Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison in 2024: Which Wins?
When comparing Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison, it’s honestly a tie. So it all comes down to what you’re looking for when using a hookup app. These are two examples of niche dating websites that serve the desire for casual sex. They’re two of the most famous websites built for this service and have each attracted huge user bases over the years. But, which one is more effective?
There are so many great dating apps available nowadays; some 2,500 according to Forbes.
But it’s not always easy. It can still be difficult to choose the best one. In fact, Pew Research data suggests that some 50% of online dating users say that finding scam accounts is “very common”. Only 42% of online dating users believe it makes dating easier as well, according to Pew Research. So, there clearly aren’t too many great apps to choose from. Good thing you’ve got these top hookup apps to also choose from:
Site Our Experience Our Rating Free Trial Link 
Experience Highlights Try AFF For Free 
Tinder Highlights Try Tinder 
Experience Highlights Try Passion
In this guide, we’ll explore two of the better hook-up apps. Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison.
As we did with our compilation of the best hookup apps and sites, we put these two through our extensive tests to give you a trustworthy verdict on Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison. So, read on to discover the hookup site we recommend for you.
At HeartInsider, we pride ourselves on delivering the most comprehensive online dating reviews on the web.
Our reviews are based on an extensive testing period, in which our online dating experts send messages to at least 50 women and do all they can to inspire them to swap contact details with the intention of meeting for a date.
Throughout these tests, our experts keep all determining factors the same, including their photos, bios, demographical information and opening lines.
Ultimately, our verdict on these two websites is based on the ease of swapping contact details and meeting up with hot women. After all, the goal, right? So here’s how the review and comparison were done:
- Create a free account with a blank profile to weed out scammers and bots.
- After about a week, fill in the needed details for both sites to encourage other users to contact my account.
- Explore both sites to see all the free features and compare them.
- After a few weeks of using a free account, pay for a premium account for both and explore both sites’ paid features for comparison.
- All the while, try to set up dates with as many women as possible.
- Create a thorough comparison of which site proved to be more promising including what types of women were responsive and the viability of potential future dates with them.
So, which of these heavyweight hookup sites takes the championship belt? You’ll discover all you need to know about these websites below.
Our In-Depth Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison Review
Adult Friend Finder and Ashley Madison are both well-populated hookup sites, but they do intend to serve different people in different scenarios. As an online dating expert, who has tested both of these websites (and many others) in multiple locations over the years and would like to share the key differences that’ll allow you to make a decision on which website to sign up for.
Ashley Madison was created as a discreet service for married men and women to organize an affair. However, it has since turned into more of a general hookup app where, even if you’re not married, you can still find hookups here. Some 44% of men and 39% of women have cheated on their partner, according to Ashley Madison data, so there’s clearly demand for such an app.
“The universal desire and inclination to have extramarital affairs is a lot more common than people might think,” says Ashley Madison vice-president of communications Paul Keable. “As our data has shown, monogamy is not our natural state and infidelity is part of our DNA.”
According to dating expert Shani Jay, “If you find your wife on Ashley Madison, you can be naive and think that she’s only on there to spice up your sex life.”
“Simply having an account on there is already a huge sign your marriage can’t be saved. And if you’re on there, same deal,” she adds. So tread carefully!
Adult Friend Finder is a more broad hook-up website. You’ll find whatever you’re looking for, from swinger couples to cucks and singles looking for a quick and easy hook-up.
With that said, let’s explore which website is more effective for finding someone hot and sexy to hook up with. Here is our quick summary of how the two websites compare.
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 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Overall Our team rates each site objectively based on many hours of independent research, the features each site offers, and how it compares with other sites. The ratings are the opinion of our editors and their extensive experience. |
9.5 | 9.5 |
| Quality of Women Our opinion of how attractive the typical woman is that uses this site and how easy they are to connect with compared to other sites. |
10 | 9 |
| Popular How many people are using this site to actually meet people compared to other sites. |
9 | 9 |
| Usability How easy is this site to use and how quickly can an average person begin meeting people compared to other sites. |
10 | 10 |
| Privacy & Safety Does this site take proper precautions to safeguard its members, their identity, and their data. |
9 | 10 |
| Effective Our opinion of how easily an average person will be able to achieve their dating goals with this site compared to other sites. |
9 | 9 |
| Value Will the time and money spent using this site pay off for an average person based on the opinions and experience of our editors. |
10 | 10 |
Who should use Ashley Madison?
The unique selling point of Ashley Madison is that it’s built for married men and women to have affairs. It’s the most popular website built for this purpose by some distance.
Most of its user base are people in marriages or long-term relationships looking for some action on the side. But there are still quite a number of singles here who just want to hook up; hooking up with a married person is more of a perk. If that describes you perfectly, Ashley Madison will be a great website for you to use.
