eHarmony vs Match: Which Is Better?

Both are free to join, and both sell more features by tier, so the real difference is how each of these online dating sites finds you people and gets you to your first messages. eHarmony starts from a quiz that gives you a Compatibility Score with every other member, and you choose from a list with scores on it. Match starts from a Recommended stack and Top Picks drawn from your preferences and activity, and its higher tiers add search so you can look for women yourself. Pick eHarmony if you want the site to do the sorting, and Match if you want to steer your own matches.

eHarmony describes itself as a dating site for people who know they want a meaningful relationship. At sign-up it asks what kind of relationship the man joining wants, with Casual, Serious or Not sure as the options.

Every member then takes its Compatibility Quiz. The answers build a Personality Profile. They also give you a Compatibility Score with every other member. The Discover list shows members who fit your search preferences, along with how compatible you are with each.

That is a very different feel from a swipe app. You are not reacting to a face in a second. You are looking at a list and a score before you decide.

eHarmony says it starts free through a Basic membership. On its homepage FAQ, a Basic member can take the quiz, view profiles, send and receive initial likes and first messages, and see who visited his profile.

Premium adds unlimited messaging, seeing all members' photos and seeing who viewed you. It also adds the complete Personality Profile and changing search settings, such as filtering by location and age. The exact Premium features depend on the package chosen in the app, so read the screen before you buy.

Match's help center says Recommended profiles are members in the area you chose, picked from your preferences and activity. Top Picks are matched to preferences such as faith, smoking, drinking, education and whether the person has or wants kids. You tap the heart to Like or the X to move on.

A free member can chat with every match and can rate a daily allowance of profiles in the Recommended stack. A free member can also explore curated member profiles. Once two people match, they can message each other directly.

Match sells subscription packages by name. Bronze brings unlimited rating and Likes on the Discover tab and unlimited rewinds. Silver adds See Who Likes You. Platinum adds unlimited introductions, a Super Like, Unlimited Search, a Boost, advanced filters and read receipts. Diamond adds a dating-intent filter, Anti-Ghosting, automatic Boosts, Priority Likes and who viewed your profile.

Match says packages may change by location. It also says that to set most match preferences and mark any as a Must Have, a member needs to be subscribed. If you care about filtering hard, that is where free ends.

Our view: eHarmony suits a man who is willing to answer a long quiz, who knows what kind of relationship he wants, and who is happy to let a score narrow the field. Match suits a man who wants to look for women on his own terms.

a dating coach makes the second point directly. What Match does better than the swipe apps, in his view, is let a man go and find women himself where swipe apps choose who he sees. He also warns that on most apps, rating everyone favorably backfires because the software reads it as a lack of standards. That matters on Match, where you rate profiles.

This one sets a feed of profiles against a quiz site.

Both are free to start. Hinge's regular version is free on iOS and Android, with Hinge+ and HingeX optional. eHarmony starts free with Basic and sells Premium, with unlimited messaging and all photos visible among its features.

On Hinge you see a feed of profiles and like a specific prompt or photo. Hinge says a match begins with a like or comment on a specific part of a profile, and that a match happens when someone accepts the Like or Rose you sent. On eHarmony you answer the Compatibility Quiz first and choose from a Discover list with a compatibility score on each member.

Hinge says free members can send only a limited number of likes each day and see incoming likes one after another, not all together. Hinge+ and HingeX members can send unlimited likes and see all incoming likes at once.

Before you buy a package on either site, use a dating coach's test for anything paid on a dating app. Pay for a short time, compare what comes back with what the free membership was getting you, and cancel if the two look the same. He says paying multiplies your results, so it has little to work with on an account that gets almost none.

His biggest point applies here too, and it is not about which site you pick. It is about how you write your profile. Write it so you read as a man looking for a hookup and you get hookups. Write that you want something long-term and you get that. Our view is that photos count the same way. Both of these sites let you start without paying, so get the photos and answers right on the free version first.