Looking for a Badoo alternative? Badoo is a large international dating app built around discovering, liking, matching and chatting. 4Match takes a different route: you search for people yourself, matches work in both directions and messaging is free. Badoo does have features 4Match does not, such as audio and video calls inside the app.
Badoo is aimed at a broad audience and supports several kinds of contact. You set out what you are open to, then meet people through profiles, preferences, People Nearby and the Encounters card game. That makes it feel like a classic modern dating app: photos carry a lot of weight and you decide quickly whether someone appeals to you.
4Match is also for a wide group of singles, but it leans on deliberate searching. Instead of judging one profile after another, you filter the member base yourself on things like age, gender, location, personal characteristics and interests. So the question is not which system is better, but which way of dating online suits you.
A fair comparison starts with Badoo's strengths. The platform has a few clear characteristics that set it apart.
Badoo has been running internationally for years and has apps for iOS and Android. If you want a big platform, or you travel and date across borders, that scale is worth something. 4Match is far smaller and cannot offer the same international reach.
Badoo is not purely a swiping app. Encounters shows you one profile at a time — swipe right to connect, left to skip. People Nearby puts daters around you in view, and Advanced Filters narrow the pool further.
4Match has no comparable swipe game. The emphasis there sits on a member overview, detailed search filters and matching based on what both people are looking for.
Badoo uses a three-step profile verification process, and in some situations may ask for additional identity or age checks. It also runs automated systems such as its Deception Detector against fake, scam and spam accounts, and Private Detector to blur explicit images.
4Match approaches this differently. Profiles are checked by hand, and communication filters flag suspicious patterns — for example when someone pushes quickly to move the conversation to certain external channels.
One concrete Badoo advantage: matches can start an audio or video call inside the app without swapping phone numbers first. 4Match currently has no built-in audio or video calling. If a video call before a first date matters to you, that is a real difference.
In a Badoo vs 4Match comparison the biggest difference is not a single feature, but how each platform tries to create contact in the first place.
| Area | Badoo | 4Match |
|---|---|---|
| Encounters | Like or skip profiles one at a time | No comparable swipe feature |
| Browsing | People Nearby and Advanced Filters | Detailed member search you control |
| Scale | Very large international platform | Smaller, growing platform |
| Messaging | Chat with matches; credits for some chats without a match | Free messaging |
| Paid extras | Premium, Super Powers and credits | No subscription needed |
| Matching | Likes, matches and selected suggestions | Two-way matching on both sets of preferences |
| Audio and video calls | Available in the app | Not available |
| Profile checks | Several verification methods | Manual profile review |
| Social features | Dating app with chats and matches | Timeline and member activities |
If you are specifically after a free Badoo alternative, it helps to separate two things: starting for free, and which features cost money afterwards.
Badoo can be used without paying. A number of options that give you more reach, control or insight sit behind Badoo Premium, Super Powers or credits — among them seeing who has already liked you, unlimited Advanced Filters, unlimited votes, extra visibility, Invisible Mode and unlocking certain chats without a match first.
4Match works on a different model: the platform is completely free and no subscription is required. Sending messages through the modern chat is free as well, so there is no premium tier to activate before you can use the normal communication features.
Prefer to decide for yourself who you approach? Browse 4Match profiles through the search filters and message anyone you find interesting, free of charge.
The cost of Badoo is hard to sum up as one monthly figure, because Badoo sells several different products.
Premium is sold in several durations, including 7, 30, 90 and 180 days as well as a lifetime option. What you actually pay depends on the product, the platform you buy through and any current offers. The live price is shown at checkout.
Checked in October 2026. The UK App Store listing shows a spread of Badoo in-app purchases, roughly £0.99 to £9.99, covering different products and durations. Because those amounts represent different things, we deliberately do not present any single figure as "the" monthly price.
With 4Match the sum is simpler: there is no paid subscription for searching, matching or messaging.
Want a dating site like Badoo but with less dependence on judging a queue of suggested profiles? This is where the two platforms genuinely diverge.
Badoo lets you set preferences for age, distance and gender, browse people near you and use Advanced Filters to finesse the results. Premium removes the limits on those filters.
4Match hands much more of that control to you by default. You filter the member base on age, gender, location, personal characteristics and interests — useful when you already have a reasonable idea of the kind of person you are looking for.
