You probably haven’t heard someone proudly say, “We met on Facebook Dating,” out loud. And yet, quietly, in the underbelly of your uncle’s favorite app, it’s… kind of booming. Ew. Facebook Dating launched in 2019 as an opt-in section inside the main Facebook app, letting people spin up a separate dating profile and match with other singles based on shared interests, events, and groups. According to a recent New York Times report, it now has more than 21 million daily users, making it one of the most-used dating services in the world, beating out even Hinge’s daily crowd.
So yes, the thing your aunt uses to post politically incorrect memes is also, statistically, where a surprising number of people are trying to get laid. On paper, it makes sense: it’s free, it’s already on your phone, and it leans on the social graph Facebook’s been hoarding since high school. In practice, though, the vibes are still mixed. One woman in a Facebook group summed it up perfectly: “I am on it. I met two. Neither worked out. One took me to the Wendy’s drive-thru for our first date, took his teeth out and laid them on the dash. No second date.” Another contender? A guy who shared three chicken fingers and half a bottle of water at a festival. Also, no second date.
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Other reviews are even shorter: “Once. Never again.” “Yup, same bs as everywhere else.” And then there’s the doom-scrolling contingent: “I just read the profiles and look at pics… thinking to myself… he’s lying about something on that profile! smh.” It’s the entire modern dating experience in one comment thread: desperation, curiosity, and a deep, bone-level suspicion of anyone whose profile says “laid-back” and “family-oriented,” but only has photos from 2009.
The good news is that the main-character apps of the dating world still exist, and they’re generally better at what Facebook Dating is trying to do: actually connecting people who might be compatible, without requiring you to wade through your old prom date’s dad. Here are three that do it better, and why.
Tinder
Tinder is the toxic ex of dating apps: you keep saying you’re done with it, and then one day you’re bored at the dentist and suddenly you’re swiping again. Launched in 2012, it basically invented the modern swipe mechanic and has since racked up more than 530 million downloads worldwide, making it the default “I guess I’m back on apps” option for a huge chunk of the planet. Unlike Facebook Dating, which lives inside a legacy social network, Tinder is built purely around location-based matching and quick decisions: right if you’re into them, left if you’d rather die alone.
It’s not exactly known for deep, emotionally vulnerable essays, but Tinder does one important thing better than Facebook Dating: volume. If you want options—and especially if you’re in your 20s—it’s still where a ton of people are. And the app is trying to evolve with them, rolling out things like Double Date, which lets you and a friend match with another pair for group hangs, partly to make the whole thing feel less intense and more social.
Hinge
Hinge is the one that’s “designed to be deleted,” which is both its official tagline and the thing your newly coupled friends love to say in a smug little tone. The app started in 2012 but really came into its own around 2019 with a big campaign positioning it as the anti-swipe, pro-relationship option Instead of endless stacks of faces, Hinge focuses on detailed profiles built around prompts (“My therapist would say…”, “We’ll get along if…”), photos, and specific “likes” on those answers.
Compared to Facebook Dating, which leans on your existing social graph, Hinge is more about showing who you are now, not who you went to middle school with. The prompts give you an easy way to flex your personality, sense of humor, or emotional availability beyond “I love travel and tacos.” Its matching algorithm is designed to prioritize quality over quantity, surfacing a smaller set of “most compatible” people each day instead of a chaotic firehose. If Facebook Dating feels like rummaging through your mom’s old friend list, Hinge is more like having a friend-of-a-friend introduce you to someone who actually reads.
Bumble
Bumble launched in 2014 as the “women message first” app, created by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe Herd after she left Tinder and decided to build a platform where women had more control over conversations. On heterosexual matches, women get 24 hours to send the first message; if they don’t, the match disappears. In same-gender and non-binary matches, either person can start. Over time, Bumble has added modes for finding friends (BFF) and networking (Bizz), plus new features like Opening Moves, which lets women set a question that matches can respond to so they’re not starting every chat from scratch.
Where Facebook Dating leans heavily on “we’re all just nice people who like dogs and The Office,” Bumble is more explicit about boundaries and safety: detailed reporting tools, photo verification, and a culture that at least pretends to frown on creepy behavior. It can still be hit-or-miss (no app is immune to men whose first message is “hey”), but the design forces a little more intentionality, especially on straight matches. And because it’s a standalone app, you’re not constantly being reminded that your aunt and your ex-boss also live in the same ecosystem.
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