Match, for people over 40
Search by your own age, distance and intent, then write to people directly, with a form to fill in rather than a gesture to learn.
What Match suits
Someone who knows what they want and would rather search by their own criteria than be handed one profile at a time.
Who should skip it
Skip it if you want to try before paying, because the free tier is closer to a preview than to a usable product.
Ready to try it for yourself? Create your account on the app in about five minutes, and delete it whenever you want.
How matching works on Match
You browse, search by criteria and message. The searching is the point: age, distance and a set of filters that let you state what you are looking for rather than hoping the app guesses it. Nearly all of it sits behind the paid tier.
What the app assumes about you
You are expected to know what you want and to type it into a field rather than wait to be shown it. The filters ask for age, distance and intention, and the profile is a form you fill in rather than a prompt you answer.
What the interface asks of you
The design is closer to a website than to a game: fields, filters, a list, a search. There are no gestures to learn and nothing counts down. If apps have never felt intuitive, this one asks less of you than any of the others here.
Where the free tier stops
Almost everything useful. Reading a message requires the paid tier, and the free tier demonstrates what that buys rather than replacing it. That is a deliberate filter rather than a hard sell.
Your time, your children and your privacy
Searching by criteria is the privacy-friendly part, because it puts you in control of who you are shown. The visible part is that your profile can be browsed by anyone who has paid, whether or not the two of you have matched.
Why people leave Match
The paid tier weighed against what they find once they have paid. The free tier is a preview rather than a product, so the decision to pay comes before there is any evidence that paying was worth it.
What the design is built for
Contact sits behind the paid tier rather than behind a match, so a conversation here usually starts with somebody who decided to pay for it. Searching by criteria then works the way a filter should, because everyone on the other side of it made the same decision you did.
The honest summary
Match hands you the controls: age, distance, intent, and a search you set yourself. If you know what you want and would rather look for it than be shown it, this is the one built for that.
Other apps people move to
Each of these fits a different reason for leaving. None of them is better in the abstract.
Before you install anything
A profile problem looks exactly like an app problem, and choosing well depends on knowing which one you have.
Ready to meet someone?
You have read what each app is built for. The next step is an account on the app itself, created on their site in a few minutes, not here.