Different groups are also not locked away in separate dating sites. 4Match draws singles in through pages for age groups, regions, faith, education, lifestyle and expats, and from there you keep searching with filters inside the same platform.
Another difference, if you are weighing up an alternative to Badoo, is how 4Match handles matching.
4Match does not only check whether person B fits what person A is looking for. It looks the other way round as well: does A fit B's preferences? That is what two-way matching means.
It does not guarantee a spark, of course. Dating preferences never fit neatly into filters. What it does give you is a way to narrow a large member base down to people whose stated preferences line up from both sides.
When you read Badoo reviews, it is worth treating them as experiences rather than facts. Dating apps produce wildly different results depending on location, age, profile, preferences and how active someone is.
Recurring criticism in recent reviews includes:
There are positive reviews too, from people who find Badoo pleasant to use or who have genuinely met someone through it. Badoo also runs several anti-abuse measures, including photo verification, reporting and blocking tools and automated detection of suspicious behaviour.
4Match does not claim those risks are absent here. No dating site can promise that. The approach is simply different: profiles are reviewed by hand and messages are additionally filtered on signals that often show up in suspicious conversations.
For some singles, dating online is more than photos and private messages. 4Match adds two social elements that give you a different reason to get to know someone.
Members can post an activity other members respond to — a food festival, a city walk, an afternoon at a museum. Contact starts around something you actually want to do together.
4Match also has a Timeline. Members post updates and react or like each other's posts, and whoever posts decides who can see it.
None of this automatically makes 4Match the better choice. If you want a streamlined international app with swiping and built-in video calls, Badoo's approach may appeal more. If you like to search, filter and make contact in several ways, 4Match offers something else.
When comparing Badoo with 4Match, it is also worth asking how much you want to see of the people showing interest in you.
4Match has a Profile visitors feature, and privacy there is reciprocal: switch it off and others cannot see that you visited their profile, but you can no longer see who visited yours either.
That is a deliberate trade: visibility on both sides, or privacy on both sides.
Badoo and 4Match come at online dating from different angles. Badoo is strong if you want a large, international, mature dating app. Encounters makes quick judgements easy, and photo verification and video chat are well integrated.
4Match may appeal if you want to try something different after Badoo: searching in more depth yourself, no subscription, free messages, and matches assessed against both people's preferences. Activities and the Timeline add ways to come across someone outside a traditional match list.
That makes 4Match a Badoo alternative mainly for singles who want more control over searching and want to talk to people without a paid upgrade. If the international scale, the swiping experience or in-app audio and video calls are what you value, you will not find those one-to-one at 4Match.
Want to see the difference yourself? Create a free 4Match profile, set your search preferences and see which singles match from both sides. You do not need a subscription to send messages.
Yes. Badoo is free to use, alongside Badoo Premium, Super Powers and credits for additional features. If you want a fully free Badoo alternative, 4Match is free to use and needs no subscription to send messages.
There is no single amount that applies to every user and every product. The price depends on the subscription, the duration, the platform you buy through and any offers running. Badoo advises checking the current price at the payment screen. The figures referred to on this page were checked in October 2026.
After a match, users can message each other through Chats. Badoo uses credits for certain ways of unlocking a chat without a match first. On 4Match, ordinary messages are free and no paid subscription is involved.
Badoo Premium is Badoo's most complete subscription product. It unlocks things like seeing who has liked you, unlimited Advanced Filters, unlimited votes, message priority and Invisible Mode. 4Match needs no premium tier for searching or messaging.
How you cancel Badoo Premium or Super Powers depends on where you bought it. An Apple subscription is cancelled through Apple, an Android subscription through Google Play, and subscriptions bought directly can be ended in Badoo's payment settings. Deleting your Badoo profile alone does not cancel a subscription.
Yes. Badoo uses a three-step profile verification process and may ask for identity or age verification in certain situations. 4Match takes a different route and reviews profiles manually.
4Match is a free alternative to Badoo if you mainly want to search in a targeted way and message people without a subscription. Badoo has other strengths, including its international scale, native apps and built-in audio and video calls.
Badoo combines People Nearby, swiping through Encounters, matches and paid extras. 4Match focuses on detailed searching, two-way matching, free messages, profile visitors, activities and a social Timeline. Which approach works better depends on how you like to date online.
This comparison was compiled by 4Match using publicly available information about Badoo. Features, prices and terms may change.
