The 5 Best Dating Sites in Germany (What I Learned)

andrea_kaiser

German Television Presenter – Andrea Kaiser (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Here is the quick list of my top 5 dating sites and apps in Germany. I’ll go into more detail in my reviews below.

  1. eDarling.de (Targeted towards age 35+)
  2. LoveScout24.de
  3. Bumble
  4. Finya.de
  5. OKCupid.com

When I first traveled to Germany way back in 2000, online dating really didn’t exist. There were a few sites, but none of them had enough members to make it worthwhile.

Since that time, dating via either your PC or smartphone has exploded in popularity. When I was in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Ulm, and Heidelberg, I would regularly login to these sites and apps to find thousands of users online at any given time.

While you can find good sites in pretty much any niche, the sites and apps I’ll discuss below are geared towards mainstream daters.

Oh, and a couple more things before I get into the reviews…a couple of these sites aren’t accessible outside of Germany. So, if you try to sign up, you will be blocked because of your foreign IP address. For best results, fly to Germany first and then sign up.

Also, although I won’t discuss Tinder in this post, it is worth downloading it to your phone even though I don’t recommend it for finding a long term relationship. You can definitely find some women (and men) on there interested in a real relationship, but in my experience, it is more geared towards 20 and 30-somethings who want a short-term fling.

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German Model – Ann Kathrin Brommel (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Without further ado, here is my detailed analysis of the best dating sites in Germany.

1. eDarling.de

EDarling.de is the best online dating site in Germany if you are 35+ years old (if you are in your 20s or early 30s, continue on to the #2 site below). It is widely considered the most important dating website across all of Europe.

edarling

eDarling.de

eDarling is another personality-test driven dating website for residents of Germany. eDarling is owned and operated by the same people behind the US website eHarmony. Therefore, a lot of the features you would see on eHarmony, you would also get on eDarling.

A site with more women than men, there is no specific type of single person for the site as people of all ages are on there surfing for dates, although a majority of the members are over 35, as I mentioned before.

eDarling is clean and professional, runs smoothly, has over 2 million members and employs a great matching system based on a lengthy, detailed personality test. The only drawback is that you’ll have to pay for a premium membership to do much of anything on the site.

Bottom-line, if you’re serious about finding a quality match in Germany, and you’re willing to pay, eDarling is a must-try site.

Sign up Process

To start, select your gender and match gender, email and password. Next, complete eDarling’s personality test, which takes 30-40 minutes to complete and includes around 200 questions about your feelings, values, interests, passions and basic information. Once you’re done with the test, upload a photo if you like. Once eDarling is finished calculating your matches, you are free to browse around.

There remains quite a lot to fill out in your profile, however, including 12 sections to write about yourself (What my partner should know about me, etc.) and a section to select what habits and traits you would like and dislike in a partner, choosing 10 for each from a long list (e.g. “My partner should be gentle and friendly” and “My partner should not see themselves as a permanently pitiable victim.”).

How to Locate Potential Matches

eDarling takes a unique approach here, as there are no standard search or browse features. Rather, eDarling uses complex computer algorithms to compare your test results with those of others on the site, to recommend matches to you daily.

eDarling limits you to 7 new matches a day, and as a free member, you can view almost everything in the profiles of your matches, including their personality reports. Unfortunately, you can’t see their photos.

As a premium member, you’ll get to see 20 new profiles a day as part of the “What If…” feature.

How to Communicate with Other Members

Free members can add other profiles to their favorites and send Smiles and 5 Questions, which are chosen from 53 options. Example questions include:

  • “What do you want to happen in the next decade?”
  • “The dance floor is empty and your favorite song is played. What do you do?”
  • “How much personal space is important to you in a relationship?”

Premium members can also send basic text messages to each other.

Unique Site Features

eDarling’s personality test is truly top-of-the-line. It was developed by expert psychologists to measure 29 aspects of your personality, and upon completion of the test, eDarling provides you with an in-depth Personality Dimension Analysis. This analysis compares your levels of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness, Extraversion, Neuroticism to the average of other members.

I really enjoyed being able to read the personality reports of my matches. These reports, combined with their basic information and what they wrote about themselves in the available text boxes, give you a highly detailed look into what these people are like.

Even as a free member, without any photos to look at, I was amazed at how well I felt I knew some of these people, just from reading through their profiles.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

  • Free – Take the personality test, create a profile, upload photos
  • Premium – See all photos, unlimited communication, view profile visitors, use the mobile app
  • Premium PLUS – Receive 20 extra profile matches in the What If feature, verify your identity, see detailed personality profiles, read message notifications

Like I mentioned in the opening, if you have ever used eHarmony, the site is very similar except it’s in Germany. The site is really for those who are more serious about finding someone and not for a simple hookup.

