Looking for love? These are the most popular dating sites and apps, according to actual users.

Read our full review of Match.

If you're looking for a serious long-term relationship, signing up for a site that's been serious about online dating for over 25 years might just be the move for you.

Match, rebranded from the well-known Match.com, has you fill out a pretty decent profile with info about your lifestyle, background, appearance, interests, some fun Hinge-type personality prompts, and of course, a bio. 

When you're looking for potential boos, the app will present you accounts one by one, so it's not too overwhelming. However, if you are in the mood to see who's out there, you can also scroll through nearby users and send some likes their way. Overall, the experience definitely feels more streamlined and intentional than your casual Tinder swipe session. 

As for the user base, people do tend to be a bit more mature — over 50% of Match users(opens in a new tab) are 30 years or older. 

Daniel Hess, a 31-year-old writer, filmmaker, and videographer, had a two-year relationship come out of his time on Match. He appreciated that people on Match tended to be more serious, which he guessed had to do with the fact everyone was paying to use the app. 

Though Match did introduce a free tier in March 2020 that offers six likes per day, you can't message people unless you're a paying user. In other words, people that actually use the site will be investing both their time and money. 

These days, Daniel Hess is back on the apps. Though he's tried out several, he still believes Match is one of the best for helping you find a meaningful connection. 

"I just think nobody has really found like that secret sauce for it, so to speak," Hess said to Mashable about dating app features. "But I think Match was pretty good in that regard that they were really trying to find people that match like your interests." 

Hess is right — the filtering system does actually do a pretty good job of sticking to what you're looking for and seems marginally less likely to show you randos as compared to others apps and sites. If you're looking to intentionally search for love, Match definitely comes equipped with the tools to help you out. 

Read our full review of eharmony.

People know eharmony is a place where people look for commitment, and not just because we all saw their "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)"(opens in a new tab) commercial no less than 100 times each in the early 2000s. 

While its reputation as the destination for a long-term commitment has by no means changed since then, the interface of both the app and website don't feel dated at all. From when you first make an account, its clear eharmony is not trying to rip off more modern apps, as it has you spend time filling out a 70-question compatibility quiz. Your answers are used to calculate your compatibility score with other users on the site. 

Bethany Beauregard, a 33-year-old contractor, found that though this required some more time than making an account on other dating apps, it definitely saved time in the long run. 

"[Eharmony] only showed you people that were within like 70% and above of being compatible with you based off of a set of values. So the people that I guess I wouldn't align per their algorithm they just didn't even bother showing me, and I felt like that did help move things along a bit more." 

So far in her six months using the service, she found that the score seemed to serve as a decent predictor — a man she really enjoyed dating from the site had a score in the high 90s. Generally, she found that her matches seemed to be people actually looking for something serious, which makes sense considering that eharmony is by far one of the pricier online dating sites out there. You don't drop some cash unless you're looking to get serious. 

The two main drawbacks for Beauregard both deal with accessibility, and point to some larger issues with the site. Though it has certainly modernized, the most functional version of eharmony is definitely its website rather than its app, which might mean matches log on less often. 

The other issue is that, historically, eharmony has not been the most LGBTQ+ friendly, and though they've come a ways, you couldn't look at men and women's profiles at the same time until December 2021. Though the change is important, it is long overdue. Prior to it, Beauregard, a bisexual woman, would simply switch to other apps to look for potential matches of both genders.

Go to the App Store lifestyle charts and you’ll find Tinder at the top. Is that because it’s definitively the absolute best dating app out there? Not exactly. But it’s definitely the most ubiquitous, and often people’s first exposure to the world of online dating. 

Tinder shines because of the variety it contains. Once you start swiping, you’ll almost certainly encounter a wide range in what people are on the app for, from casual hookups to serious relationships, because there are simply so many people on Tinder. With the more recent addition of an Explore page, the app is getting better at helping users show off more of their personality and finding the connection they're seeking.

