eDarling Dating App Review

eDarling has been sitting at the premium end of the web dating scene for a few years now. It holds the odd position of being expensive for no apparent reason. It is still going strong after nearly a decade though, so there must be a decent number of users. The eDarling mobile apps appeared as a bit of an afterthought but are slowly catching up with the main site’s functionality. This eDarling Dating App Review takes a closer look at the free Android and iPhone apps that connect to the service.

What you need to know

This might be a free app, but it is going to cost you if you want to use it. The most basic functionality requires the premium service, even down to seeing non-blurred photos of your potential matches. You also need the premium service to send a message or see who viewed your profile. Oddly enough, some premium features of the app are free on the desktop site.

eDarling needs to offer something distinctly superior to compete with all the free apps out there. It has positioned itself as a premium service aiming at the serious dating market – people who are willing to invest money in their love life and want to meet others who are equally serious. For the price you pay, you get a psychologically designed personality test and scientific matching algorithm. Whether this is enough to justify the outlay remains to be seen.

The app itself is a cut down version of the eDarling desktop site, with most but not all of the desktop features available on the mobile version. Although this eDarling Dating App Review focuses on the app, many of the details apply equally well to the website. While talking about the current version, we will have a look at what has changed since our last eDarling Dating App Review in November 2015.

eDarling Dating App Review The stats

The eDarling website has been around since 2008. The Android app was released in 2012, and the iPhone version is a little older. In the past, there were complaints that the Android version suffered from a lack of updates but this no longer seems to be the case. Both versions were last updated in March 2017.

The service was started in Germany and is based in Berlin. These days it is available in nine countries – Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Russia, Spain, France, Sweden and the Czech Republic. The same company, Affinitas, offers a similar service named Elite Singles in a further fifteen countries. I signed up for the French version, so the prices and details may vary a little if you subscribe in a different country. Native languages of all the above countries are supported. The service seems to be most popular in Germany and in France, where it is one of the best-known dating platforms.

eDarling currently claims to have 13 million members, the same as in 2015. The Android version only has 100,000-500,000 installs which seem little if the 13 million figure is accurate. According to the eDarling website, 20,000 new members join every week. A new couple is formed every 18 minutes and 2,000 people a month find love. By my back of an envelope calculation, only one member in 2,500 will start a relationship, and one in 7,500 will fall in love each month. Those odds strike me as pretty poor for €17 to €40 per month. You’d do a lot better sticking your money on the horses.

What it packs

On signing up, the app takes you straight into a questionnaire that takes around fifteen minutes to complete. This is used to generate your personality profile. Once done, you go to a list of compatible profiles in your area. You can also see up to twenty random profiles from around the country. You can upload a photo, add some details to your profile and send a smile to people you like. And that’s about it for the free version. If you subscribe you can see other user’s photos, send them messages and see who has viewed your profile. If you want to change your search parameters you need to log into the desktop site. The functionality of the apps has improved considerably since our last eDarling dating app review, particularly on Android, but they still lag behind the primary site by a considerable distance.

The last word

To be blunt, the free version of this app is not worth the time it takes to download it and set up a profile.

There is nothing you can do without paying to become a premium member, and it is hard to see what the app or the service offer to justify the price.

There is nothing special about the features on offer, and the app is pretty average. The Android version also has an annoying glitch where pressing the back key at any point exits the app. This ‘feature’ drove me mad while writing this eDarling Dating App Review.

About the only reason, I can see why anybody could want to use this service is if they want to meet other people who are willing to pay this much for a dating app. If this describes you, you ought to note that free profiles appear the same as premium profiles within the app. I’d hazard a guess that most of those 13 million users had a play with the free version and then gave up on it.

In the spirit of saying something positive, the app seems to have improved enormously in the last couple of years. Back then we described it as a severely watered-down version of the desktop site. Now I would describe it as a slightly watered-down version. That said, it is still a lesser copy of a website that is basic and overpriced to start with.

eDarling Dating App Review Rating

I cannot think of any reason to finish this eDarling Dating App Review with any more than a one-star rating. The free version is useless, and the paid version costs a lot for very little. Even Affinitas’s publicity reveals that only a minuscule proportion of members find romance through the site. For an app that is supposedly based on science, it is amazing that they are happy to tout such poor numbers of evidence of success.

1/5

Download from

App Store 3/5

Google Play 2.6/5