With that said, if you’re a single person looking to hook up with married people or a single person looking to engage in discreet online dating, Ashley Madison is highly recommended too. There don’t appear to be many people seeking serious relationships on this app though.
Cheating spouses need a sense of secrecy and Ashley Madison has plenty of features that provide that.
For starters, the app doesn’t ask for much personal information when you create your account. It also makes it easy to blur your photos to whatever capacity you see fit – and then unblur them for specific individuals you’re starting to click with.
On top of that, the app allows you to change its logo and push notifications so that a nosy partner won’t be able to out you when they’re peeking at your phone.
Ashley Madison used to only be available on a web browser. Now, it’s focusing solely on its app.
It has 50 million users across the globe but is particularly popular in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Spain and The United Kingdom.
Who should use Adult Friend Finder?
A huge appeal of Adult Friend Finder (which has a great free trial) is that it’s suitable for such a wide range of thrill-seekers.
You’ll find couples looking for swinging buddies. You’ll find cuck husbands looking for someone to sleep with their wives. You’ll find single women looking for a quick and easy hookup. And everything in between.
The only thing you probably won’t find is a sweet innocent woman looking for a long-term relationship.
Whatever sort of casual sexual relationship you’re looking for, it’ll be easy enough to find it on Adult Friend Finder.
It has a bigger global audience of active users than Ashley Madison. During our tests, we found it incredibly easy to find hot women to answer our messages and agree to meet up.
If that sounds awesome to you, we’d encourage you to create an account with their free trial offer and try it for yourself right now.
Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison: Which one is better for serious relationships?
Honestly, you shouldn’t waste your time looking for serious monogamous relationships on either of these websites. If that’s what you’re after, it’s far better to create an account on eHarmony.
Every single aspect of eHarmony is geared towards helping its users find a serious, long-term relationship.
The website has a huge international user base, it has been ranked as the most trusted dating website and has won awards for the highest-quality dating pool. According to its own data, someone finds love on eHarmony every 14 minutes.
So, if you’re looking for your happily ever after with one special person, go ahead and create an eHarmony account right now.
However, if you want more options for where to find long-term relationships, we also have a list of the best dating apps and sites.
Is Adult Friend Finder or Ashley Madison for casual fun?
Upon sending messages to at least 50 women on each app, we found that Adult Friend Finder is far more effective for arranging casual hook-ups.
It was easier to find hot women on Adult Friend Finder. We got more responses on Adult Friend Finder. The conversations flowed quicker on Adult Friend Finder and we got more contact details there too.
Ultimately, Adult Friend Finder would appear to have a more active and open-minded community of users.
Perhaps crucially, you should also find it simple enough to find someone who shares your kinks and fantasies, no matter how bizarre they may be.
Ashley Madison is packed with great candidates for some casual fun, although we found it more complicated to inspire women to agree to meet up on this platform. This is perhaps unsurprising, considering most of them are having to sneak away from their partners to do so.
For more options, check out our list of the best hookup apps and sites.
The Hookup Apps Most Recommended By Dating Experts
If you haven’t had a great time using hookup apps to this point it’s probably because you’re using the wrong ones. There are a couple of apps that dating experts have been recommending to regular guys that will work for you:
| Site | Our Experience | Our Rating | Free Trial Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Hookup Site Right Now | Experience Highlights
| 9 | Try AFF For Free |
Great If You're Handsome | Tinder Highlights
| 8 | Try Tinder |
2nd Best For Most Guys | Experience Highlights
| 8 | Try Passion |
Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison: Which is more popular?
According to our research, Ashley Madison attracts around 1 million hits a month.
Meanwhile, Adult Friend Finder attracts around 1.5 million hits a month. That’s 50% more.
A large active user base is key if you’re looking for a steady source of hook-up opportunities, and Adult Friend Finder certainly has that.
Ashley Madison User Reviews
Ashley Madison users who have reviewed the platform appear to have mixed feelings about it. Here are some notable recent reviews.
Max K – Google Play
“The app is unbelievably expensive. It is not intuitive how to send or ask for a key. Ultimately, even after you spend all this money, and even when you are in a big city with lots of potential people, nobidy is actually interested in having a real conversation.”
Dustin Laughner – Google Play
“It’s OK. The tokens are very expensive. You advertise free but without them, you cannot communicate with anyone. Otherwise, I think it’s the best out there.”
Deron Peters – Google Play
“Hello, I’ve been on and off this app for about a year. It was a good app. It’s getting worse for consumers cost wise. Charging men more for credits to message, charging to wink to catch a woman’s attention. This app is getting more and more expensive to use.”
