messages. When swiping through topics, you’re presented with different things ranging from “tequila shots” to “babies,” which are accompanied by GIFs to make the experience more fun. When you swipe left or right, it’ll also show you the percentage of people swiping for each one. These are then logged and attached to your profile for potential matches to scroll through and see what it is that you love and hate.

When swiping through your matches, you don’t see the typical information that’s normally revealed on other dating profiles like your job or education. Instead, you see age, location, and the top thing they hate — which ultimately replaces the bio. It also shows you the percentage you match based on the things you both hate and love. For those who don’t want to wait until they match with someone, you can also send up to three direct messages every 12 hours.

Hinge

Hinge is kind of like Tinder. Okay, it’s actually a lot like Tinder, but with a few key differences that make it better. Interface-wise, it looks like Tinder’s younger sister. However, function-wise, it relies more on your Facebook friends to make connections for you. Hinge also connects you through friends of friends of friends, and shows you not just the people you have in common, but also all the things you have in common. It does this by having you answer a bunch of questions through a Tinder-like interface. Have you been to Berlin? Swipe right. Don’t play croquet? Swipe left. This makes answering questions far easier and less time-consuming, not to mention more fun. The questions themselves aren’t as asinine as those in some other dating apps, and give you a better sense of someone than 500 characters might.

If you want to know more about someone, you can always just ask the friend you have in common, which is a nice human touch that’s absent from most dating apps. Moreover, people can message you only if you’ve matched, so no unsolicited “greetings” from someone you would never match with. You can see what sort of relationship people are looking for, and while that doesn’t sound that revolutionary, it reflects the fact that Hinge carries more of a dating expectation than a just-hooking-up expectation à la Tinder. Furthermore, because of the friends-of-friends connection, you’re less likely to run across inappropriate photos. That’s a plus in our book.

You can only add photos of yourself from Facebook or Instagram, though, which is kind of limiting if you’re not very active on either. Also, while the friends-of-friends concept has a lot of benefits, it’s also restricting. It’s possible to run out of matches after 10 minutes of browsing, which is a letdown if you’re actually enjoying the app or are serious about finding a date.

Match.com

There was no way we could discuss the best dating apps without mentioning the granddaddy of them all. Match.com was at the top of the dating game long before the service ever released an official mobile app. Thankfully, you don’t have to log into the app via Facebook, though you will have to go through a sign-up process that requires you to add a few photos, answer some questions about your gender and preferences, and create a username and password. The same login credentials will work with the desktop version of the site.

The Match.com iteration of flirting is sending someone a “wink,” and you can search through the Match.com database to find people to wink at. The service will also provide you with personalized matches on a daily basis, which take your interests into consideration. To really make the most of Match.com, however, you’re going to need a subscription, which can get a little pricey — the cheapest option currently available will run you $21 a month for six months. A premium subscription does allow you to see who’s recently looked at your profile and who has liked your pictures, though, and includes a host of other features.

The Match.com interface is also pretty sleek and minimalist, but it’s not as easy to use as, say, Tinder. It utilizes a set of tabs that run along the top of the display — i.e. “matches,” “search,” “viewed me,” and “mixer” — which break up the service’s various functions. It’s not an overly complicated app, but it does take a few minutes to get used to.

OkCupid

OkCupid is one of the few dating apps that doesn’t require Facebook to sign up. You create a username and fill out a very long profile, which you can link to your Instagram account if you choose (which is, admittedly, almost Facebook). You can answer questions, giving both your answer and what you’d like your potential match’s answer to be. This creates a percentile score for users that reflects your compatibility. You can also choose to make your answers public and note how important they are to you.

All options, including those for accessing the settings and viewing profiles, are located in a slide-out menu. To browse for someone you like, you merely tap the “matches” option. This option, oddly, does not show you the people you matched with but rather the people you could potentially match with. If that interface is too chaotic for you, tap the “quick match” option, which restricts the results to photos only. You can like people or message them in a similar fashion to Tinder, but messaging is your better bet: Users can see who has liked them only if they have upgraded to “A-list” status.

OkCupid has as many downsides as Tinder, and fewer positive ones, with the exception of learning a lot more about your potential dating partners. The interface is extremely clunky and the photos are a little small. You also have to tap on a user’s small image to see a larger version and the person’s profile, which is simply too large for an app. It might work on a dating website where that much information would presumably be read on a larger screen, but it’s overkill on an app, and the amount of scrolling required makes it annoying to access. When you exit back to the list, there’s no guarantee that it’ll be in the same order or that it will return you to the spot you scrolled down to, making it extremely obnoxious to keep track of what you’ve already viewed. Worse, you can’t see who has liked you unless you pay for an upgrade.

Sadly, you also will only be able to see the five most recent visitors to your profile unless you pay for an upgrade and — worst of all — anyone can message you. Anyone. And they can message anything to you. If you don’t reply, they’ll probably just keep on messaging you, too. Frankly, some things can’t be unseen. Facebook verification helps block a percentage of bots and catfishers from creating accounts, and without it, OkCupid loses a level of reliability.

PlentyOfFish

If you’ve not been on this app before, then you probably know someone who has been. PlentyOfFish (POF) is one of the oldest dating services out there, and it’s certainly the biggest, after hitting 90 million users in May 2017. With that many users, you’re more likely to find matches quicker as PlentyOfFish likes to point out, saying that users are 2.7 times more likely to be matched in their first 24 hours.

That sort of massive following is a selling point in itself, but PlentyOfFish has more going for it than just pure size. It’s something like a “lite” version of many other dating apps, including Tinder’s swiping mechanics, and the ability to see matches near to you, like Happn. It does have its own little twists on the formula — POF’s “Spark” system allows users to quote any part of their amour’s profile, making icebreakers that much easier.

Much like other dating apps, POF has you take a chemistry test of your likes and dislikes, and it quizzes you about your wants and needs from a relationship, so you can be sure that you’re likely to be matched with people who are looking for similar outcomes to your own.

And the best part of it? It’s completely free, and doesn’t charge to message or browse your matches. That makes it the ideal app to download if you’re in the market, but maybe aren’t actively searching for love. And if you’re going out of your way to find someone, then you’ll find no larger market than here.