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People looking for love have embraced dating apps as a perfectly acceptable way to meet new romantic partners. However, not all dating apps are created equally. Right now, a dating app’s best feature isn’t simply a community of cool users, but video functionality that lets you chat with other people face-to-face before an in-person meeting. With these top video dating apps, including Editors’ Choice winners Match and Tinder, nothing can stop you from locking eyes with your next potential lover. Read on for the top apps we’ve tested, followed by everything you should know before signing up.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
Best for Long-Term Relationships
Match
Match’s unlimited video chat options make it smooth and easy to form virtual connections. Thanks to the Vibe Check feature, potential partners already in a conversation can begin a live video chat session if they both agree. You can also block creeps, and even ask Match’s expert matchmakers for virtual dating advice
Anyone looking for love. Match is a premium dating app that offers a premium experience. Rich and robust profiles let you truly get to know a person, and judge your compatibility, before potentially entering a serious relationship. It’s the Editors’ Choice pick for finding lasting love.
Starting Price
$44.99 per month
Best for Casual Dating
Tinder
Tinder’s young, online-oriented users are no strangers to forming virtual connections. Still, video chat makes the online dating experience all that much more real. Once swiping gets old, Tinder’s video chat app, Face and Face, lets consenting partners start talking.
Tinder is for finding love right now, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Who knows? While some hookups stay casual, others may blossom into something more. Tinder is the Editors’ Choice pick for quick, young romance that favors the physical.
Starting Price
$19.99 per month
Best for Woman-First Dating
Bumble
Bumble offers many ways to communicate beyond text. You can send audio notes, add a Virtual Dating Badge to your profile, and begin a video chat when you’re ready.
Bumble is for women and nonbinary folks who don’t want cis men to have all the power in online dating. It flips the script on who controls the flow of the conversation, as men can only talk to people who have already expressed interest. In an unbalanced world, Bumble helps make things a bit more fair.
Starting Price
$16.99 per month
Best for Beautiful Profiles
Hinge
Hinge’s attractive, elaborate profiles already give you a pretty good sense of what a person’s about, but you can take it further through video chat. Use the “Dating From Home” menu to start video calls, and get intimate with audio recordings that answer Hinge’s creative icebreaker prompts.
Hinge strikes an excellent balance between the youthful immediacy of modern dating apps and the deeper dives you want when looking for a stronger connection. Hinge’s profiles do it all, and look beautiful while doing it.
Starting Price
$29.99 per month
Best for Test Takers
eharmony
Eharmony is a somewhat old-fashioned dating service. For example, it was a little slow to add same-sex options. However, video dating is the future, and eharmony is here. With Video Date, premium users can start video calls via their match’s profile or in the middle of a conversation string.
Eharmony is for people who want to date through data. Its extensive questionnaire uses more than 100 questions to take in as much useful information about you as possible. It then uses that data to find matches that are truly compatible in the long term.
Starting Price
$69.90 per month
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Best for Messaging Without Limits
POF (Plenty of Fish)
Plenty of Fish has the video calling features that have quickly become standard in a pandemic-plagued dating world. More interesting, POF also lets users live stream themselves to the broader community.
Plenty of Fish is a good dating app, especially for free users. While the low barrier to entry may invite a lot of spam (or folks not worth dating), ultimately you want a large pool to choose from, and the service delivers just that.
Starting Price
$19.99 per month
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Best for Fast Browsing
Zoosk
Despite a history of technical problems, Zoosk has video features that go above and beyond some more established competitors. Not only can you video call, but the inspired Great Dates feature lets you and a partner virtually explore romantic international locales. Zoosk also has slick, Instagram-esque live streaming functionality.
Zoosk isn’t the greatest dating app, but it’s noticeably better than it used to be, thanks to new features like video dating. The quick sign-up process and effective search tools will help you meet the right person.
Starting Price
$34.99 per month
Buying Guide: The Best Video Dating Apps for 2024
What Is the Best Video Dating App?
Many dating apps have browser-based versions, but the chances are you’ll do most of your swiping on a mobile device. It’s just easier to casually browse matches on the pocket computer that you carry with you all the time. Those pocket computers also have cameras and microphones that are perfect for video calls. With video calls, dating apps replicate the regular dating experience—just without the physical proximity.
Online dating can never replace meeting someone in real life, but video calls significantly bridge the gap. Right now, talking to people on the phone may be the only safe way to meet someone in your area, let alone halfway around the world. Even with the pandemic (hopefully) calming down, video calls serve as a useful extra step before making the ultimate leap to meet up with an online match offline. Swipe appealing profiles, send flirty messages, get virtual face time, and finally see if sparks fly during an in-person date.
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Are Video Dating Apps Safe?
Video call functionality in dating apps extends beyond simply turning on your camera, and leaving you to the lovesick wolves. Match, Tinder, Bumble, and eharmony recognize that making a connection like this is scary, even scarier than sending a faceless message. Fortunately, these apps attempt to make video dating as comfortable as possible.
For starters, random users just can’t call you out of the blue. You’ll never see unwanted mugs. Instead, video chat is typically a feature you can only access with existing matches. Even then, the app then asks both people if they want to video chat, and only connects them if both parties consent. Some apps go even further with their video features. POF, and Zoosk let you livestream yourself to the entire community, not just your own matches. They’re like a romance-themed take on live broadcasting in social networks like Instagram. Zoosk’s Great Dates feature even lets couples virtually tour exciting locales. Sparkze turns video dating into an online game show while Filteroff is virtual video speeding dating. Video dating can even make apps safer by thwarting scams and verifying ages. For more, check out our tips on avoiding online dating hoaxes.
Apps without built-in video chat may still ask if you’re down to video chat, so you can coordinate your virtual date on a separate chat service. Video conferencing tips that help you look good on a Zoom call also help you look good on your video date. As for ideas? Many dating apps also have blogs where you can read all sorts of advice, including virtual date suggestions. OkCupid lacks video chat, but its blog has great distanced-dating ideas like karaoke, shared dinners, and taking a virtual tour. Vinylly lets music lovers buy tickets for in-person and virtual concerts. Kippo lets matches chat over audio, and play games in its shared online social space, its “metaverse.”
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Ready For Your Close-Up?
Video chat is such an important part of today’s online dating market that major apps that didn’t offer virtual dating before the pandemic worked overtime to add the feature. Hinge made sure to loudly announce when it finally added video functionality alongside nifty audio recording features. So, if you don’t see your app of choice in this roundup, there’s hope that the service will adopt video calls in the future. In the meantime, turn on your camera and open your heart.
For more on dating, check out: How I Ended Up in a Tinder Ad Campaign, Match vs. Tinder: Which Dating Service Deserves Your Everlasting Love?, Secrets From a Dating App Founder, and the Best Hookup Apps.