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The best word games for Android in 2026

The best word games on Android right now are NYT Games for the daily ritual, Crossplay and Wordfeud for playing against friends, Knotwords and Bonza for something cleverer, CodyCross and Wordscapes for long relaxed sessions, Contexto for guessing by meaning, and Pinteza if you want a daily word that is not always five letters and a duel mode on the same word. We make Pinteza, so we will say that again when we get to it, and we have tried to be as fair to everyone else as we would want them to be to us.

Updated October 2026 by the team behind Pinteza. Every game below was checked on Google Play on 11 October 2026: who publishes it, what it costs, and whether its listing says it contains ads. Prices and ratings move, so check the listing before you commit.

Full disclosure: we make one of the games on this list. Pinteza is out now on Google Play for Android phones and tablets. Free, no account. iPhone and iPad later.

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In this list

How we picked

We left out anything that is a clone of a clone, anything whose listing is mostly about coins and boosters, and anything we could not confirm is still on Google Play and still updated or at least still working. We favoured games that respect your time. Each entry says who it is best for, because "best" depends entirely on whether you want two quiet minutes in the morning or a long running fight with your brother.

  1. NYT Games the daily ritual

    Best for: a short, shared daily habit. Free to download, some puzzles need a subscription.

    The New York Times Games app is where the famous five-letter daily lives, next to Connections (sort sixteen words into four hidden groups), Strands (a themed word search) and Spelling Bee. You can add friends and follow their daily scores inside the app, which turns a solitary habit into a quiet competition.

    What is actually free: the five-letter daily, Connections, Strands and Pips are free, and Spelling Bee is free in a limited form. The crosswords, the full Spelling Bee and the archives need a New York Times Games subscription. If you only want three or four minutes of words a day, you may never need to pay.

    Google Play: NYT Games, by The New York Times Company. Its listing shows in-app purchases and no "Contains ads" label.

  2. Crossplay a board game against friends, from the NYT

    Best for: a slow, turn-based game with people you know. Free, needs a New York Times account.

    Crossplay is the first two-player game from NYT Games, released in January 2026 as its own app. You take turns placing letter tiles on a shared board, the way you would expect from a classic crossword board game, and you can play friends, get matched with players of a similar level, or play the computer at three difficulty levels. There is in-game chat for the banter.

    It is turn-based, with up to seven days to make each move, so it suits a group chat rhythm rather than a five-minute break. You need to create or log in to a New York Times account to play, which is the one bit of friction here.

    Google Play: NYT Crossplay: Play and Spell, by The New York Times Company.

  3. Wordfeud the classic tile board, with chat

    Best for: running several games against friends and strangers at once. Free, with ads.

    Wordfeud has been the quiet favourite of tile-board players for years. It is a 15 by 15 board with double and triple squares, you can keep up to 30 games going at the same time, and you can chat with your opponents. If the standard board bores you, it can randomise where the bonus squares sit, which changes every game you thought you knew.

    It also plays in ten languages, including Portuguese, which makes it one of the few big tile games where a player in Lisbon or São Paulo is not stuck with an English dictionary. The free version carries ads.

    Google Play: Wordfeud, by Bertheussen IT.

  4. Knotwords the smart one

    Best for: people who like logic puzzles more than vocabulary contests. Free daily puzzle, optional upgrade.

    Knotwords comes from Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger, the designers behind some of the best puzzle games on phones. The board is split into sections, each holding a set of letters, and you arrange them so that every word reads correctly across and down. It feels impossible for the first minute and inevitable by the fifth, which is exactly the feeling a good daily puzzle should leave you with.

    The daily puzzle is free, and there is an optional paid upgrade for more puzzles and extras. Its Google Play listing shows in-app purchases and no "Contains ads" label, and it is also part of Google Play Pass.

    Google Play: Knotwords, published by Noodlecake.

  5. Bonza Word Puzzle crossword meets jigsaw

    Best for: a gentle, clever daily that is not about guessing. Free daily puzzle, with ads.

    Bonza hands you a theme and a pile of word fragments, and you drag them together until they lock into a little crossword. It sits somewhere between a crossword, a jigsaw and a word search, and it is genuinely different from everything else on this list. There is a free puzzle every day, and a puzzle creator so you can build one for a friend.

    It is a Google Play Editors' Choice. The last update on its listing is from February 2025, so do not expect much new, but what is there is good.

    Google Play: Bonza Word Puzzle, by Minimega.

  6. Letterpress a tiny board, a lot of spite

    Best for: two-player games that turn into grudges. Free, with ads.

