Swiggy Or Zomato: Which To Use?

Which DoorDash-like app should Indians Use?

Photo by DoorDash on Unsplash

Introduction

I originally used Zomato to leave reviews for restaurants I visited and I loved the platform for the opportunity to help good businesses thrive and bad ones fold.

Then, when they launched food delivery, I tried it and was disillusioned by the rudeness of their delivery partners and stopped using it. This issue is currently not seen.

Then, my wife introduced me to Swiggy. I was immediately floored by the real-time updates to my order status and the delivery partner’s location, which was better at that time in Swiggy than in Zomato. Now, it’s more or less the same.

When they introduced picture-in-picture mode, it was an icing on the cake and I was a loyal Swiggy user till recently.

My Grouse With Swiggy

I get tired of ordering the same stuff from the same restaurants sooner than others. I crave novelty.

To satisfy my need for something new, I need to browse restaurants and Swiggy is horrible for this.

Every few minutes, they refresh the list of restaurants. This is understandable as restaurants will close at a certain time or due to problems and others will open at other times.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they keep us at the restaurant we are currently looking at in the list of restaurants but they put us back at the beginning of the list.

It would be manageable if they at least retain the filters we have applied to the list of restaurants but they refresh this as well.

This is just lazy implementation where they refresh everything without giving a hoot about the user experience.

They should probably get developers better at their jobs.

Zomato is better in this respect. Their refresh rate is a lot more infrequent and we can usually browse restaurants and finalise one before they put us back at the top of the list.

After finalising the restaurant, it’s not necessary to use Zomato for placing the order. We can head to Swiggy and do it if we wish.

A hack for both apps is that you must click on only restaurants that pique your curiosity and not linger too long in one restaurant menu.

The more restaurants you click and the longer you stay looking at the menu of a particular restaurant, the more frequently they refresh, although I don’t understand why they should do so.

My Issues With Zomato

I hate that Zomato doesn’t have picture-in-picture mode. I’m not one of those people who order and forget all about it till the delivery guy calls (cue my wife and people worse than her :)).

I like to monitor the delivery partner’s location so I am not caught unawares by his call. This allows me to wrap up what I’m doing and plan when I should start heading to the gate to collect the order.

I have identified the radius around my house when it’s perfect for me to head out to meet the delivery partner just as they pull up to my gate.

This ensures a hassle-free delivery for them and a problem-free pick-up for me. Otherwise, some drivers overshoot your location and don’t pick up your calls.

This delays deliver and impacts food quality.

Zomato not having picture-in-picture mode means I can’t do anything else on my phone till I collect the order and this is a reason Zomato loses out on a lot of my business.

When I don’t need to browse restaurants, when I know which restaurant I want to order from, I don’t really need to use Zomato.

Then, I use Swiggy just for the picture-in-picture feature.

Another issue with Zomato is that they don’t provide as many coupons as Swiggy which bumps up the cost of food.

Nowadays, what I do is I add the same food from the same restaurant to both Swiggy and Zomato carts and order whichever is cheaper.

Zomato sometimes provides a discount to restaurant charges in comparison to Swiggy.

Other times, I have found some restaurants provide better quality of the same food with Zomato than with Swiggy and maybe vice versa too.

The reason for this might be that some restaurants prefer one app over the other. This might cause them to prioritise that app in terms of assigning their best chefs or cooking faster.

Conclusion

I have enunciated all the pros and cons of Swiggy and Zomato that I have experienced. Other than these differences, they are more or less the same in other aspects.

I hope this helps readers choose the app that fits their needs at any given time.

If you liked this, you might like my books.