Hinge Dating App reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A dating app built for serious relationships with thoughtful profiles and the motto "designed to be deleted" — yet that promised deletability is constantly undercut by paywalls, throttled likes, and unexplained bans.
What users love
When it works, it genuinely leads to serious relationships
The core strength and reason for the high ratings: people genuinely meet partners, spouses, "the one" here — sometimes in days, sometimes over years — and delete it for real. Many stress they did it on the free version.
Met the love of my life on Hinge within 3 days. Now deleted it.
i downloaded this app over 2 years ago and deleted it permenantly in 2024 and now have been married 2 months i met my soulmate thanks to this app
I loved this app! I ended up meeting my husband on this app and it was really easy to use
Thoughtful profiles and higher-quality people than rivals
Even critics call Hinge "the best of a bad bunch": prompt-driven profiles surface personality, the audience leans toward serious relationships over hookups, and people are more likely to actually respond. For many that's what keeps them despite the rest.
Hinge has a great interface. Additionally, people are directed to put lots of personality in their profile compared to tinder or bumble.
best dating app for serious relationships I would say, the rest of the apps seem better for flings.
This app feels much more personal like it's actually meant to create couples and not just for validation or hookups.
The free version is viable: you can message matches without paying
Despite the paywall complaints, a notable group praises the free tier: you can message matches without paying, likes are effectively enough, there's a free weekly rose, and you can view your top liker for free. They meet people without spending a cent.
You can totally use the "Free version" and dont really need to pay for anything. there is basically "infinite likes" and only 1 "Rose' a week
you can see your matches and msg them without a paywall
the ability to look at the top person who liked me for free is a huge plus.
What users hate
Banned with no reason given, appeals rejected within minutes
The single most common pain: accounts are deleted suddenly, with no warning or explanation, often right after a subscription is paid. Appeals are declined in minutes — users are convinced no one reads them, and getting unbanned requires uploading a government ID.
banned my account for literally no reason, I've never been rude, disrespectful or even mildly passive aggressive to anyone on an app ever
they declined the appeal in less than 2 minutes, proving that they don't even bother reading any appeals
Banned less than 24 hours after creating my account. Used real photos, real information, completed video verification, and only sent a few normal likes/messages.
Useful features locked behind paywalls, useless without paying
You can't see who liked you, communicate, or use basic filters without a subscription. People describe it as "useless if you are not paying" — even fundamental functions are gated, and the prices are called extortionate.
you can't see who likes your profile or content unless you pay for it. App is useless if you are not paying.
you have to pay to communicate! that's crazy!
It's a dating app like all the others. Meaning usefull features are behind paywalls
Hard daily like limit to force you to pay
Only a handful of likes a day for free — some report 2, some 5, some 8-10. After that the app cuts you off, and the only way out is a subscription. People say it makes the app pointless for meeting anyone.
only getting to send 2 likes a day makes this app useless for meeting people.
swipe 10 ppl max before wanting money
you only seem to get 5 likes a day now, to make you pay.
Sudden match drought — "shadow ban" to squeeze out a subscription
A familiar arc: likes and matches flow for the first days or weeks, then drop abruptly to zero. Many suspect visibility is deliberately throttled to push Premium — and that paying actually makes it worse.
Terrible app. I got 10 likes in my first 2 days, then it feels like my profile was completely shadow-banned. I've received 0 likes in the 2 weeks since.
I used to get matches on here, but for the last few months they've stopped all my matches until I pay for it..
Suddenly, it dropped to 0 matches per day
Forced AI face scan and biometric data retention
Mandatory selfie verification constantly fails, while the TOS allows retaining biometric data for up to two years and sharing it with third parties. Some people refuse to hand a dating app face scans on principle and just uninstall.
requires an AI face scan. TOS says they retain biometric data for up to two years and may share it with third parties. do not give your data to these irresponsible people.
I refuse to forfeit my biometrics ("Face Match") to a dating app.
can't even get past the photo verification
"Too many requests" error locks you out of login and signup
A huge technical pain: entering your phone number triggers "too many verification requests," the SMS code never arrives, and people are locked out of their own still-active account for days — while emails about likes keep coming.
