Coffee Meets Bagel vs Tinder: The Pros & Cons Of Each

By now most all of us know about Tinder. You swipe right if you like a person or swipe left to pass on them. You can now swipe up and super like someone so that when you appear in their feed you’re outlined in blue so they all ready know that you’re interested. Sort of makes things easier in terms of deciding whether or not you’re interesting if you all ready know they are. Once you connect you’re able to message one another but that can turn into a bit of a problem. There are plenty of ghost accounts where the person never sends a message and as soon as you unmatch them they will reappear in your feed once more. Or there are the ones where the person is obviously lying about their age and only looking for a hookup. That doesn’t seem to match well with the idea of dating when it’s considered a dating app.

 

I’m here to talk a bit about Coffee Meets Bagel as one of the newer dating apps that is actually focused on making matches and having people connect. Think of it as Tinder but more, intense? No, that probably isn't the right word. It's more about a deeper connection with a person rather than simply connecting based on appearance alone. To start off with you set your specifics of what you're looking for in regards to age, height, ethnicity, religion, and distance from where you live. Then you get one possible match every 24 hours. That's right, only one guy shows up every 24 hours. Let's break it down as to why this is.

The app requires you to connect it to your Facebook, in order to help prove that you're a real person and prove your education along with employment. Of course it never posts anything there so that's nice. It’s always nice to see that a possible connection has either a job or an education. Anyways, like any dating app you get to add multiple pictures and the app even has a tips for what kind of pictures you should post. You know, show pictures of what you enjoy doing and don't use blurry photos, mirror selfies, or group photos. You even get a weekly report telling you why people liked you and what they like about your profile. That’s a nice bit of feedback to work with in case someone wants to know more about what you wrote because its vague.

There are only three possible areas for you to write in to describe yourself. The fill in the blanks are "I am..." "I like..." and "I appreciate when my date..." and each has three little spaces for you to fill out. There are some people who go all out and list a whole lot more so that it looks like they've written paragraphs but there are also those that don't write much of anything. If you don’t fil it in all it says is N/A. For myself I just listed a few simple things about traveling the world, running for fun, and loving music. Nothing too overwhelming but certainly enough for someone to be able to ask questions about. Let me tell you I love when a conversation starts off with the guy asking where I've traveled. That tells me he at least read about me and paid attention.

With only getting one guy every 24 hours that means that at 12pm every day I get to check whether or not I have a potential match with someone. You can either like or pass someone and you have plenty of time to decide and make your choice. If you happen to connect with someone then you get a new chat window. In the chat window there is always a little bubble saying something about the person you matched with. For example, mine likely says: "She loves to travel" Ask her about it! That’s because of the information that I filled in. Then if no one says anything for a day the app sends another message to both users about how starting the conversation helps to ensure you getting higher quality Bagels in the future. Then after another few days if nothing is said there is another reminder about the app prioritizing the best Bagels for the best responders. The whole chat line is open for a week. Usually at the end of the chat period week you are asked if you want to extend the chat and if you both say yes or maybe then the chat line lasts for a few more days. After that the chat line will completely close. This means you have to make sure to share your number so you can text or you'll just lose contact completely.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having something that is a bit more personal with more information about a person as compared to Tinder but I feel that it's also used to help make sure they can have plenty of possible matches for each person who joins for quite a few weeks. I mean, if there's 100 guys on the app in my area that means I can only have one guy a day for the next 100 days. That's going to keep me checking back on the app so I can see who I get next. I can’t just see all the possibilities in a few days.

Now there is the Discover section of the app where you can "give" or "take" some of the guys who appear. The general idea of it is you seeing other people who you might be interested in or someone who you think might be a good match for a friend. So you can "take" someone if you pay the price of so many beans. Oh, they have a bean system in place to act as money in the app. You get beans for passing or liking every day so it's easy to earn them. You can also buy more beans with actual money. Sometimes people appear in the Discover section who like you but they might not fit the criteria that you have listed in the app. I've had a few guys show up where it says they like me but they were shorter guys didn't seem to have much on the ball so I passed on them. Then you can "give" someone to a friend and I figure the purpose of that is to help get more people on the app. That makes sense because apps are able to spread because of word of mouth, or rather by simple text invites these days.

Now to recap on what each of the apps have to offer here’s a nice little list.

Coffee Meets Bagel

Pros:

• Deeper connections
• More filters for what you’re looking for (age, height, race, ethnicity, location, etc.)
• More information about the person you’re swiping
• Conversation starters provided
• Chat closes after so many days or when no messages are exchanged
• Able to discover people outside of your preset filters     
• Weekly report full of tips and comments on profile

Cons:

• One person every 24 hours
• Uses beans as monetary system that you can choose to pay for allowing you to “buy” people in discover mode
• Some profiles aren’t filled in all the way
• You just might run out of possible Bagels because of your filters
• One person every 24 hours

Tinder

Pros:

• Almost endless possibilities in regards to people to swipe through
• Filters distance and age in your settings
• Allows you to connect Instagram to your account to show off more pictures/interests
• Messenger works nicely without lag or difficulties
• Super likes can be sent to someone you’re interested in
• Short and sweet descriptions are optional but not required

Cons:

• Plenty of ghost accounts (no one ever talks/swipes right on everyone)
• Tinder plus costs money allowing you to send more super likes, change locations, and experience no ads
• More people looking for hookups than an actual relationship
• Fake accounts with people lying about their age

So, what do you think? Have you had any funny experience on one  of the apps so far?