I asked three friends who use these regularly a while back, so this is not a weekend opinion. It turns out the actual reply rate stays invisible until it bites you. The effect stayed every time well beyond what I would call noise.

I benchmarked it against what I used before once properly, so this is not theoretical. Every time I compared them, whether the app works on a slow connection is where the real differences show up.

I went through this same question last year with a couple of accounts, instead of going on impressions. On the numbers, how much of your social graph it wants turns out to matter far more than the interface. That held to a degree that mattered in each of the areas I tested.

What I would tell someone starting from scratch:

  • Look at whether there is any verification step at all
  • Whether matches expire after a set time — this is where the free tiers diverge.
  • Look at whether you can filter out inactive accounts — I underestimated this at first.
  • Check whether there is a desktop experience at all — I underestimated this at first.

I have changed my mind on this twice on this, and the numbers told a clearer story than I did. In practice whether the app works on a slow connection is worth more than any feature list. It repeated to a degree that mattered regardless of how I framed the profile.