Are Badoo and Bumble the Same App?

No. Badoo and Bumble are two separate dating apps with their own listings, but they share a parent company. The Google Play listing for Badoo says Bumble Inc. is the parent of Bumble, Bumble for Friends and the dating apps Badoo and Fruitz. So the same company is behind both, and you use each one on its own terms.

Badoo's listing points to Bumble's privacy policy and terms on bumble.com. That is the clearest sign of the shared ownership: if you read the legal pages for Badoo, they send you to Bumble's.

It does not mean the two are one app under two names. They have separate listings, separate screens and separate things to buy. You download and set up each one on its own.

The shape of the screens is different, and so is the way each one makes money.

Badoo shows you profiles in two places, an Encounters tab and a Discover tab. You move between them depending on whether you want the app to hand you people or you want to look around on your own.

Its paid extras run on Credits. You spend them on things like Extra Shows, which put your profile in front of more people, and Crushes, which tell someone you are especially interested.

Bumble keeps its profiles in a People tab. The extras you can buy there are SuperSwipes, Spotlights and Notes. Bumble sells them as single-use items, so each purchase is one use of the feature.

One rule on Bumble matters more than the shopping. A match expires if no one sends the first message within the time Bumble allows. Members can use Extend to give a match more time. So on Bumble, a match you leave alone does not wait for you.

The two stores are built differently, so a purchase on one tells you nothing about the other. Credits on Badoo buy Extra Shows and Crushes. SuperSwipes, Spotlights and Notes on Bumble are single-use items.

That has one practical consequence. Do not buy extras on both apps at once. Pick the app where you already get the most replies and spend there, because paid reach multiplies whatever your profile already does. a dating coach says to test a paid feature and drop it if it makes no real difference, and testing is impossible when you are changing two apps at the same time.

Do not choose by the company. Choose by where the women you want to meet are, and the only way to know is to look at each one in your own area.

a dating coach's view of online dating is that it is a process of testing, and the men who do well keep changing one thing and checking the result. That applies to apps as much as to photos. Set up a solid profile on one, use it properly for a couple of weeks, and count what you get: how many people respond, how many chats become a plan. Then try the other with the same profile and compare.

Two apps do not double your results. They split your attention. A man who sets up on both, answers neither quickly and lets matches expire is worse off than a man who runs one well.

Because the same company owns both, do not expect a trick to carry across. Anything you learn about writing a good opening line, choosing photos and moving to a date carries across because it is about people, not about the app.

Keep the same standards on both. Clear photos with your face visible, a short bio that says something specific, and a first message that gives her an easy question to answer. Then watch what each app does with them.

If one of them gives you almost nothing after a fair try, drop it and put the time into the other. A dating app does not owe you results because its parent company also makes one you like.