10 Best Free Wordle Games of 2026

NYT Wordle is still the best free Wordle game because it is the real one: The New York Times publishes one 5-letter word each day and you get 6 tries to find it. It plays free in a web browser and inside the NYT Games app, which the App Store lists as free to download with new puzzles daily. Wordle Bot lets you analyze your guesses to improve your skills. The same app adds Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee, Sudoku, the Mini and the Crossword, so a Wordle habit easily grows into a full morning puzzle set. The limits are by design: there is one Wordle a day, and the archive of more than 10,000 past puzzles is for subscribers, with Games - Monthly plans from $4.99 on the US App Store. For most players the free daily word is all they need. We compared documented features and published prices.

Quordle is the best free step up from Wordle for players who want more than one word a day. The Classic daily gives you 9 guesses to solve 4 words, so each guess has to work toward several answers at once. Merriam-Webster now hosts the game and lists five modes on the main page: Classic, Extreme with 8 guesses and more unusual words, Chill with 12 guesses and fewer unusual words, Sequence, which shows one word at a time, and Rescue, where you fix the mess the computer made. A Weekly Challenge unlocks once you solve the Daily Classic. Everything runs in a browser for free, which also means there is no official app on the US App Store. Expect a Classic game to take several times longer than a Wordle. We compared documented features and published prices.

Waffle is the best free Wordle alternative for people who like the daily habit but want a new puzzle mechanic. Instead of typing guesses, you rearrange the letters on a waffle-shaped grid until the words read correctly horizontally and vertically. Tiles change color the way Wordle tiles do, the Daily Waffle allows 15 swaps, every puzzle can be solved in 10, and you earn a star for each swap left over. A Deluxe Waffle arrives weekly with 25 swaps, and the site adds Number Waffle, puzzle packs of ten Waffles and an archive of past games. The iPhone and iPad app is free with no in-app purchases listed. Supporters who make a one-off donation through ko-fi get no ads, statistics transfer and the Waffle Royale. We compared documented features and published prices.

Octordle is the Wordle variant for players who want a long, demanding daily puzzle. Merriam-Webster's tutorial sums it up: guess all eight words in 13 tries, and each guess you type applies to all eight boards, which all hold different words. A new Octordle arrives each day, and the page also offers Sequence Mode, where only one unsolved word is visible at a time, Rescue games and Practice. At the end you get emoji scores per board for sharing, with clocks standing in for 11, 12 and 13 guesses, plus a numeric score that adds up guesses per word and counts a missed word as 14, so lower is better. It runs free in a browser with stats and backup and restore. The trade-off is screen space and time: eight boards are busy on a phone, and a full game is a real time commitment. We compared documented features and published prices.

Lion Studios Wordle is the most played unlimited Wordle-style app we compared, with 847K ratings and a 4.6 average on the US App Store. It is not the New York Times game, but it covers the same idea and adds more ways to play. Daily Puzzle mode gives you 6 guesses at a word of the day with green and yellow tiles, and Classic mode lets you keep playing as long as you want. Word Fever is a timed spelling run, Secret Word gives 3 chances per word with a clue, and Together mode lets you set a word for friends or random players to guess. Boosters such as Dart, Hint and Skip help when you are stuck. The app is free, but it sells coins from $0.99 and Remove Ads for $5.99, and the App Store rates it 18+. We compared documented features and published prices.

Dordle is a small, free Wordle variant that runs in any web browser on itch.io, and it suits players who want both a daily puzzle and unlimited practice without installing an app. Its developer, Guilherme S. Töws, credits the idea to Wordle by Josh Wardle. The start screen offers two choices: daily dordle, with a new puzzle each day, and free dordle, which you can play as much as you want. The devlog shows the game gaining daily dordles in January 2022 and stats and streaks in March 2022, and players on itch.io rate it 4.7 out of 5 from 345 ratings. There is nothing to buy, though you can support the developer on itch.io. The main caveat comes from the developer, who posted in October 2023 that itch.io may clear your save file, so streaks are not guaranteed to survive. We compared documented features and published prices.

Lingo is the official app of the TV game show, and it is the best pick here for people who want structure and competition around a Wordle-style guess. The rules come straight from television: you are given the first letter and have 5 guesses to find the word, with tiles showing which letters are placed and which need to move. Unlike the NYT game, you can play as many rounds as you like, and a separate Lingo Daily Word gives you a fresh daily puzzle with streak tracking. Lingo Leagues match you with players of a similar ability and reset regularly, Hot Streak doubles points when you string correct words together, and Letter Tiles level up to raise your scores. The app is free to play; gem packs start at $2.99 and Lingo Club is $3.99 on the US App Store. We compared documented features and published prices.

Word Guess from Mediaflex Games is the simplest free way to keep playing Wordle-style puzzles on an iPhone or iPad after the daily word is done. The App Store tagline promises unlimited 5-letter puzzles, and the rules match Wordle: find the mystery word in 6 tries, with letters turning grey when they are not in the word, orange when they are in the wrong place and green when they are correct. The app is free to download and the US App Store lists no in-app purchases, which is rare among the apps on this list. It has 200K ratings with a 4.7 average and is a 44 MB download. The trade-off is depth: the developer documents no daily puzzle, no multiplayer and no extra modes, so it is a practice tool rather than a shared daily ritual. We compared documented features and published prices.

Quad Word from Infinitous Games fills a gap on this list: Merriam-Webster's Quordle has no app on the US App Store, and Quad Word gives iPhone and iPad players a four-word guessing game in a native app. The developer's description is one line, asking whether you can guess the four words, and the App Store lists the game as free with no in-app purchases. Players rate it well, with 14K ratings and a 4.8 average, and it is a light 28.2 MB download. The weakness is documentation: the developer does not publish the number of guesses, a daily puzzle schedule or any extra modes, so we scored its capabilities conservatively. If you are happy playing in a browser, Quordle offers more documented modes; if you want an app with nothing to buy, Quad Word is the cleaner option. We compared documented features and published prices.

Absurdle is the free Wordle alternative for players who want to be pushed. Its author, qntm, describes it as an adversarial variant: the mechanics and word lists are nearly identical to Wordle, but instead of picking one secret word, the game keeps every possible answer from its 2,315-word list that fits your guesses and, after each guess, keeps the largest group of remaining words. In practice it dodges you until you corner it, so there is no turn cap and a casual game can easily last more than a dozen turns. The algorithm is deterministic, so the same guesses always produce the same game, which makes it a fun puzzle to study. The page runs free in a browser with random guess and give up buttons. The author said not to expect a daily challenge mode or persistent statistics, so this is not a daily habit game. We compared documented features and published prices.