Whenever I enter my phone number, an error message appears saying, 'Too many verification requests. Please wait a moment.
I continue receiving email notifications about likes and matches, yet I have no way to access my own account. Disgrace
what's the point of asking for phone number if the backend for sending SMS does not work for days preventing you from logging in?
Support replaced by AI bots that reply with boilerplate
Support requests hit AI with no humans behind it: every issue gets the same boilerplate reply, nothing gets escalated, and contact just stops. When you lose access or are unfairly banned, there's effectively no help.
terrible terrible app and uses AI for support with no humans
they just keep sending the same boilerplate message without reading anything
Customer support team comprised of AI bots. Avoid at all costs.
Bots, fake and inactive profiles that never respond
The feed feels stuffed with bots, AI-generated and fake profiles; matches stay silent or vanish. People suspect many "matches" are old inactive or fake accounts, and some get outright scammed for money.
Garbage, fake accounts and bots waste time and scams.
biggest scam no reply from one girl, send at least 100 msg, all are ai generated profiles.
I am pretty sure that most "matches" are now old inactive accounts or fake ones.
Intrusive AI assistant in prompts that only annoys
An AI was bolted into the answer fields that pops up on every typing pause with unsolicited "feedback" — and when tapped, often says it has none. It reads as useless bloat on an otherwise decent app.
that obnoxious little AI symbol will pop up every single time I stop typing telling me it wants to give me feedback
the AI goes "we don't have any feedback right now :)" stupid bloated unnecessary addition to an otherwise decent app
The AI features are annoying and worthless.
The "Signals" feature punishes those without matches
The new "Signals" show an activity and "thoughtful messages" badge, but it needs 4 of 6 conditions, half of which depend on already having matches. Those without matches are caught in a vicious circle, and for many the feature simply doesn't work.
you need to meet 4 of 6 qualifications to have it show. 3 of them rely on being matched.
Signals feature is another way to punish people who don't get matches in the first place
Signals *still* doesn't work and hasn't worked properly since the rollout. I should have 5 "signals" things checked but only 3 show up.
Filters ignored: shows wrong gender, age, and location
The app routinely ignores your set parameters: it shows people outside your geographic and age dealbreakers, surfaces the wrong gender or orientation, and matches you with 18-year-olds. Some are angry that height/location filters exist while substantive ones are selectively missing.
completely ignores search parameters. The first few weeks it just showed me to various photomodels living hundreds of kilometers away
keeps showing people outside of geographical dealbreaker limit as well as many other glitches
The app consistently sent profiles of gay members of the opposite sex, which is just a waste of time for everyone involved.
Paywalled "undo" and stripping free features for $MTCH
The undo button for an accidentally skipped profile — the thing that set Hinge apart — moved behind an expensive paywall. People explicitly tie the steady stripping of free features to pumping Match Group's market cap rather than caring about dates.
PAYWALLED the "undo" feature. A.K.A. the ONLY thing that made this app stand out from competitors.
this app solely exists to juice $MTCH market cap. It was never about dates.
they've actively made the experience worse for free users by removing features like revisiting skipped profiles.
"Signals" deletes likes after 14 days and breeds toxic behavior
An update started deleting received likes if you don't respond within 14 days — nominally "to make you talk more," but in practice people now frantically delete chats within a day of silence. A mechanic meant as an incentive bred exactly the toxic behavior it claimed to fight.
they'll remove any likes you got after 14 days of not responding. they say its to get you to talk to people more but it just makes everyone delete chats within a day of you not responding. they created this toxic behavior people now do
the "Signals" thing dropping likes after 2 weeks
rewards people who match often and send pointless messages without intentions of meeting
Safety of women and queer users isn't seriously protected
Serious safety complaints: facing verbal abuse and threats, the company refuses to share data even with the user's national police; cis men set a female gender to proposition queer women, with no tool to stop it.
No safety for women. A man verbally abused me and my family on the app because I said I won't come to his place.
they are not sharing details even with police. Neither did they take action nor did they cooperate NOT SAFE AT ALL.
it's filled with a bunch of cis men intentionally setting their gender to female instead of male because they are targeting "girls who like girls" to proposition them for threeways.