Adult FriendFinder User Reviews
Having read plenty of online reviews of Adult Friend Finder, they seem to be more positive overall.
u/Naughtynjvixen – Reddit
“My wife has been seeing her current lover for 3 years and she connected with him on AFF. Also connected with a few others from AFF.”
u/Sloppyassho – Reddit
“As a single male/bull, I met many women on AFF. Was banging 5 different women for a while from there. Now that I am married, we still use it for meeting single women, couples and other bulls (to gang bang her). We have great luck there.”
u/Adventure4me2 – Reddit
“I met a couple women who were looking for companionship and a couple others looking for a friend with benefits. Stay classy, use your charm and wit. They want someone who is safe, comfortable and fun. Not always in that order.”
How easy is it to find a match?
Rather than using the “matching” system popularised by mainstream apps like Tinder and Bumble, these websites allow you to conduct filtered searches for suitable users in your area.
Both websites do a great job of including lots of filters, making it simple to find someone who is looking for the same thing as you.
However, we’d say Adult Friend Finder is the winner here too. It has a more advanced search filter system, plus users on this website were more likely to respond to us.
Which app has the best quality women?
This really depends on what you’re looking for.
Ashley Madison is mostly populated with women in relationships and marriages who want to cheat on their partners. That might not fit a lot of men’s definition of “quality”. With that said, there are plenty of young and beautiful women on this website.
Adult Friend Finder has a broader user base. We found younger and older women to speak to, who were on the website for a vast range of reasons. Many were keen to meet up with us straight away.
How much does Adult Friend Finder vs Ashley Madison cost?
Both of these websites allow you to create an account for free. However, if you want to send messages to other users, you’ll need to pay.
Adult Friend Finder allows you to send unlimited messages to other users once you upgrade to its paid account. You can choose from the following payment plans, which will renew automatically until you cancel your subscription.
- One-month subscription: $39.95
- Three-month subscription: $80.85 ($26.95 per month)
- 12-month subscription: $239.40 ($19.95 per month)
Ashley Madison has a different system. It will charge you one credit for every message you send to another user.
Here are your options for buying credits:
- 100 Credits: $49.00
- 500 Credits: $149.00
- 1,000 Credits: $249.00
(Both Adult Friend Finder and Ashley Madison might have different prices depending on what country you live in.)
Which app provides better value for money?
Because of the different pricing structures, the answer to this question may depend on how often you use the websites.
If you’re planning to be a light user who can make 100 Ashley Madison credits last all year, it could be argued that this website provides better value for money than Adult Friend Finder.
However, in our experience, the pay-per-message model can be extremely frustrating for men, especially when they stumble across women who want to chat for a while before meeting.
Ashley Madison has been accused of creating fake profiles to encourage users to chat and spend more credits, although we couldn’t find enough evidence to support this accusation.
With Adult Friend Finder, you can set up a subscription and message to your heart’s content, plus we’ve found it’s easier to secure a hook-up on this website anyway.
If you’re planning to search for lots of hook-up opportunities, you’re better off spending your money here.
Which is better? Adult Friend Finder Vs Ashley Madison
Both of these websites fulfill a specific need, but we have to crown Adult Friend Finder as the winner of this battle.
It serves a broader audience of men, and it has a larger user base of babes looking to quickly hook up. On top of that, its pricing structure is far more suitable for active users. We’re huge fans of Adult Friend Finder, and strongly recommend you click here to try it out for yourself.
And if you’re looking for some more options for hookup apps and sites, check out our list to find the best one for you.
Staying Safe On Hookup Websites
Although there are some measures in place to keep users safe on these websites, it’s ultimately up to you to look after your own safety. Follow these steps and you’ll be able to do so.
- Leave your profile blank for 24 hours. This is how we test hookup websites for bots in our reviews. If your blank profile is inundated with messages, that’s a reliable sign that the website is using bots to deceive you.
- Don’t be too vulnerable too quickly. Yes, a lot of men particularly love the idea of meeting a horny woman online and meeting within a few messages, but this premise is the perfect way to fall into the trap of unscrupulous dating app users. “There’s a lot of physical and emotional vulnerability in dating,” explains psychotherapist Kelly Scott, LMHC. “When we are making decisions that make us vulnerable, we need to also be thinking about safety.”
- Move the conversation to social media. Once you’ve built a nice connection, move the conversation away from the dating website and towards a social media app. This will allow you to learn more about your potential beau, including whether they represented themselves accurately in their dating profile.
- Arrange a video call. Some 71% of dating app users find catfishing to be “very common”, according to Pew Research data. You can protect yourself against that by arranging a video call before you meet someone from a dating app.