For newcomers, it can be a tad overwhelming, but swiping on Tinder is a decent way to get a taste of what online dating can be. Isabel Reeves, a 23-year-old public relations professional, uses the app along with others to get the best sense of who's out there in the dating pool, though she does say people, herself included, can get "swipe-friendly" on the app on treat it as a game. For that reason, it's not the first place she goes to find a serious relationship. 

Yong Chong, a 23-year-old software developer wasn't as concerned about this part of Tinder. "I wanted to expand my horizons. I was open to different kinds of relationships, both casual and serious," he said.  

Ultimately, you'll come across profiles with meticulously curated bios, profiles with completely blank bios, profiles of your old crushes, and profiles of people you would have never encountered otherwise, showing that Tinder will offer a whole lot to you, if you're ready to dive in to the world of online dating. 

Read more about Bumble here.

If you're a woman on dating app, you've experienced being flooded with messages. On the flip side, if you're a guy, you've probably felt the pressure to message first, even if you wouldn't mind being on the receiving end of a cheesy opening line every now and then. 

Bumble's main platform is designed to help with both issues, by requiring that women message first and within 24 hours of matching. These unique feature is what boosted Bumble to popularity and made it one of the top swiping apps — seriously, it had 40 million users(opens in a new tab) worldwide as of February 2021. 

Mitch McDaniel, a 29-year-old who works in construction, uses both Tinder and Bumble, but definitely prefers the latter, as he sees someone willing to initiate the conversation as generally more interested, "whereas on Tinder, you can message however many people and hear nothing back, so it's more of a shot in the dark," he said in a text to Mashable. "I'm not trying to spend all my free time shooting my shot to people who don't care." 

Admittedly, the whole woman-messages-first model can feel a tad bit heteronormative — for same-sex couples, this feature is moot, as either party can start the conversation. However, there are a bunch of gender and pronoun options, and you can set your preferences to see people from all genders, so the app's not completely behind the times. 

When looking for matches, the app's paid modes, Bumble Boost and Bumble Premium, allow you to rewind accidental left swipes, rematch with expired matches, and browse on Incognito mode, which only shows you people you've swiped right on. They're nice bonuses, but by no means necessary if you want to save your money.

As for building your own profile, Bumble now reflects the time we're living in by letting you put in Covid preferences that show whether you're comfortable meeting virtually or in-person for a first date. You can also tag up to five of your interests on your profile, which include options like singing, bowling, karaoke, and video games. You can also answer prompts and write your standard dating app bio, giving you plenty of options to show your personality off. Basically the layout is a mix of Tinder and Hinge, which also generally describes the overall vibe of the app. 

From our research across the internet and from the dating app users we spoke to, three swiping apps came up again and again as the most commonly used — Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. If Tinder is known as the more entry-level hookup app, Bumble is perhaps its more slightly commitment-oriented counterpart, with Hinge taking the cake as the most relationship-oriented swiping app. 

That's not to say you won't find more casual connections on Hinge. But thanks to a minimum requirement of six pictures and three written prompts (or a voice prompt, if that's your speed), making a profile does require a bit of effort. 

Isabel Reeves, a 23-year-old public relations professional, uses all three of the aforementioned swiping apps. She said she likes how the prompts open the door to better conversations, and how they tend to be a bit more revealing that your standard Tinder bio. "It makes it really easy to kind of get a good view of someone," she said,  "Especially with how they answer the prompts. Like do they take it seriously? Do they not care at all? It just shows how serious they are." 

Garrett Bemiller, a 24-year-old assistant account executive, found that being able to comment and receive comments on photos before he matched with someone helped open better conversations when a match was made. 

Beyond the commenting and prompts, Hinge also highlights who they think you'll like best daily in the "Standouts" tab, so that can help if you're not a huge fan of swiping endlessly. When you do swipe from the standard Discover section, you won't be able to shoot off likes right and left — free users are limited to eight per day (though Preferred members can access unlimited likes). 

You can also customize your profile with tags about your sexuality, gender, vaccination status, drug and alcohol use, and so on. Though you can use these filters somewhat as a free member to find your perfect match, Preferred members get greater customization. 

