Written by the team behind Word War: Duel. We make one of the games listed below and it's marked as ours. Everything here was checked against each game's own App Store listing or website on 17 August 2026.
Most word puzzles are solitaire with an audience. You solve today's word, you paste a block of coloured squares into a group chat, and everyone agrees to be impressed for about four seconds. If you want an actual contest, there are a few different shapes it can take, and they suit very different groups. Here's what each one really does.
The NYT Games app has a leaderboard. Apple's listing for it describes it plainly: "Add friends and follow daily scores across Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee and the Mini." So the official Wordle does have a social layer, and a lot of people don't know it's there.
The catch is that everyone has to be in the same app, and the leaderboard reports results rather than creating a contest. Nobody is playing anybody. You also can't get at the back catalogue without paying: the archive of past puzzles is a subscriber feature, and Apple lists the Games subscription at $4.99 to $5.99 a month.
Good for: groups already deep in NYT Games who just want scores in one place.
Falls short when: you want the competition to be part of the game rather than a scoreboard next to it.
No product, no signup, and it's still how most of the world does this. It works better than it should for two or three people, and it collapses past that, because the grids bury the conversation and nobody keeps a record. It also can't tell you who was faster, since a grid carries no timing at all.
We wrote a longer piece on the ways this quietly breaks, including hard mode and time zones: how to compare word puzzle scores with friends.
Squabble turns the guessing game into a race. It runs in a browser at squabble.me, it's by a developer called Ottomated, it still carries a BETA label, and you can start with a guest login rather than an account. Two modes are on the front page, Blitz and Squabble Royale.
The appeal is obvious: it's the same five letter puzzle with the pressure of other people typing at the same time. The limit is scheduling. Everybody has to show up at once, which is easy with a discord full of friends at 9pm and impossible with a group of colleagues in four time zones.
Microsoft Wordament takes the opposite bet from a daily puzzle, and its own description is the best summary of it: "Why play against one person in a turn when you can play against thousands at once? Wordament is a real time continuous word tournament." Everyone plays the same board simultaneously and gets ranked at the end.
It isn't a guess the word game, it's a find the words game, so it scratches a different itch. Free to download, with in app purchases, and Apple lists a premium subscription at $1.99 a month or $9.99 a year. Worth knowing it exists, because a lot of people looking for multiplayer word games have never heard of it.
Words With Friends is the veteran, and it's still the right answer for a particular thing: a slow game with one person you like. Apple's listing has it as "Challenge your friends and family members to play, or use Smart Match to find your perfect opponent," plus a Solo Challenge mode against characters. Turns, not a clock. Free to download, with a long list of in app purchases including coin packs and a season pass.
It's a board game rather than a daily puzzle, so it doesn't give a group one shared thing to argue about each morning. It gives you one opponent and a long game.
This is ours, and here's the gap we built it for. The leaderboard version reports scores without creating a contest, the live race needs everyone in the room at once, and the group chat method needs a volunteer with a spreadsheet.
Word War: Duel gives everyone the same word each day and scores the comparison automatically. Fewest guesses wins the round and ties break on solve time. A battle is the first player to win 10 rounds, and a war is the best of five battles, so one bad Tuesday costs you a round instead of the season. Teams score on the average of their members, which keeps the weakest player in the group involved instead of spectating. You don't have to recruit anyone before you start, because every player has a Universe war running by default that scores you against the average of everyone who played that day. iPhone, free to download, with an optional subscription.
If your group already lives in NYT Games, turn on the leaderboard and you're done. If you want noise and speed and everyone's free at the same time, play a live race. If you want one long game with one person, it's Words With Friends and it always was. If you want the daily word to become a running contest that survives people being busy, that's the daily duel format, and we obviously think ours is a good one. All of these are real answers. The wrong move is picking the fast twitchy one for a group that will never manage to be online together.
If it's the last of those you want, the multiplayer daily puzzle format is written up on its own page, scoring rules and all.
Not inside the puzzle. You can add friends on the NYT Games leaderboard and follow each other's daily scores, but everyone still solves alone.
Squabble runs in a browser with a guest login. Wordament and Words With Friends are free to download with in app purchases. Wordle is free to play, but the puzzle archive needs a Games subscription. Word War: Duel is free to download, with an optional subscription.
No. It's an independent game, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Wordle or The New York Times Company. It's a Wordle-style daily word game, and that comparison describes the format. It's the only claim being made.
They were taken from each game's own App Store listing on 17 August 2026, in the US store. Other people's pricing changes without telling us, so check the listing before you rely on a number here.
iPhone · free to download