Often, when looking for a dating app to find a serious relationship, two of the names that tend to come up are Hinge and eharmony. Both dating apps have millions of members, have been around for at least 10 years, and on the surface seem to be quality options.
But is this a situation when judging a few books by their cover is okay? Is Hinge or eharmony better for singles looking for a committed relationship? And do recent legal troubles for one of these players change everything?
Today, that’s what we’re going to explore in our Hinge vs. eharmony discussion. We’ll share the meaningful differences and similarities you should be aware of, share our pick for the winner, and ultimately help you decide if Hinge or eharmony is better for you.
The recent Hinge lawsuit is pretty concerning.
“…Match employs recognized dopamine-manipulating product features to gamify the Platforms to transform users into gamblers locked in a search for psychological rewards that Match makes elusive on purpose, to ensure users will purchase subscriptions, Match purposely manipulates them by inserting an artificial bottleneck and using a secret algorithm it designed to encourage and reward compulsive use.”
Case 3:24-cv-00888 Document 1 Filed 02/14/24 Page 3 of 59
In 2024, six plaintiffs filed suit seeking class-action status against Match Group, the company that owns Hinge, Tinder, and 40+ other dating app brands. The suit claims that Match Group knowingly employs addictive technology that messes with your brain’s dopamine to get you hooked on the apps chasing elusive feelings of reward.
“Harnessing powerful technologies and hidden algorithms, Match intentionally designs the Platforms with addictive, game-like design features, which lock users into a perpetual pay-to-play loop that prioritizes corporate profits over its marketing promises and customers’ relationship goals.”
Case 3:24-cv-00888 Document 1 Filed 02/14/24 Page 2 of 59
Is this legit? Well, research seems to back this up. In an article from researchers at Kenyon University, it breaks down how the gamification of dating apps leads to obsessive binging, withdrawal symptoms, and ultimately doom scrolling.
And in case you’re curious, yes, this research article specifically mentions Hinge.
“Dating apps are brilliantly designed, and companies like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge all profit on romantic vulnerability.”
The Brain and Swiping for Love – Samantha Beck – Page 112
While we will wait to see the outcome of the case, but at the very least, this has to be concerning.
Does eharmony use this type of technology?
No, eharmony does not build its core matchmaking around swipe-style matching and the gamification features outlined in this lawsuit and the research article. eharmony works more as a curated matchmaker where you answer an in-depth personality questionnaire and then the app sends you daily matches based on your answers.
For us, this fact alone leads us to choose eharmony as the winner of the Hinge vs. eharmony debate. It’s hard to recommend a dating app that is accused of using your own brain against you just to make money in an area of your life that can be quite emotional. Knowing that eharmony doesn’t do this makes it a clear winner for us.
In the spirit of this, if you’d like to give eharmony a try for free, we have included a link below to get an eharmony free trial at no charge. All you have to do is click the link and get signed up.
And in case the addictive nature of Hinge isn’t a deal breaker for you, we’ll continue on with our Hinge vs. eharmony discussion.
eharmony is focused on marriage; Hinge refuses to even use the word.
eharmony is often regarded as the best dating app for marriage, and that is backed up by a lot of data (including by a major University research study). The app clearly focuses solely on serious relationships and helping members find committed relationships.
Hinge, on the other hand, works for all kinds of relationships — long term, short term, monogamous, non-monogamous, etc. For us, we’re lesser fans of dating apps that dance across different relationship goals because you end up interacting with people who aren’t looking for the same things as you.
What’s really interesting is that Hinge is often referred to as a great dating app to find marriage. However, the dating app actually refuses to use the word marriage anywhere within the app that we could find. Notice here how they’ll only use the term ‘life partner’ where you’d expect to see ‘marriage’ as a possible dating intention.
So, if you’re looking for casual dating, Hinge is probably the better option. If you’re looking for serious dating with the hopes of maybe getting married one day, eharmony is probably the better option.
This is purely subjective, but Hinge felt like we were looking at a modeling magazine.
For transparency, this is a completely subjective viewpoint, but we have reviewed hundreds of matchmakers and dating apps over the past 10 years, so our subjective opinion is not all random. When we signed up for Hinge and started looking at profiles, every single person we saw looked like they could be straight out of a magazine. It was a parade of physically attractive people that if you told us they were all models, we’d have believed you.
Now, do we think these profiles were fake? Absolutely not. They seemed like real actual people.
However, did it feel like Hinge was frontloading their most popular and most attractive members possibly to try and get us to purchase an upgraded membership? 100%. Again, this is subjective based on our experience, but we’ve joined hundreds of dating apps over the years and this feels…odd.
And apparently, it’s not just us. Here are a few Reddit posts asking the same question we did.
If this is the case, it feels pretty deceiving. And frankly, Match Group doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to doing sketchy things to get paid. In our Match.com review, we outline how the Federal Trade Commission sued Match in 2019 for tricking users into purchasing memberships based on fake messages that they knew were coming from bots and scammers.
eharmony has been in business for twice as long as Hinge.
Both dating apps have been around for over 10 years, which makes the fact that eharmony has been in business twice as long much less of an experience bonus. That said, we just wanted to mention it for the sake of completeness.
eharmony was founded in 2000, whereas Hinge was founded in 2012. Hinge really made its splash onto the dating market in 2018, though, when it was purchased by dating app giant Match Group (owners of Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Match.com, etc.)
Again, we believe both apps have been around long enough that there really isn’t much of an experience or freshness advantage to either app here.
Here’s who wins the Hinge vs. eharmony debate.
Ultimately, we believe that what the lawsuit against Hinge alleges is more than likely true, especially based on the scientific research we’ve read about how Match Group’s apps play with people’s dopamine. Because of this, we can’t recommend Hinge over eharmony (or at all). But eharmony doesn’t just win by default. If you’ve read our full eharmony review, you know that the app is a top option that’s been serving people for over two decades with a lot to be excited about. For us, eharmony clearly wins the Hinge vs. eharmony debate.