The personality questionnaire is time consuming and can be a pain, but once you finish it, you feel better about the matches they give you, and it’s interesting to see what other members answered in comparison to yours.

If you’re in Germany or into German men or women, it’s definitely worth the investment, provided you want to find the future love of your life.

2. LoveScout24.de

lovescout_de

LoveScout Germany

LoveScout24 is the second best online dating site in Germany. The site was started in 1997 under the name People United.

LoveScout24 is available to users in Germany, Spain, Holland, Italy, France, Switzerland and Austria, with around 1 million active members in Germany alone. This site is available in the native language in each of these countries, but is not available in English.

What’s more, the site uses advanced security features to check your IP address location and keep you from registering if you’re not in one of their supported countries. LoveScout24 also seems to repel Google Translator for some reason, which makes it difficult to navigate.

If you live outside of Europe, and/or only speak English, this site will be a hassle. But if you are located in one LoveScout24’s supported European countries, and you speak the language, this site is worth checking out, as it has solid features and thousands of quality profiles to look through.

Sign up Process

Sign up is quicker than it seems. Enter your gender and the gender you’re looking for in a match, your birthday, username, password and email address to begin. From here you’ll be prompted a number of questions about yourself and your ideal match.

There are around 20 questions, which you can answer now, or later if you like. To start browsing profiles, simply click on the tab for searches and start browsing.

How to Locate Potential Matches

LoveScout24’s search function includes Basic and Advanced searches. Basic searches include 5 options:

  1. Born on the same day as me
  2. It’s their birthday
  3. Perfect matches
  4. Reverse matches
  5. Mutual matches

For Advanced searches, you have numerous filters to choose from when creating your search, to ensure that you find that perfect match. Searches can be saved for convenient later use as well.

You can look through profiles who are looking for matches that fit your own criteria. You can also give the Shuffle feature a spin. This is basically a Tinder-like feature, in which you’re shown random profiles to like or dislike, and both of you are notified when there’s a mutual match.

How to Communicate with Other Members

To open communication with a potential match, you’ll first have to upgrade to premium. Then you can start things off with a “smile”.

From there, you can move on to actual messages, which unfortunately are text only. You can also start live chats with other online members, also text only. Users can also filter who they receive messages from, and block up to 100 members.

Unique Site Features

Two features stood out to me on LoveScout24. First, there is the once-a-week email you’ll receive, containing a statistic summary of your profile’s activity, including how many profile visits you received, how many messages were sent and received, etc.

If you’re a busy online dater, this will be helpful in keeping track of all your activities.

Second is the #LoveYourImperfections portion of the sign-up process, where you select two of your imperfections to stand proudly behind. Personally, I am a Night Owl, and I love to eat! This was a small feature, but refreshing to see because so much of online dating seems to revolve around trying to impress and seem as perfect as possible to attract the ideal mate.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

  • Free – Create a profile, upload a photo, search/browse/Watch profiles, receive messages, send messages to Connect members, use Date Roulette limited
  • Premium – Unrestricted use of Date Roulette, see who has visited or favorited you, start live chats and message with anyone
  • Premium Plus – Premium benefits plus advanced profile placement in search results, receive proposals from Partner.de members
  • Connect – Receive messages from free users
  • Select – Select who you can receive messages from

3. Bumble

Bumble

Bumble

As another option, I recommend you sign up for Bumble. I did a full review of Bumble here.

4. Finya.de

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Finya

Finya is a dating site for residents of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The site launched in 2001, has over 1 million members, and is completely free to use. This can have both positive and negative effects on your experience of this site.

The positives are obvious: free is always in the budget! Yet, because it’s free, Finya tends to attract many fake and scammy profiles, and Finya keeps itself free by selling advertising space on the site, which many other users have reported as overly intrusive.

I saw hardly any ads in my time on the site, however. Overall, Finya is a great site with an inviting design, solid features, and a huge pool of users to search through. If you’re on a tight budget and looking for some German love, make sure you give this site a try.

Sign up Process

Signing up is just two steps. First, enter your gender, preferred match gender, email, username, birthday and location. Second, check your email for a verification link. And you’re done.

When you’re ready, you can finish filling out your profile by sharing your education, occupation, appearance, what you like and don’t like, and your favorite brands. You can also define who you are looking for, upload photos, and answer up to 100 questions, in 12 categories, including Love and Relationships, Lifestyle, and Character.

How to Locate Potential Matches

When searching for matches, you have many filter options. There are all the basic filters you’d expect to see (age, location, photos, etc.) and a few unique options, such as whether they’re willing to relocate or their photo rating score.

Another option is the Gallery feature, a Tinder-like feature which shows you photos of profiles to like or pass on, and you are notified when there is a mutual match. You can see all the profiles you have liked, and all those who have liked you back, in the Matching tab.

You can also find profiles in the Voting section, detailed below.

