If you’ve been looking into online dating for any length of time, then we are certain you’ve come across the names Match.com and Plenty of Fish. If you’re trying to decide which is best for you, let’s talk about it.
They’re now both owned by the same company
In the early days of dating, Match.com and POF were owned by separate companies. However, in 2015, Match Group (the owner of Match) purchased POF for $575 million. Why does this matter? Well, Match Group is known for purchasing dating apps and outfitting them with the same technology that they’ve found to be most effective (and profitable) on their flagship brand Tinder.
Is that what happened here? Not exactly. Instead, Match Group turned POF into a “lead farm” for its other products. In other words, if you join Plenty of Fish, you’ll find the shell of a dating app but a lot of ads and suggestions to join other apps owned by the brand.
So, if you’re trying to decide between Match or POF, your decision might not actually matter. If you go to Match, great. If you go to POF, chances are you’re going to see an ad pushing you to go to Match.
Does anything else matter? Yes, some does.
In reality, that should be the end of the debate if one app is an actual app and the other seems to be operating to push you to other apps. However, POF still does operate at least partially as a dating app. For that reason, it’s still worth comparing the two, especially if budget is important to you. Let’s look at a few key differences and similarities.
POF offers the ability to message members for free, Match does not
One of the biggest differences between the two apps is that POF does allow you to contact other members for free. While this is a positive if your budget is important, it does also invite a lot of fake accounts, scammers, spammers, and people who are flaky when it comes to dating.
In other words, you get what you pay for (or don’t pay for, in this case). Yes, you can have luck without spending money on POF, but you may end up wasting a lot of time and emotional bandwidth in the process.
POF has a much stronger focus on casual dating
As you might guess based on what we just mentioned, POF takes a much more casual approach to dating. If you’re looking for flings and “fun”, it may be a better fit. Match.com, on the other hand, lends itself more to traditional dating and more serious relationships. It does still have a casual feel and seems to want to cover all types of relationships, but more of the focus is on something more than a fling.
Match has the better reputation
While Match.com still has some issues in its past (like getting sued by the FTC), the overall public perception of the app is still much better than that of POF. Most people have come to terms with what POF is. And even after the app rebranded a few years ago, the stigma still seems to hold. And arguably, using the POF app to push people to other apps is not the best look to recover that public persona.
Does this affect you? It depends. One—it could mean that higher quality people choose to avoid POF because of this. Two—some people may give you a hard time for being on the app as opposed to something like Match.
Again, totally up to you.
