwide
Pros
Cons
#6 Best Dating App (Pro Women) - Bumble
Important points:
- Pro-women app with a feature where women can only message first, in order to improve safety and weed out the creeps when online dating
- A blend of hook-up apps and more serious dating sites with features catering to everybody
- Easy to sign up via Facebook or email
- Bumble Friends is also available if you want to meet more people for friendships too
- Profile questions and prompts can make it easier to describe yourself
- Icebreaker suggestions when you match with a user can help get the conversation flowing
- Similar to Tinder, women can only send a message to a guy when they’ve both swiped right on each other’s profiles
Bumble is similar to Tinder in terms of swiping action, but as a dating app it seeks to dig a little deeper than making decisions on who’s hot and who’s not based on profile pictures alone. Users can fill out more profile sections compared to Tinder, and specify some important aspects about them such as whether or not they drink or smoke, what kind of a relationship they are looking for, whether or not they want kids in the future and of course, the all-important question of whether they are a dog or cat person. Users can then filter the potential matches they see based on answers to these questions that are important to them in a mate. Profile prompts are also really useful for letting your personality shine through if you’re not sure what to write about yourself.
Number of users: 22 million
Pros
Cons
Which of these dating sites is the most suitable for you? Have you used a dating site not listed that you would recommend? We’d love to hear from you.
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