How to Communicate with Other Members

Communication features are basic but solid. You can add profiles to your favorites, start instant chats with users that are online, and send messages, which are text only. Unfortunately, there is no audio or video support for messages or chat.

Unique Site Features

In the Voting section, you are shown two profile photos side-by-side, and you choose who you find more attractive. You can filter the profiles by age, and your selections are kept anonymous.

Finya will calculate how attractive each profile is on a scale of 1-10, based on your and other users’ selections when using this feature. Note that you need to have a profile photo uploaded for your selections to be registered.

A small feature I liked was the use of dots and dashes to indicate the activity levels of users:

  • 1 dash means the user is seldom active on Finya
  • 2 means regularly active
  • 3 means they are frequently active
  • A bright green dot indicates they are online right now
  • A faded green dot means they’ve been online in the last 24 hours.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

  • Standard – Finya is truly completely free.

5. OKCupid.com

okcupid

OkCupid

OKCupid is known for relying heavily on user-provided data to find better matches for its diverse user base. This free service lets you answer as many or as few questions as you prefer, and it uses your responses to calculate good potential partners.

Although OKCupid targets a massive international crowd, some German users have complained about the low quality. For instance, although having around 30 million possible matches to choose from seems great, the service’s free nature means you’ll probably have to filter through scams to find your next dream date or casual fling.

I recommend you try OKCupid as a last resort if you have run out of options at the sites above (I’ve run into some crazy people on OKCupid).

Sign-Up Process

OKCupid lets users register via Facebook or create completely independent profiles. Everyone chooses a unique username and password, and at the start, you’ll be given a chance to write your own witty description and answer five basic personality questions. From there, all you have to do is “Like” three profiles so that the site knows what you’re looking for.

Signing up doesn’t take long unless you really want to go all out. You can add photos, answer numerous questions and share in-depth personal stats or simply follow the default prompts to get to meeting people quicker.

How to Locate Potential Matches

OKCupid has a pretty simple default interface that lets you browse through other users easily by photo, username, locations and age. Each profile listing also shows percentages. These numbers represent how well the site’s algorithm thinks you match or clash depending on the answers you’ve provided to the questions.

In addition to checking out how others described themselves, you can get an idea of what sort of issues matter to them by browsing their profiles in detail. After finding someone you fancy or dislike, you can use the Quickmatch function to indicate how you feel. If two people like each other, the site lets them know.

How to Communicate with Other Members

OKCupid makes it easy to communicate with someone by liking them, and those with Premium memberships can view their incoming likes. Or send a message using the free text feature. Bear in mind that people can see who viewed their profiles, so your subtle browsing is likely to attract notice.

Unique Site Features
In addition to answering questions about your habits, preferences and sexuality, you can automatically filter out people who don’t fit the bill. For each question you answer, simply pick the responses you’d find acceptable from a potential partner.

Although there are thousands of available questions, many users report that answering as many as possible helps them find better matches. These answers also let the site get a better feel for your personality. For an interesting look behind the scenes of the OKCupid landscape, you can check out the site’s development blog to discover more.

Membership Fees and What is Included in Each Membership Level

  • Free – Create a profile, browse, Like, and message other users
  • A-List – Advanced search options, invisible browsing, message filtering, extra message storage, ad-free browsing, username changes, see who has liked you, and see when someone has read your message
  • Incognito Mode – Lets you Like and visit profiles invisibly, hides your profile from searches.
  • Profile Boosts – Appear more often in searches and at the top of the list in Quickmatch.

As I mention in my online dating e-book, with all of the dating sites above, just like the real world, there will be women or men who you will not click with or who don’t respond to your messages (or just disappear). There will be women or men who might only be interested in helping you to part with your money. That is life. Just keep sending out messages and reach out until you find the person you are looking for and get success.

As is typical with online dating, expect a response rate of around 1-10%. This response rate will depend largely on the quality of your photos and how good your profile is. (response rate = people who will respond back to you to whom you sent an introduction message).

So there you have it. The best dating sites and apps in Germany.

Viel Glück! (Good luck in German)

Further Reading

  • Worldwide Online Dating Site Reviews: Be sure to check out my country-by-country reviews of the best online dating sites in the world.

  • Worldwide Moving Guide: Everything you need to know in order to plan your move to 65+ countries around the world.

  • Worldwide Jobs Guide: If you are interested in working in this country, be sure to check out my posts on how to find jobs in this country and other countries around the world.

  • Worldwide Apartments Guide: If you are interested in renting an apartment in another country, take a look at my articles on how to find an apartment in various countries around the world.

About Addison Sears-Collins

Hey! I'm Addison Sears-Collins, the founder of Visa Hunter. You can learn more about me here. Connect with me by liking my fan page on Facebook, connecting with me on Twitter, or check out my website Automatic Addison where I build robots and embedded systems.

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