Which Is Better, Christian Mingle or eHarmony?

Christian Mingle is better if a shared faith is something you will not date without. eHarmony is better if you want a long quiz to do the sorting and faith is one factor among several. Whether you ask which is better, eHarmony or Christian Mingle, or the other way round, the deciding question is the same. Is faith a filter you need, or a preference you can check in a few messages? Neither site publishes a figure for how many men get dates, so a firm ranking would be a guess.

Christian Mingle is built around one fact. The site's whole purpose is that the faith question is already answered before you see a woman. On a general app you learn whether she shares your faith after you have matched and traded a few lines.

eHarmony is built around a quiz. Every new member takes its Compatibility Quiz. The answers build a Personality Profile and give you a Compatibility Score with every other member. At sign-up it asks what kind of relationship you want, with Casual, Serious or Not sure as the choices, and it describes its members as serious about finding a lasting connection.

So Christian Mingle sorts by belief and eHarmony sorts by answers. Neither one sorts by whether she will like your photos.

Both start free. Christian Mingle's Basic membership is free, and Premium is paid. eHarmony says it starts free through a Basic membership, where you can take the quiz, view profiles, send and receive initial likes and first messages, and see who visited your page.

Christian Mingle's Premium gives you unlimited likes and a larger set of daily recommended picks. It lets you see who liked you before a match, adds extra match filters and read receipts, and gives a larger weekly allowance of Intro Messages.

eHarmony's Premium adds unlimited messaging, seeing all members' photos and seeing who viewed you. It also adds the complete Personality Profile and the ability to change search settings, such as location and age.

Read the screen before you buy on either site. The features change with the package, and neither one sets a single fixed price.

Christian Mingle sells each term as one upfront payment, and Premium renews automatically unless you turn that off. It says purchases are final, so do not buy a long term just to find out whether you like the site.

eHarmony's exact Premium features depend on the package chosen in the app. Whatever you choose, look at the auto-renew setting on the day you pay, so that keeping going is a decision you make on purpose.

It saves real time for a man who would only date a woman who shares his faith. He is not sorting through hundreds of women who were never an option.

The faith filter also shrinks the pool by design. In a big city that still leaves plenty of women. In a small town it can leave very few, and many of them may have been on the site for a long time. Sign up on the free version, set a reasonable distance and look. If you see women near you with recent activity, the pool is alive. If you see the same few faces, a paid upgrade will not fix that.

The word Christian also covers a wide range. One woman means Sunday service and a small group, and another means a private belief. Say what it means for you in one specific line, such as the men's group you go to on Thursdays.

It suits a man who is willing to answer a long quiz and who knows what kind of relationship he wants. A score narrows the field for him, and he does not need to read two hundred pages to find the twenty that matter.

It also suits a man for whom faith is one preference among many. A general approach lets you raise faith in the first few exchanges and move on quickly if it does not fit. A quiz site then adds the other things you may care about.

Our view is that a quiz is a reasonable filter for effort too. A woman who answered a long quiz and picked Serious has given you more to work with than a woman who swiped on you in a second.

A shared faith or a high score gives you the first thing in common. She still has to like your photos and want to answer you.

a dating coach says photos come first among the errors men make online, and that holds on a faith site and a quiz site alike. Lead with a recent photo in daylight where your face is easy to see. Add two or three of what you do in a real week, such as time with family or a hobby.

Then write to her about one real detail from her page and ask one question she can answer in a sentence. After a few good exchanges, suggest coffee on a named day.

a dating coach's rule for any paid feature is that it multiplies what you already have. If the free version gets you a few likes back and a couple of conversations, a paid tier can give you more of both. If it gets you nothing, it multiplies nothing.

Use the free version of each for two weeks with the same photos. Count the women you liked, the likes you got back, the chats that started and the dates you set. Keep the one that gave you dates with women you were glad to meet.