Whether you're looking for a long-term relationship or a quick booty call, there's a dating app for everyone.
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View photos of like-minded singles Send & receive likes View your mutual matches Send & receive messages Go on dates & have fun.
From the hyper-specific—FarmersOnly, JDate, 3Fun—to the general ones we review here that cast wider nets, there are many, many options.
Bars, nightclubs, and other traditional meeting places may be starting to reopen, but how safe are they?
Dating sites and apps are the way to go these days, with new services cropping up all the time. A dating app that only works on Thursday?
What a concept! Many even have special video services they've introduced specifically to deal with dating in a post-COVID world, as we'll explain later. With so many choices, how can you find your perfect, loving match?
Getting Started With Our Top 10 Dating Apps
The first thing you need to decide is your commitment level. As in, how much do you want to pay to make your heart go pitter-patter? Some apps, like Plenty of Fish, let you view profiles and send messages for free.
Most of the others let you view your potential matches without charging, but they make you pony up and subscribe if you want to actually reach out to them without limits—especially if the interest is one-sided.
While the monthly charges for the apps we review here range in price from $10 to more than $40, most offer a discount if you commit to a long-term subscription, such as six months or a year. (You're not afraid of commitment, are you?)
Then there are all the add-ons. Options—letting you pay to boost your ranking in search results, letting someone know that you are really, really interested in him or her or them, or undoing a dreaded left-swipe that was supposed to be a right-swipe—will cost you extra.
While some apps may advertise themselves as free, all of them try to get a buck from you in the end. Only Facebook Dating is totally free, and that’s only if you don’t consider your existing personal Facebook profile data to be currency.
Time to Connect
Once you pick that perfect selfie and write paragraphs to sell all your best attributes to your future digital Valentine, it's time to start browsing. This is where the big differences between these apps are apparent.
For instance, Tinder, with its famous hot-or-not swiping interface, makes it quick and easy to find your next date. Bumble, on the other hand, puts all the power in women's hands; men can't even contact a woman unless she's first expressed interest.
Others, like Match and OkCupid, have robust profiles that let you dive deep into a user's personality (or at least the one he or she has decided to present to you), before you decide to go on the pursuit. Hinge lets users create profiles that are a beautiful blend of visuals and text.
Now that you've perused the dating pool and have your eyes on that special someone, it's time to bite the bullet and actually reach out to them.
Each app offers different ways of showing your interest. Match will let you Wink at a fellow member for free, and Plenty of Fish doesn't charge for messaging. In most dating apps, messaging is typically free when both users like each other.
However, free users only get so many likes per day, with Hinge being especially limited. In other instances, you'll get charged for reaching out.
If you're not ready to express your feelings in words, Bumble lets you send Bumble Coins to prospective matches, for $2 a pop.
Zoosk offers the slightly creepy option of buying coins to anonymously browse profiles, as well as reward anyone who views your own profile (for an additional fee, of course).
Dating While Social Distancing
In case dating wasn’t difficult enough, our social lives were upended by the COVID-19 epidemic. Ideally, online dating should lead to meeting up in real life. However, sometimes the responsible thing to do is to stay home, and that created quite a dilemma for dating apps.
Fairytrail, a dating app for connecting via shared travel destination dreams, saw an bittersweet increase in use. Similarly, Zoosk's Great Dates feature lets couples virtually tour exciting locales safely at home.
The most straightforward virtual dating solution is video chatting, which lets you at least see each other face to face instead of just texting. Bumble, Clover, eharmony, Hinge, Match, Plenty of Fish, and Tinder all offer video chat.
Apps with more specific target audiences are also adopting this feature, including the mobile-only Muslim dating app Muzmatch. Snack introduces TikTok-style video functionality to dating profiles.
Which Dating App Should You Use?
Dating is hard work, so we did some of the legwork for you by taking a deep dive into 10 of the most popular apps. We weren’t popular enough to get into The League, the dating app for celebrities.
Everyone's needs and wants are different, so not every app will be a great fit for you. Match and Tinder are both Editors’ Choice picks because they excel in their respective lanes: lasting relationships and fast hookups. Other apps have strengths, too, and you can learn more by reading our in-depth reviews. If things don't work out, we a have a handy list of the best breakup apps, too.