New Dating Apps in Fall 2026: Rivet, Hoppy, WingMee, Current, and Bhava. Are Any Worth Trying?

Are any of the new dating apps that launched this fall better than Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble? Some have smart ideas, and a few fix real problems with swiping. But every one of them has the same weak spot: not enough people. A clever app with nobody near you is worse than a tired app with thousands of people. Here is what each new app does, what early users say, what research says about their big ideas, and a simple test to decide if one is worth your time.

The new apps, in one place

These all launched or changed in October 2026. Each one is built around a complaint people have about swiping.

Rivet (US launch Oct 8, 2026). Founded by a former Tinder executive. Instead of swiping, volunteer "matchers" vote on whether two people would click. High scoring pairs get introduced. It raised $10.5 million and is free to join, but messaging someone the community has not matched you with costs 1,000 karma points, and a pack of 3,000 points is $9.99.
Hoppy (New York relaunch, covered Oct 22, 2026). Built by a founder who helped launch Tinder in the UK and worked early at Bumble. No swiping. Your profile is a scrapbook of things you like, and you can talk by text, photo, video, music, or voice notes. It adds date check ins and an "easy way out" call.
WingMee (iOS, October 2026). A full screen video feed instead of photos, plus a friend called a Winger who writes a short note vouching for you. It says AI picks your feed, but the company has not shared how.
Current (aiming for iOS on Oct 31, 2026). A live grid of people nearby who are active right now. You send an opener first, and the other person sees your words before they tap to see your photos. If they accept, you get a 15 minute chat. If you both want to keep going, the chat continues for free.
Bhava (big update Oct 29, 2026). A marriage app for Indians at home and abroad, matched on Kundali scores. Women can write one line to the men in their evening batch, and the men answer before they see her photo or name. A city stays closed to men until enough verified women join.
JSwipe (rebuilt, help page updated Oct 31, 2026). The Jewish dating app now gives unlimited likes for free, matches no longer expire, photos and profile text are reviewed before anyone sees them (24 to 48 hours), and Passport is gone.

The big apps are moving the same way. On Oct 30, 2026, Match Group said selfie checks have cut bad actors on Tinder and Hinge by about 40% in India, and that screenshot blocking is coming to Tinder after Hinge.

What the research says about their big ideas

Most of these apps are betting on one of two ideas: fewer choices, or video. Both have some research behind them, but less than the marketing suggests.

Fewer choices

A 2019 study in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that people get pickier the more profiles they see. Across three studies, the chance of saying yes fell about 27% from the first profile to the last. For women, the chance of a match fell about 70% over one session. The authors suggested limiting how many profiles you look at in one sitting. That supports apps like Rivet and Bhava that hand you a small batch. One more detail from the study matters: it was mostly the number of people you had already turned down that made you pickier, not the number you saw.

Video

The case for video is weaker than it sounds. When Tinder added short looping videos in 2018, it said profiles with them got about 10% more right swipes and 20% longer chats. Even then, reporters pointed out this might just be novelty. A 2025 experiment in Frontiers in Communication with 389 young adults found that a video profile beat a single photo, but it did not beat a profile with several good photos. So a video feed like WingMee's helps most if your photos are weak. If your photos are strong, video adds less than you think.

Strangers rating your match

Rivet's idea is that outsiders judge fit better than you do when you swipe fast. There is no published research from Rivet showing its votes predict good dates. It is a fun idea that still has to prove itself.

What people who tried it say

Early users are mixed, and the loudest problem is the same one every small app has.

One Rivet user in October 2026 said they could set up other people all day, but the community could not find a single match for them within 100 miles, and the one match they got was gone in less than a day.
A Rivet user in July 2026 said they got matches but could not message them, and that the app felt like being a wingman for others while getting little back. Points were the same for a strong match or a weak one.
A user in May 2026 got the app at an event for a free drink and deleted it right away after seeing AI blended photos of possible couples and being asked to vote on their "chemistry."
Hoppy's App Store page shows 4.3 stars from 282 ratings, but most of the reviews you can see are glowing posts from its days as a college campus app. They say little about how it works in a big city like New York.
A man in his 40s posted in late October that he had been on 13 apps for four years, from Tinder to small faith based sites, with about 10 matches total and most of them scams. The top replies told him to take a break from apps and try speed dating, and others asked to see his profile, since a profile problem follows you to every app.
A man in his 20s in late October said he kept running out of people on Bumble and seeing the same faces, even with a radius of more than 75 miles and almost no filters. The replies said to try a different app that draws a different crowd.
Another man said he had matched with the same woman on two different apps weeks apart, and she had no memory of their first chat. That is what happens when people use many apps at once: you start to blur together.

On the money side, a late October thread was split. Some said every useful feature sits behind a paywall. Others said a single month of paid service is fair and that they met long term partners on apps.

Lesser-known tips

Check the crowd before the features. Open the app, set your real area, and see how many people show up. If you see almost no one, wait a few months.
Read the data safety label. Rivet's Google Play listing, written by the developer, says data is not encrypted and that audio may be shared with third parties. That is worth knowing before you record voice prompts.
Look at how the app makes money. If you pay to message people the app did not match you with, the free version is built to make you feel stuck.
Small batch apps reward a good first impression even more. When someone sees only a few people a day, a weak first photo costs you a lot.
Opener first apps like Current and Bhava reward clear writing. One real sentence about something in their profile beats a line you could send to anyone.
Do not run five apps at once. The study above found each person you turn down makes you pickier, and people across many apps stop remembering who is who.

Our honest take

The new apps are right about what is broken. Endless swiping makes people pickier and more tired, and photos alone do not show who you are. Ideas like opener first, small daily batches, and friends vouching for you are good ones. But dating apps live or die on numbers. Hinge and Tinder are not good because of their features. They are good because so many people are on them. Most new apps will stay small, and some will close. Bhava and JSwipe have an edge because they serve a clear group that already wants to be there.

Bottom line

Keep your main app, fix your profile first, and try at most one new app if it is actually busy in your city. If you live in New York or another big city, Current, Rivet, or Hoppy may be fun to test for a month. If you are in a smaller place, a new app is more likely to waste your time than help. No app fixes weak photos, so start there. The Face They See lets people of the opposite gender rank your photos for free, which tells you which picture to lead with on any app, old or new.

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