Out of all the swiping apps, the involvement Hinge requires in building a profile makes it clear why it's more popular for finding relationships. As Bemiller put it, "Hinge is the one that I would say is the closest to how they market themselves — like they are created to be deleted." 

Looking for love, but would rather not spend a significant amount of your day swiping through dating profiles? Allow us to introduce you to Coffee Meets Bagel, an app that sends you curated matches called "bagels" every day at noon. In other words, this is an app that goes for quality over quantity. 

When you start to use CMB, you'll notice right away the interface doesn’t feel Tinder-derived in the way others do, with different tabs to look at your suggested matches, who likes you, and one for discovery. While it’s refreshing to see some slight change in design, this does mean there might be a bit of a learning curve when you’re first using the app. 

Ultimately though, having this type of organization is pretty helpful when you’re looking for something more serious, which most Coffee Meet Bagel users are. To keep your chat page from getting clogged up, chats are automatically deleted after a week. 

While this time crunch might stress some users out, its a feature that Bethany Beauregard, a 33-year-old contractor in D.C. greatly appreciates. "If you were interested, you moved off the app more quickly," she said of the chat limit. 

She also liked that the app doesn't display names. As a woman that makes me feel more safe," she said,"because I've had friends who have been on Tinder and Bumble and had guys they haven't matched with then look them up on LinkedIn, or Instagram, things like that. So in this case, you have a face but you don't have a name." 

This app has gained the most traction in metropolitan-areas, so while it does have a smaller user base generally and only around 130,000 ratings on the Apple app store (as compared to other apps' million-plus ratings), it rings true to its quality versus quantity ethos. 

Read our full review of OkCupid.

If swiping mindlessly on apps has never quite been your vibe, but you’re also hesitant to hop on dating sites because of how capital-S Serious they seem, OkCupid could be the perfect middle ground for you. 

Maybe this is surprising for a dating website that's been around since 2004, but OkCupid has kept up with the times, catering pretty equally to users who want something very casual or something much more serious. Yes, you do have to answer a questionnaire, but not all the questions are deep and relationship-oriented. They run the gamut from the fun "Do you ever eat in bed?" (useful for both casual and serious relationships, tbh) to the very straightforward "Are you ready to settle down and get married right now?" 

The site recommends answering at least 50 to 100 of the over 4,000 questions so it can best calculate your compatibility score with someone else. When answering, you can also set what answers you prefer to see from potential matches and how important those questions are to you in the first place. So, though OkCupid does follow the standard swipe model, the compatibility score that results from the questionnaire offers a lot more info than your average Tinder or Bumble profile. If you don't want to just swipe, you can also search through users based off of answers to questions and common interests.

Another big draw of OkCupid is that there are up 22 genders and 12 sexual orientations to choose from when filling out your profile, which definitely beats a ton of other dating sites. 

You can filter people with these identifiers to make finding what you're looking easy, even if you're not a paid user. Meri Sutton-Hatcher, a 36-year-old polyamorous transwoman, appreciates that she can use filters feature for free to find other poly people without too much hassle.  

Unlike Match, another site that's pretty good at abiding by your filters, OkCupid tends to have a user base that skews slightly younger, with the majority of users between 25 and 34. It also definitely leans progressive, so you'll likely have the most luck in finding other compatible users the closer you live to a city. 

Though the reign of the exclusively heterosexual dating app is pretty much over, pretty much every queer woman who's logged on to an app that can also be used by straight people, no matter their own preferences, has encountered profiles of couples looking for a third, women only interested in experimenting, or even just straight-up men.

In other words, queer women face this whole other layer of mess in the already messy world of online dating. That's why HER was created in 2015, and since that, it has become the most popular app for queer women and non-binary people. 

Meri Sutton-Hatcher, a 36-year-old transwoman, said the draw of HER was simple: "The biggest thing about HER, is that being a lesbian, that's who's on there." 

