My Experience with Hily Dating app: Meet & Date
A buddy from work—let’s call him Mark—kept raving about Hily after his divorce. Said it was “smarter” than Tinder. I’ve been single for about eight months now, and I’m tired of the same old swipe-fests where half the profiles are bots or people who never reply. So last Tuesday night, bored and on my couch in downtown Austin, I downloaded it. First impression: the onboarding is slick. They ask you a ton of questions about your lifestyle, interests, and dealbreakers. It felt like a personality test for dating. That’s cool in theory, but after three days of using it hard—probably four hours total—I’m not sold. The matching algorithm feels slow. I’d swipe for ten minutes and get maybe two or three matches that actually seemed promising. The rest were people 50 miles away or clearly not reading my profile. One woman matched with me, messaged “hey,” and then vanished when I replied. Classic. The icebreaker feature where you answer a question to start a convo? I tried it twice. Both times the convo fizzled within three messages. For a “smart” dating app, it feels like it’s missing a brain. The interface is clean, I’ll give it that. Everything is where you expect it to be. But I’m not looking for a well-organized disappointment.
Features Worth Noting
The daily “Hily Picks” are actually decent. They show you five highly curated profiles each day based on your answers. I got one match from that who seemed genuinely interesting—we talked about hiking for a bit. The profile prompts are better than most apps too. Instead of just a bio, you get to answer questions like “My go-to karaoke song” which gives you real personality hints. The video call feature is built-in, no need to swap numbers. I haven’t used it yet because I’m not that invested after three days, but it’s smart for safety. You can also filter by dealbreakers like smoking, kids, or political views, which saved me from swiping right on someone who’s a non-starter. The “Discover” tab shows you local events and activities where other Hily users are going. That’s a nice twist—I saw a trivia night at a bar three blocks from me. I didn’t go, but it’s different from the usual endless scroll. The app also offers a compatibility score on each profile, calculated from your shared answers. In practice, I saw a score of 92% with someone who turned out to live two hours away. So it’s not perfect. But it’s better than guessing.
What Needs Work
Where do I start? The free version is brutally restricted. You can only see who liked you if you pay, which feels like a bait-and-switch. I got ten likes in two days, but I couldn’t see any of them without coughing up cash. That’s annoying. The app also crashed three times on my Pixel 7—once while I was typing a message, twice during swiping. Not a great look for a 2023 phone. The match quality is inconsistent. I set my radius to 15 miles, but I kept seeing people 30 miles away. The algorithm supposedly learns from your swipes, but after three days of left-swiping on profiles with no bio or blurry photos, Hily kept showing me similar ones. It’s like it wasn’t listening. The message notifications are delayed by up to 20 minutes sometimes. I’d open the app and find a reply from three hours ago. That kills momentum in a conversation. And the icebreaker question thing? Twice I answered a question first, and the match never even saw it because the app glitched. I had to manually send a follow-up message. For a dating app that prides itself on being “intelligent,” these are rookie mistakes.
Pricing
Hily offers a premium subscription that unlocks unlimited likes, advanced filters, seeing who liked you, and the ability to rewind your last swipe. The pricing is around $29.99 per month, or $89.99 for six months. That’s a hard pass for me right now. I’m not paying thirty bucks a month for an app that crashes and shows me people 30 miles away. If the match quality were incredible, maybe I’d consider it. But based on three days of free usage, it feels like they’re asking too much for too little. The free version is basically a teaser—you can swipe maybe 30 profiles a day, which is fine, but you’re locked out of seeing your likes. That’s the real kicker. They know that’s what everyone wants. I’d rather they charge a flat $9.99 for everyone and keep it simple. Hiding basic social proof behind a paywall feels slimy. If you’re in a big city and you’re serious about dating, maybe the premium is worth it for a month. But test the free version first. Don’t throw money at it unless you see actual promising matches.
Developer Notes
Hily Corp seems to update the app regularly based on the version history in the Play Store. The last update was two weeks ago, which fixed some crash issues. But apparently not all of them, since my Pixel 7 still had freezing problems. The app is also available on iOS, and I saw complaints in the reviews about similar bugs there. Nothing platform-specific. The developer does respond to some negative reviews, which is more than most dating apps do. But their responses are generic—“we’re sorry for the inconvenience, please contact our support team.” It would be better if they actually addressed specific bugs in the comments. The app requires a lot of permissions: location, storage, camera, microphone. That’s standard for a dating app, but it still feels invasive. They claim to use encryption for messages and photos. I can’t verify that, but I’ll take their word for now. One thing I noticed: the app drains battery faster than other dating apps. After 30 minutes of swiping, my battery dropped 8%. That’s not great for a modern phone. Overall, the developer seems competent but not exceptional. They’re fixing issues, just not fast enough.
Security & Privacy
Hily says they verify profiles by checking photos against social media and requiring phone number confirmation. I got a green checkmark on my profile within an hour of signing up, which felt legit. But I still saw several profiles with only one blurry photo and no verification badge. So verification isn’t mandatory. That’s a problem. The app also uses AI to scan messages for inappropriate content and block spam. I didn’t encounter any harassment in three days, but I also barely got past “hi.” The privacy policy is standard—they collect usage data, location, and conversation metadata for improving the service. They also share data with third-party analytics tools. Nothing shocking, but it’s worth reading if you care about that stuff. You can delete your account and data from the settings menu, which is good. No dark patterns keeping you locked in. For location sharing, you can hide your exact distance and just show a general area. I set mine to “city only” to avoid creeps. Overall, it feels about as safe as any other mainstream dating app. Not perfect, but not a privacy nightmare. Just don’t share your phone number or home address until you actually trust someone.
How do Hily Picks work, and are they worth checking out?
Hily Picks shows you five highly curated profiles each day based on your questionnaire answers. They can be a good way to find more compatible matches, as the reviewer got a promising match from this feature who shared their interest in hiking.
Can I filter potential matches by dealbreakers like smoking or political views?
Yes, Hily lets you filter by dealbreakers such as smoking, kids, and political views, which helps you avoid swiping on people who don't align with your preferences. This feature is especially useful for narrowing down matches quickly.
Why can't I see who liked me without paying, and is there a workaround?
The free version of Hily hides who liked you behind a paywall, so you'll need a subscription to view them. Unfortunately, there's no workaround—if you want to see those likes, you'll have to upgrade to a paid plan.
The app keeps crashing on my Pixel 7—what can I do to fix it?
Crashes on the Pixel 7 are a known issue, likely due to a compatibility bug. Try clearing the app cache in your phone settings, updating the app to the latest version, or reinstalling it to see if that stabilizes performance.
How does Hily compare to Tinder in terms of matching quality and features?
Hily aims to be smarter than Tinder by using a detailed personality questionnaire and a compatibility score, but the reviewer found its matching algorithm slow and inconsistent. While Tinder offers a larger user base and faster swiping, Hily provides unique features like Hily Picks and local event discovery, though its free version is more restrictive.
