Cupid calling Cupid? Well, there’s an app for that! Valentine’s day has come and gone and before another one waves past you, dating apps could be a great way to try your hand at dating a real person using your smartphone. Technology has rapidly evolved from its initial days and now thanks to the host of cupid apps, it is even easier for find a date for your evening. Leading the pack among these apps was Tinder, which unfortunately is now frowned upon by the freebie lovers and 30-plus guys on the look for some love.
Tinder, which began as a small startup back in 2012 had offered a simple and powerful interface for people to easily meet people around them. Using a search based on geographical location, age and gender related filters and providing them with a swipe-based interface that worked like the Hot or Not dot com, Tinder quickly grew to its popularity. After having raised millions in venture capital and valuations at the north of $750 million, Tinder has easily established itself as the undisputed king of dating apps no matter what naysayers think about it.
Why would you need Tinder alternatives?
Well, the growth of Tinder in itself didn’t bode well for the people who have always wanted a dating service to be free. With over 50 million plus registered users, more than one billion swipes and over 15 million matches per day, Tinder should be hailed as the best dating app out there! But since early days, they were always hinting of turning their services into paid ones and the time has befell upon. Tinder has announced that it will limit the number of swipes for free users and their paid plans would charge $9.99 for users aged between 18-28 and $19.99 for users aged above 28. Poor you 30+ people!
10 Best Tinder Alternatives
So, in short Tinder is now no longer a completely free service! Run for your lives cupids! No thanks, there’s an alternative app for that and here arises the need for some of the best apps like Tinder.
Happn
Happn is a Parisian take on dating apps. You can meet people you rub shoulders with while on the side-walk if both people are on the network. Happn allows people to match while they cross paths on GPS. Happn is a tightly location-based app that only shows up users within 250 meters from you. If both people care to match, only then will Happn link both users for a date. It shows the number of times you crossed paths with that person and also the exact time and location of that particular encounter.
Happn takes safety measures to make sure that people whom you do not elect to like won’t show up on your feed. Happn is a great hyper-local dating app alternative to Tinder.
Key Features: Facebook connect, Hyper-local location based app, Number of times path crossed with someone, like or dislike profiles, Send Charms or Likes anonymously.
Supported Platforms: iOS and Android
Pricing: Free
Hinge
Hinge is another great Tinder alternative, given that you are based in London or some major cities in the United States, as other locations are unsupported at the present time. Hinge lets you meet up with real people, your friends or mutual friends and it would be just like meeting someone at a dinner or house-warming party. The app hand-selects real and verified profiles for you to connect with and no acts of randomness awaits you with this Hinge. Your privacy isn’t violated by posting to your Facebook timeline and you could carry out your cupids anonymously!
Hinge is a great dating app that brings you a fresh influx of suitors daily to swipe them left or right just as you were in Tinder. The only downside being availability in only 34 cities and smaller pool of profiles as compared to other dating apps.
Key Features: Real and verified profiles, Daily matching, People you would actually like to meet.
Supported Platforms: iOS and Android
Pricing: Free
Availability: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, DC, London, Toronto, Albany, Atlanta, Austin/San Antonio, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Nashville, New Orleans, Omaha, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, and Tampa.
Pure
Pure advertises itself as the ‘Uber for dates’ and most of the people don’t even know what do they mean by that. Pure is basically a no-nonsense dating app that is like a middlemen to get two people to meet face-to-face. You are initially provided with five free tickets and using which you could issue a 1-hour meeting request to people nearby. If someone matches your criteria and hits ‘Yes’ on your photos, you will be matched to meet at a pre-determined time and location.
The app is a simple hookup system that doesn’t do much more than requesting for a meetup, asking for more photos and choosing the time and location for a meetup.
Key Features: Real face-to-face interactions, Tickets based meeting system, Request for more photos, Placing a meeting time and location.
Supported Platforms: iOS and Beta testing on Android
Pricing: Free and in-app ticket purchases
Glimpse
Love photography and are you a foodie? Glimpse may be just thee dating app you’ve been looking for. Glimpse connects to a user’s Instagram accounts and fetches all the images of your travel and foodie monologue for users to browse through. Initial conversations could be awkward and Glimpse could be an icebreaker by showcasing your Instagram photos to get started on some random topic.
Glimpse, just like the other dating apps makes use of geo-location based search to match people near you.
Key Features: Connects with Instagram, Meet people who like your photography and foodie adventures, Like profiles and get liked.