As far as how the app works itself, it follows the standard swiping app format — in all honesty, it resembles Tinder quite a bit. Unlike Tinder, you can definitely tell it was built for queer people. You have your options of six different pronouns, 21 different gender identity options, and 20 different sexual identity options, all of which have a "self-describe" space. You can also mark what you're looking for in a relationship, from new friends to a polyamorous relationship, but you can't filter your matches by these identifiers unless you have a premium subscription. 

Even without the filters, you'll find that HER does have a pretty varied user base of queer women, though many people online complain about the amount of bots and low-effort scam accounts you'll find on the app. 

HER also has a social media tab, which lets you know about events in your local (or online, considering the present circumstances) queer community. This feature is somewhat newer, and while its a nice idea, it does feel a bit random for a dating app. Sutton-Hatcher said she almost never uses it, preferring to turn to Reddit, Instagram, or Twitter for her non-dating needs.

Still, as for being a space exclusively for women who want to date other women, HER remains one of the best apps out there. 

Just as Tinder is known as the OG dating app, Grindr is known as the OG dating app for gay men. Though some alternatives have sprung up over the years, Grindr remains the premier online destination for gay and bisexual men.

This wide user base is basically necessary for Grindr's format. Instead of swiping left of right, you can choose to message anyone you see on the app's location-based grid, hence why it's easy to make quick connections. You can apply some basic filters, such as age and what you're looking for. 

If you spring for a subscription, you whittle down the crowd with more advanced filters, that allow to see who's online or who has photos on their profile.

All of this isn't to say that Grindr is for hookups and hookups alone. With the "Looking for" filter, you see who's just looking to chat, make friends, or get into a relationship. 

Garrett Bemiller, a 24-year-old assistant account executive, has been using Grindr since he was 17. These days, he uses it in conjunction with Hinge. Whereas Hinge is more of his relationship spot, Grindr's grid system makes finding someone to meet up asap.

"If you find someone that's attractive that's within walking distance, it's a lot easier to be like, 'Oh, come over really fast,'" Bemiller said.

Though the ability to message anyone on your grid is convenient, you'll find that there is a higher chance you'll receive more unwelcome messages, including unsolicited nudes. Bemiller noted that while he definitely isn't a fan of this side of Grindr, there are less-than-respectful types on any dating app out there. 

Speaking of less-than-respectful types, Grindr has had some issues with biphobia among its users. While it's definitely not completely absent, it's also not a hard and fast rule(opens in a new tab) that you'll have a bad time as a bi man. 

At the end of the day, if you're looking for an app that's just for queer men, Grindr offers the greatest user base by a mile. 

Out of all the apps and sites on this list, Plenty of Fish is most likely the one you haven't heard of before. But with over 1.4 million ratings(opens in a new tab) on the Apple App Store, it's certainly earned its place as a popular choice for online daters. 

Upon first glance, PoF may look like a standard swiping app situation. But once you navigate around a bit, you'll notice it's definitely not. For starters, the search tab allows you to see who's online, in your area, and send them a message before sending them a like. Though it's missing a grid, it does resemble Grindr in that way.

Though this seems to lend itself to super casual connections, the app does have you fill out a decently extensive profile, asking questions about what you're looking for, if you have siblings, and even what your longest relationship was. 

Courtney Allen, a 28-year-old news director, told Mashable Plenty of Fish has been her app of choice for several years. She likes that you can search around and read people's profiles without ever swiping or matching. 

"I'm ready to find someone talk to about my day and how everything's been going in life," she said, which is why she enjoys the apps emphasis on actually chatting with people. If someone sends her a message and took the time to fill out her profile, Allen reads that as a good sign. In any case, she finds it much more personal than swiping on someone based on their photos. 

With that said, because you can message anyone, you do open the risk of more bot accounts or unsolicited messages. It also means that the majority of users tend to look for something more casual, but as you would with any dating app, using your best judgment in getting to know someone is key.

The other notable feature of Plenty of Fish is the livestreaming tab, where you can go live yourself or watch other people. The app says it's to help you make more meaningful connections — how exactly that works is not entirely clear, but it does set PoF apart, just maybe not in an entirely useful way.