As Valentine’s Day approaches, many people are searching for love – or just companionship – and increasingly they’re turning to dating apps. Around 360 million people regularly use these platforms, which now generate more than $6 billion in global revenue.
Tinder remains the dominant player, controlling roughly 30% of global revenue. But competition is fierce. A wide range of niche and mainstream alternatives continue to emerge, and the average user engages with at least two different services. In this environment, users can easily abandon apps that fail to live up to expectations.
The Australian online dating market is also booming. Valued at US$71.84 million in 2025, it is projected to more than double to US$150.84 million by 2035. That’s a lot of digital connections. So, before you dive into the dating pool, it’s worth exploring the hidden network that makes modern love possible.
Most users don’t think about the invisible IT infrastructure that powers their swipes. Behind every interaction sit data centres, network connections, cloud services, and more. The stronger that infrastructure, the better the user experience.
Data centres don’t influence the quality of profiles. What they do influence is speed, reliability and responsiveness. Multiple data exchanges occur between a swipe and a match, and each interaction depends on secure, low latency infrastructure.
Love is local – and so is dating app infrastructure
Dating apps rely on robust infrastructure at the edge, where large concentrations of end users are located. Low-latency connectivity is essential to prevent delays and ensure the quality of the user experience. Because latency increases with distance, maintaining proximity between end users and supporting infrastructure is critical.
When users make a match, they expect immediate notification. If data must travel from a device to a distant data centre or cloud region and back again, even minor delays can frustrate users and push them toward competitors.
Dating is inherently local. The swiping model popularised by Tinder is based on the matching people nearby, enabling near-instant communication and potential in person meetings after. Since users cluster in major populated areas, supporting digital infrastructure must be nearby to maintain performance.
For example, if two users are based in Sydney and the data centre supporting the app is also in Sydney, their data remains local. This helps keep latency low and enables real-time matching.
By contrast, if the data centre were located elsewhere, a “hairpin” scenario may occur, where traffic must travel long distances to reach the data centre and then return to the device. In this situation, latency becomes a serious issue and delays are unavoidable.
To avoid this, app providers need access to a distributed platform of digital infrastructure that supports users across all the cities where they operate.
Inside the dating ecosystem
Reaching users across multiple cities isn’t easy. By deploying within an interconnection hub, such as an Equinix IBX® colocation data centre, app providers can quickly connect to a wide range of ecosystem partners, including:
Mobile network providers, which help ensure always-on connectivity for end users.
Content delivery networks (CDNs), which cache app data close to users, minimising latency.
Social media platforms, which provide login, authentication, and content-sharing services.
Payment services providers, which support app monetisation.
Cloud providers are also essential. Most dating apps take advantage of flexible, scalable cloud infrastructure to host their platform core, including APIs, algorithms and messaging services that make matching possible.
While it may not seem romantic, dating algorithms function much like other recommendation systems. Instead of matching a listener to a song or a shopper to a product, they match two people looking or a connection. The algorithms analyse user profiles to understand preferences and intent, then identify and surface potential matches.
Once a match is made, cloud-based messaging services notify users and enable instant communication. At this stage, low latency becomes even more critical – delays quickly erode user satisfaction.
Where the dating ecosystem comes together
Dating apps inevitably rely on cloud services and ecosystem partners. The key question is where and how they’ll access those services.
A global, neutral colocation provider enables access the cloud services exactly where and when they’re needed, including native cloud on-ramps from major providers. For dating apps pursuing a multicloud strategy, this global reach is essential. Our data centres provide access to two or more clouds in 39 different metros worldwide, and five or more clouds in 12 metros.
Organisations can also adopt a hybrid cloud approach to meet strict data privacy and sovereignty requirements while still benefitting from cloud scalability. Rather than placing all data directly into cloud native storage, they can retain control over what information enters the cloud and when. Sensitive data, such as personal or financial records, can remain on customer-controlled storage infrastructure housed within a colocation environment.
When data needs to move, private interconnection options ensure it travels over secure, predictable pathways rather than the public internet, with its inherent exposures and inconsistent routing.
Within a co-location environment, customers can also deploy or integrate load-balancing solutions to manage traffic spikes and avoid downtime. This ensures consistent performance during peak periods – including the surge leading up to and on Valentine’s Day.
Combined with global reach, a rich ecosystem of enterprises and service providers, and industry-leading uptime, dating app providers can optimise performance and scale with confidence.