- Meet in public. If you decide to meet a stranger from the internet, it’s a good idea to meet in public first. This will allow you to decide if you feel safe around this person before you end up in an intimate situation.
- Trust your gut feeling. “When it comes to online dating, your instincts are your best friend,” says experienced NYC matchmaker Vince Ricco. “If something feels off or too good to be true, trust your gut and proceed with caution.” Don’t be afraid to walk away from a situation which sets off your internal alarm bells.
- Practice safe sex. If you decide to go all the way with someone you meet online, it’s still crucial to practice safe sex. “Condoms remain essential in the fight against STIs, as well as HIV, and we recommend using them for sex with any new or casual partners,” says Dr Elizabeth Carlin, President of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH). “We urge anyone who is concerned about their sexual health, or risks they have taken, to have a check-up and be tested – it is quick and easy to do, “ she adds.
Frequently Asked Questions: Adult FriendFinder vs Ashley Madison
Does Ashley Madison actually work?
Yes. Whether you want to find an affair or you just want to hook up, Ashley Madison performs as promised.
How much does Ashley Madison cost per month?
Ashley Madison uses a credit system, not a subscription model. Credits cost between $0.30 and $0.69 each depending on how much you buy at a time.
What is better than Ashley Madison?
Ashley Madison is amazing for finding hookups, whether you’re married or not. But Adult FriendFinder is a great second option.
Is AdultFriendFinder legit?
Yes. Plenty of singles looking to hook up turn to either Adult FriendFinder or Ashley Madison.
What are the best photos to use for online dating?
Hinge released a huge survey to discover which type of photos are most likely to result in online dating matches. The top-line results suggest that men should be smiling without showing teeth, looking into the distance and standing alone.
“You need to be looking as hot as you can, confident, happy and relaxed,” says Saskia Nelson, founder of dating photography company Hey Saturday. “It needs to be great quality, have a simple background that doesn’t detract from you and, in an ideal world, includes some eye-catching colour or other detail.”
It makes sense to have as many high-quality photos as possible, so that people have a better chance to understand what you’re all about before matching.
Professional online dating photographer Jordan Shields says it’s crucial to include photos of activities “that perhaps the other person could see themselves doing with you.”
Indeed, photos of your hobbies and passions can tell a story way better than your bio
“Sell yourself as the dream guy that someone wants to spend time with,” Shields added.
This article may contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you.
References:
Anderson, M., Vogels, E. & Turner, E. (2020) The virtues and downsides of online dating. Pew Research Center.
Fitzmaurice, R. (2017) One of the world’s largest affair websites with more than 56 million members has revealed how and why people cheat. Insider.
Nelson, S. (n.d.) Which photos make the best dating profile pictures ever. Hey Saturday.
Public Health England. (2017). Campaign to protect young people from STIs by using condoms. GOV.UK.
Ricco, V. (2023) 12 essential dating safety tips for online daters. Tawkify.
Shields, J. (n.d.). Professional online dating photos. Jordan Shields.
Tandon, N. & Battle, M. M. S. (2023). A dating expert & psychotherapist’s dating app safety tips + common scams to avoid. Mind Body Green.
Vogels, E. & McClain, C. (2023) Key findings about online dating in the U.S. Pew Research Center.
Zwilling, M. (2013) How many more online datings do we need? Forbes.
Contributing authors:
Joe Elvin
Joe Elvin is an internationally known confidence and dating coach with nearly a decade of experience. He is the successful author of several dating and confidence books that have helped thousands of men find success. While traveling the world Joe consistently finds new and valuable ways to meet and attract women. Joe has a Bachelor’s Degree in Multimedia Journalism from Bournemouth University and he has been featured in many large publications including AskMen, TSB Magazine and The Good Men Project.
As one of the most prolific writers on Heart Insider, Joe has reviewed over a hundred dating apps. He is the site’s foremost authority when it comes to selecting what dating app works for whom. From an app’s mechanics to its algorithm to telltale signs that a dating app is a scam, Joe’s is able to expertly discern between dating apps that provide value and those that don’t.
Shani Jay
Shani Jay is a bestselling author, empowerment coach, and dating expert. She is the author of Bloom, The Babe Bible, Glow Getter, Lunacy, and Empower Her; and her writing has been featured on many internationally recognized platforms including The Huffington Post, Thought Catalog, Zoosk, and Medium. She is also the founder and Goddess in Chief of Revoloon, an empowerment publishing firm for women. As an empowerment coach and workshop leader, she has been invited to speak at several international events wherein she shares her expertise with men and women who want to improve their dating lives and their health (she’s also an RYT-200 yoga teacher). Shani’s articles have touched millions and she is extremely passionate about providing balanced expert advice for men and women who want to have happy and fulfilling relationships.
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