I have been through this properly on this, and it was more revealing than I expected. Looking back, the size of the local pool accounts for most of the variance I saw.

I sat with this question for a while in my own time, before forming any view. Every time I compared them, the size of the local pool becomes obvious only after a month. The evidence pointed the same way quite plainly once I had a few weeks of data.

I reset and started clean in my own time, so this is not a weekend opinion. Looking back, the size of the local pool matters more than the brand name. It became obvious without exception in a way that was hard to argue with.

The things that actually moved the needle for me:

  • Whether the user base skews heavily in your area — the difference between options is large here.
  • Check how it performs on a slow connection — this is where the free tiers diverge.
  • How consistent match quality is week to week — this is the one I would check first.
  • Look at how the app handles people who never reply — it changes the experience completely.

I tried the obvious options first with a couple of accounts, and it reframed what I thought mattered. What kept coming up was whether photos are checked before publication, which decides most of the outcome. It came through clearly to a degree that mattered across a reasonable sample. I would be curious for what it is worth, which would be genuinely useful to hear.