Which Dating Apps Are Not Owned by Match Group?

Bumble, Grindr, Feeld, Badoo and happn are not on Match Group's own list of brands. Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish are on it. The quickest way to place any app is to check that list and the app's own terms.

Match Group's own site lists its brands as Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Pairs, Azar, BLK, Meetic and HER. The League and Upward are also referenced there.

If an app is on that list, Match Group owns it. If it is not, the list gives no sign of a link.

Three of those brands tell you outright. Tinder's help center has an article titled Why we share across Match Group companies, and Hinge's and OkCupid's help centers each have the same kind of article. Those pages show that the three apps share data with affiliated Match Group companies.

Bumble is not among the brands on Match Group's list.

Bumble's terms name the companies that make up the Bumble Group: Bumble Holding Limited, Bumble Trading LLC, Bumble Inc., Social Online Payments Limited and Social Online Payments L.L.C. That is a different corporate family from Match Group's.

Grindr's terms of service say the service is operated by Grindr LLC. Grindr is not among the brands on Match Group's list either.

Feeld, Badoo and happn do not appear on Match Group's brand list. Each one has its own separate help center, which is a reasonable sign that it runs as its own service.

Of the three, Feeld and Badoo let you sign up with options other than a phone number, and happn lets you sign up with a Google or Apple account. That is a detail about the apps, though, not a statement about who owns them.

You can place an app in about two minutes.

1. Open Match Group's site and read the list of brands.
2. Open the app's terms and look at the company named as the operator.
3. Search the app's help center for an article about sharing data across affiliated companies.

If the app is on the list, or its help center describes sharing with Match Group companies, it belongs to that family. If it is not on the list and the terms name another operator, it does not.

Companies change hands, so treat what you find as a reading of the pages today, not a permanent fact.

Men often assume that two apps with similar swipe screens must be run by the same company. The look of an app says nothing about its owner. Bumble, Grindr, Feeld, Badoo and happn each run their own help center, their own terms and their own members, and none of them shows up on Match Group's brand list.

The reverse mistake is just as common. A man hears that one company owns several apps and decides that using two of them means meeting the same women twice. Each app holds the people who signed up to that app, so owning them together does not merge the members.

Less than most men think. It matters in one way and does not matter in another.

It matters for your data. Three of the Match Group apps say they share data with affiliated companies. If that bothers you, the list is how you avoid it.

It does not matter for your results. An owner does not decide who is on an app. The pool of women on Hinge is the women who joined Hinge, whoever runs the company behind it.

Men choose apps by owner when they think a rival to Tinder must be better, or that one company controls the whole market. Neither helps.

Choose by who is there. The right app is the one that holds the women you want to meet in your city. A big city can support three or four apps with different crowds, and a small town may support one.

Test cheaply. Open an app, set your area, look at fifty profiles, and count how many you would be happy to meet. Do that on two apps and you have your answer faster than any ownership chart.

Being on apps from different owners is a fair way to widen the pool, because each app has its own members. Be careful not to run five of them badly.

Two apps with good photos and a thought-through first message beat five apps with tired photos. Pick the two that suit your city and your goal, put your effort there, and drop the rest.