Supported Platforms: iOS
Pricing: Free
Coffee Meets Bagel
Coffee Meets Bagel is just as delicious dating app as it sounds. This dating app provides users with a new match, or what it commonly refers to as a ‘Bagel’. The app gives you 24 hours to like or pass off that bagel or match. Only one such match is provided per day during noon. If you like the bagel, you both will be matched up by a private chat room and you can converse with people until the ‘Line of communication’ is active. Once the period expires, you will be disconnected from the person and more mutual friends from the profiles of people you have liked will pop-up.
To continue the Line of communication on this app, purchase of in-app ‘Beans’ will provide you with the necessary perks and upgrades.
Key Features: Great privacy features, Line of communication, Beans/upgrades available, Like and get Liked, Only one match a day, Verified profiles.
Supported Platforms: iOS and Android
Pricing: Free with in-app purchases
The Dating Ring
The Dating Ring is a dating app that brings a touch of human to the entire process of dating and meeting new people. They believe that there is not a specific filter that would make finding new people easier or better. The automated techniques of dating are being challenged by The Dating Ring by providing a human touch to it and yet saving your time browsing hundreds of profiles online.
This app gets people to actually meet in real life rather swiping left and right the life out of your mobile phones.
Key Features: Matchmaker introductions, Matchmaker chat, Photo assistance, Party and events.
Supported Platforms: Web app
Pricing: Free
OKcupid
OKcupid is one of the oldest dating platforms available on the web right now. Over time they have acquired many networks and their matching algorithms have improved considerably. Their matching algorithms are now considered one of the best in the niche beating everyone else by a huge margin. Although finding the right match isn’t always down to algorithms, but it doesn’t hurt to have a network with strong matching algorithm.
OKcupid provides more connecting options that what Tinder has to offer. In addition to the Swipe-based connecting feature, matches are ranked according to compatibility and could be contacted further through messaging.
Key Features: Best matching algorithms, Quickmatch, Browsing and like profiles, send messages to interested profiles.
Supported Platforms: iOS and Android
Pricing: Free
Hitch
Hitch’s mission of ‘Friends know better’ bodes well for the app and its users. Hitch provides a great dating app that lets your friend take control of your dating life. This dating app lets your friends to suggest someone from their friend list or mutual friends for you to meetup and connect with. Hitch does away with the need for swiping profiles and your friends who know you better would help you with suggestions which they think would be best for you.
Get connected with new people when they get recommended to you by your friends on Hitch.
Key Features: Introduce people and recommend them to friends, Browse profiles anonymously, Verified profiles.
Supported Platforms: iOS and Android
Pricing: Free
TrulyMadly
TrulyMadly is a great free dating app for the cupids based in India and been left out of great apps that are geographically-restricted. The app is pretty simple in the way it works. Upon logging in to their network, the app presents with a host of questionnaires to identify their users’ tastes and match them accordingly. People are matched based on their chosen set of preferences and interests. You can choose to Like or Hide profiles anonymously and only in the event of a mutual liking, both the profiles will be matched for further connecting.
TrulyMadly makes use of its algorithms to chalk out an initial combination match for your interests and after the above said interactions, you could meet new people.
Key Features: Authenticated and verified profiles, Anonymous Like or Hide profiles, Algorithm based True compatibility.
Supported Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Store
Pricing: Free
Clover
Clover’s motto takes a cheeky little dig at Tinder by calling out people to ‘Swipe less and date more’. Clover dating app is a free iOS-only dating app alternative to Tinder. A new feature called On-demand dating has been recently incorporated into this app, which has been previously covered in Pure dating app. You can have a look at the people nearby you who have liked your profile and you can filter people based on a host of ethnicity and personal preferences. The app is also supported for Apple Watch to let you swipe between profiles remotely without reaching out for your mobile phone.
Share photos, audio, video messages, and have complete privacy control over your profile and what information gets displayed to strangers.A premium app is available for a price of $29.94 for 6 months, which offers all the premium features like enhanced chats, unlimited gifts and more.
Key Features: On-demand dating, anonymous profile browsing, keep track of likes, find people by filters and automatic matching, share photos, videos and text messages.
Supported Platforms: iOS
Pricing: Free and Paid version for premium features.
SEE ALSO: 18 Snapchat Tricks That You Should Try Once
So, that was us. What about you? Which tinder like dating apps do you make use of the most now that Tinder is no longer a completely free service? Share your thoughts and comments below.
