Pinteza/Guides/Word games with friends

Word games to play with friends online

The best word games to play with friends online are Crossplay and Wordfeud if you like taking turns over a day or two, Letterpress if you want a smaller board and a bigger grudge, and Pinteza's Duo mode or StopotS if you would rather race live and be done in minutes. Pinteza is ours, so we will flag it again when we get there.

Updated October 2026 by the team behind Pinteza. Every game below was checked on its Google Play listing on 11 October 2026, and Crossplay also on the New York Times help center. Listings change, so check before you send the invite.

First, pick a pace

"Playing with a friend" means two very different things on a phone, and most lists blur them.

Turn-based games are the slow burn. You play a word, put the phone down, and a notification tells you hours later that it is your move again. They are perfect for a friend in another city or another time zone, and for the kind of rivalry that lasts a month.

Live games happen with both of you playing at once. They are over in minutes, and they suit a lunch break, a train ride or two people on the same sofa who have both just said "go on then".

Categories games, the old pen-and-paper "a letter, a list of topics, go", sit apart. They are about how fast you think of a word, not how well you spell one, and they work best in a group.

Turn-based, over days

1. Crossplay the new tile board from the NYT

   Best for: a modern tile board game with people you know, plus a computer opponent worth playing. Free, needs a New York Times account.

   Crossplay is the first two-player game from NYT Games, and it lives in its own app, separate from the main NYT Games app. You take turns placing letter tiles on a shared board, and it does the social part well: start games with people from your Friends tab, get matched with real players who have opted into matchmaking (paired by skill level and how recently they were online), or play the computer at easy, medium or hard. Games against the computer do not count toward your stats, so you can practise without wrecking your record.

   The pace is generous. You have seven days to take each turn, and missing that limit counts as resigning. Chat opens only with players who are your friends on Crossplay and in an active game with you, and you can switch it off in Settings.

   Things to know before you invite anyone: you need to create or log in to a New York Times account, which is free and does not need a subscription. It plays in English, with the NASPA Word List 2023 as its dictionary. The help center lists 34 countries where it is available, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and Portugal; Brazil is not on that list. The detailed post-game review from its Cross Bot is fully open only to subscribers with Games access.

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

2. Wordfeud thirty games at once

   Best for: keeping a whole friend group's worth of games going. Free, with ads.

   Wordfeud is the veteran here: a 15 by 15 board with double and triple letter and word squares, push notifications when your opponent moves, and chat for the smack talk. You can search for friends or let the game match you with someone, and you can keep up to 30 games going at the same time. If you know the standard board too well, a random-board option reshuffles where the bonus squares sit.

   Its biggest strength for a mixed group is language. Wordfeud plays with English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish dictionaries, so the friend in Madrid or Lisbon does not have to play in their second language. The free version carries ads.

   Google Play: Wordfeud, by Bertheussen IT.

3. Words With Friends the busy one

   Best for: a social tile game with plenty to do between turns. Free, with ads and in-app purchases.

   Zynga's long-running game is still the name many people think of first. Challenge friends and family, or use Smart Match to find an opponent. What sets it apart is everything around the board: a Solo Challenge against themed computer opponents, the WordMasters, who get tougher as you climb; a Word Wheel anagram mini-game; a Rewards Pass with a new theme every six weeks; and cosmetics like tile styles and profile frames. There is also a web version, which helps if one of you would rather play on a laptop.

   If you want goals, rewards and something to do while your friend takes their turn, this is the one. If you only want a board and a rival, Wordfeud or Crossplay is quieter.

   Google Play: Words With Friends Word Game, by Zynga.

4. Letterpress twenty-five tiles of spite

   Best for: one-on-one games that turn personal. Free, with ads.

   Letterpress was designed by Loren Brichter for the iPhone in 2012, and its official Android version is published by Solebon. The board is a 5 by 5 grid of letters. You take turns spelling words from it, every tile you use turns your colour, and a tile surrounded by your colour is locked so your opponent cannot take it back. Whoever holds the most tiles at the end wins. It sounds gentle. It is not.

   You can play friends, let the game find you an opponent, or play its bots, chat with the other player, and keep several games going at once. Built-in definitions tell you what the strange word your opponent just played actually means.

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

Live, in minutes

1. Pinteza Duo same word, same moment (ours)

   Best for: a live head-to-head race on one word. Free, no account, no ads at the moment.

   This one is ours, so weigh the enthusiasm accordingly. Duo is a mode inside Pinteza, a daily guess-the-word game, and it turns that game into a race. One of you creates a room and picks five, six or seven letters, or Surprise. The room gets a six-character code, usually a real word, and you send it as a short link like pinteza.app/PIGEON. When your friend opens it, you both get the same word at the same moment, each on your own board, with a live 20-minute clock.

   The rule is the whole appeal: first to solve wins. A slim scoreboard shows how many rows your opponent has used, never their letters, so you feel them closing in without being able to copy. If neither of you finds the word, it is a draw. Finish times are stamped on the server clock, so a slow connection does not hand the win to the wrong player. Afterwards a Rematch button sends your opponent an invite for another round at the same length.

   What it deliberately leaves out: there is no chat, only a small set of friendly preset expressions; there are no usernames; and there is no random matchmaking and no bots. You play the people you invite.

   The honest caveats: both of you need Pinteza on Android (iPhone and iPad come later), an internet connection, and the same language. Duo runs in English and in Portuguese, and because it draws on both Portuguese word lists, a player in Portugal can take on a player in Brazil. Every solved word also joins your Collection, with its meaning, even if you lost the duel.

   Get Pinteza on Google Play

   How a match works in detail, codes, links and rematches included: how Duo works.

2. StopotS categories, live, in a room

   Best for: a group of friends, all playing at once. Free, with ads.

   StopotS is the classic categories game taken online. A random letter is drawn, and everyone races to fill every category with a word that starts with it before time runs out; the faster and more creative the answers, the higher the score. You play in real time, either in a private room you create for your friends or in public rooms with players from anywhere.

   It plays in English, Portuguese, Spanish and more, and it has a web app at stopots.com, which solves the classic problem of the one friend who will not install anything.

   Google Play: StopotS: The Categories Game, by Gartic.

On your own schedule

1. Stop categories on your own schedule

   Best for: the categories game without having to be online at the same time. Free, with ads.

   Stop, from Fanatee (the studio behind CodyCross), keeps the same idea in a tighter frame: one letter, five categories, 60 seconds, and the option to hit STOP early to cut everyone else's time. You can challenge friends and play on your own schedule, or use matchmaking to find a random opponent, and there is chat. It plays in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Turkish and Brazilian Portuguese.

   The listing was last updated in October 2025, so do not expect much that is new, but the game itself has not needed it.

   Google Play: Stop: Categories Word Game, by Fanatee.

What each one needs

Account: Crossplay needs a free New York Times account. Pinteza has no account at all. For the others, the listing does not settle it, so check when you install.

Quick picks

• A long-running rivalry with one friend? Letterpress, or Crossplay if you want a full board.
• A group chat that wants to play all month? Wordfeud, with its 30 games at once.
• Something to do between turns? Words With Friends.
• A two-minute showdown, right now, on the same word? Pinteza Duo.
• A noisy group, all playing at once? StopotS.
• A friend who refuses to install apps? StopotS in the browser, or the Words With Friends web version.

FAQ

Keep reading

• How Duo works, codes, links and rematches
• The best word games for Android, solo and social
• Prefer a daily puzzle in the browser? Best free daily word games

Back to all guides.