    Letterpress started life on the iPhone in 2012, designed by Loren Brichter, and its Android version is published by Solebon as the official game. Two players take turns spelling words from a 5 by 5 grid of letters, and every letter you use turns your colour. Steal your opponent's tiles, protect your own, and the player holding the most of the board at the end wins. It is minimal, it is mean in the best way, and games can run in the background over a whole day.

    Google Play: Letterpress, Word Game, by Solebon LLC.

  7. CodyCross crosswords with trivia

    Best for: long sessions and people who like learning odd facts. Free, with ads.

    CodyCross wraps themed crosswords in a light story about a friendly alien learning about Earth. Each clue is a bit of trivia, so you finish a level knowing something you did not know before. It is one of the most installed word games on Google Play, with over 100 million downloads and an Editors' Choice badge, and it comes from Fanatee, a studio founded in Brazil.

    Google Play: CodyCross: Crossword Puzzles, by Fanatee.

  8. Wordscapes the relaxing marathon

    Best for: unwinding. Free, with ads.

    Wordscapes gives you a wheel of letters and a small crossword to fill with the words you can spell from them, over calming landscape backgrounds. It is not trying to be hard, and that is the point. It plays in English, Spanish, German, French and Portuguese.

    Google Play: Wordscapes: Word puzzle game, by PeopleFun.

  9. Contexto guess by meaning, not by letters

    Best for: when letter puzzles start to feel mechanical. Free, with ads.

    Contexto has a secret word and unlimited guesses, but there are no coloured tiles. Each word you try gets a number showing how close it is in meaning to the answer, and the answer is number one. You end up thinking in ideas and associations rather than letter positions, which is a completely different kind of frustrating, and a very satisfying one when it clicks. Its official Android app comes from the same team as the website.

    Google Play: Contexto, by Daydash.

  10. Pinteza a word a day, in three lengths (ours)

    Best for: a daily habit with more variety, and duels on the same word. Free, one optional purchase.

    This is ours, so weigh the praise accordingly. Pinteza is a daily guess-the-word game where the word is not always five letters: depending on the day it has five, six or seven, and seven-letter days give you an extra guess. Everyone on the same edition gets the same word, so results are worth comparing. Every word you solve in the five main modes joins your Collection as a card, with a short definition and a rarity from Common to Legendary, so the game remembers what you learned.

    Beyond the Daily there are four more modes: Practice, where you choose 5, 6 or 7 letters and play as much as you like, Sprint (three words against a three-minute clock), Chaos (a rule-bending twist that changes every week, the same for everyone) and Duo, where you and a friend race to solve the same word at the same moment, invited with a short code or link. Streak shields, earned as your streak grows, can cover the odd missed day.

    It comes in three editions, English, European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, each with its own words and its own daily word. It is free with no account, there are no ads at the moment, and the only purchase is Pinteza Plus, a one-time unlock for the Anthology: 200 hand-picked puzzles in 20 volumes, with the first three free to try.

    The honest caveats: it is new, it is Android only for now (iPhone and iPad come later), there is no browser version, and Duo is for people you invite, so there is no random opponent waiting.

    Get Pinteza on Google Play

Quick picks

FAQ

What is the best word game for Android?

It depends on what you want from it. For a short daily habit, the NYT Games app is the obvious start, and Pinteza is the pick if you want a daily word of five, six or seven letters. For playing friends, Crossplay and Wordfeud are the strongest turn-based games. For something cleverer, try Knotwords.

Which Android word games have no ads?

At the time of writing, the Google Play listings for NYT Games and Knotwords show in-app purchases but no ads label, and Pinteza has no ads at the moment. Wordfeud, Bonza, CodyCross, Wordscapes, Letterpress and Contexto all carry ads in their free versions. Listings change, so check the "Contains ads" label on Google Play before installing.

What is a good word game to play with a friend on Android?

For a turn-based game you dip into over a day or two, Crossplay and Wordfeud are both excellent, and Letterpress is the most cut-throat. If you would rather race live, Pinteza's Duo mode gives you both the same word at the same moment, and the first to solve it wins.

Is there a daily word game app with longer words?

Yes. In Pinteza the daily word has five, six or seven letters depending on the day, the same for everyone on the same edition, with seven guesses instead of six on seven-letter days. Practice mode lets you pick 5, 6 or 7 letters whenever you like.

Are there good Android word games in Portuguese?

Yes. Wordfeud and Wordscapes both play in Portuguese, and Pinteza has two separate Portuguese editions, one for Portugal and one for Brazil, each with its own words and daily word.

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