Best Wordle Alternatives: 15 Word Puzzle Games You’ll Love

Wordle took the world by storm in early 2022, and its appeal hasn’t faded. That satisfying grid of green, yellow, and gray tiles turned millions of people into daily word puzzle solvers. But one puzzle a day leaves you wanting more.

Good news: dozens of developers have created their own spins on the five-letter guessing format. Some add extra grids. Others change the rules entirely. A few abandon letters altogether and apply the same logic to music, geography, or math.

Here are 15 Wordle alternatives worth bookmarking, organized by what makes each one different from the original.

Games That Give You More Grids

1. Dordle — Two Puzzles at Once

Dordle doubles the challenge by having you solve two Wordle grids simultaneously. Every guess applies to both boards, so you need to balance gathering information for one puzzle without wasting turns on the other. You get seven guesses instead of six, but it still feels tight.

This is the ideal next step if standard Wordle feels too easy. The mental juggling act of tracking two sets of letter clues forces you to think more strategically about each guess.

2. Quordle — Four Grids, Nine Guesses

If two grids aren’t enough, Quordle throws four at you. With nine guesses to solve all four words, the margin for error shrinks quickly. Your opening words matter even more here — you need guesses that efficiently gather information across all four boards.

Many Quordle players start with two fixed opening words that cover 10 different common letters before making targeted guesses. Our Wordle Solver can help you find words with specific letter combinations when you’re stuck on one tricky board.

3. Octordle — Eight Words, Thirteen Guesses

Octordle is the logical extreme of the “more grids” approach. Eight simultaneous puzzles with thirteen guesses. The interface splits your screen into a grid of grids, and you’ll find yourself scrolling between boards to track your progress.

This one rewards systematic play over intuition. Most successful players develop a fixed sequence of opening words that covers the entire alphabet efficiently.

4. Sedecordle — Sixteen Grids

Yes, sixteen. Sedecordle gives you twenty-one guesses to solve sixteen words simultaneously. At this point, the game becomes more about pattern recognition and efficient letter coverage than individual word-solving skill. It’s surprisingly addictive once you develop a system.

Games That Change the Rules

5. Absurdle — The Game Fights Back

Absurdle is adversarial Wordle. Instead of picking a word at the start, the game actively tries to avoid your guesses. It narrows down its possible answers with each turn, always choosing the largest remaining group of words that fits the clues it has given you.

You can still win — the word pool shrinks with each guess until only one option remains. But the game takes as long as it possibly can to get there. Most games take 4-5 guesses, which sounds easy until you realize the word is actively running from you.

6. Waffle — Rearrange, Don’t Guess

Waffle presents you with a completed grid of interlocking words — but the letters are scrambled. You swap letters to put them in the right positions, with green and yellow highlighting showing which letters are correctly or partially placed.

You get 15 swaps to fix the entire grid, and the goal is to solve it in as few moves as possible. It tests spatial reasoning and anagram skills more than vocabulary. If you enjoy unscrambling letters, you’ll probably enjoy our Word Unscrambler tool too.

7. Wordle Unlimited — No Daily Limit

The simplest variation: it’s Wordle, but you can play as many rounds as you want. No waiting until midnight for the next puzzle. The word list draws from the same pool of common English words, so difficulty stays consistent.

This is perfect for practice sessions or for times when one puzzle just isn’t enough. Some players use it to test their hard mode strategies before committing to their official daily attempt.

8. Heardle — Wordle for Music

Heardle applies the progressive-reveal concept to music. You hear one second of a song’s intro and try to guess the title and artist. Wrong guesses unlock additional seconds. The goal is to identify the track in as few listens as possible.

It tests a completely different skill set — musical memory instead of vocabulary — but scratches the same daily-puzzle itch. Genres and decades vary, so deep music knowledge helps.

Games That Test Different Skills

9. Spelling Bee (NYT) — Find All the Words

The New York Times Spelling Bee gives you seven letters arranged in a honeycomb. Your job is to find as many words as possible using those letters, with one required center letter that must appear in every word. Letters can be reused.

Unlike Wordle’s one-and-done format, Spelling Bee rewards persistent searching. There’s always one pangram — a word using all seven letters — and finding it feels incredible. Check out our complete guide to NYT word games for strategies.

10. Connections (NYT) — Group the Words

Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to sort them into four groups of four. The categories might be straightforward (types of fruit) or deviously tricky (words that follow “fire”). You get four mistakes before the game ends.

This puzzle tests lateral thinking and pattern recognition rather than vocabulary size. The hardest category (purple) often involves wordplay or double meanings that can stump even experienced puzzlers.

11. Crosswordle — Reverse Engineering

Crosswordle flips the script entirely. You’re given the final answer and must fill in what the previous guesses could have been, making sure the color patterns are consistent. It’s like solving Wordle backwards.

This requires deep understanding of how the color-coding system works. You need to track which letters could have been guessed at each stage to produce the shown pattern. It’s genuinely mind-bending.

12. Worldle — Geography Edition

Worldle shows you the silhouette of a country and you guess which one it is. Wrong guesses tell you the distance and direction to the target country, helping you triangulate. It’s addictive for geography enthusiasts and educational for everyone else.

13. Nerdle — Math Meets Wordle

Nerdle replaces letters with numbers and operators. You guess complete equations (like 48/6=8) and get green/yellow/gray feedback on each character. The twist: your guess must be a mathematically valid equation.

This scratches both the logic puzzle itch and the daily game habit. If you’re more comfortable with numbers than letters, Nerdle might become your preferred daily challenge.

Word Games Beyond the Wordle Format

14. Letterboxed (NYT) — Connect the Sides

Letterboxed places 12 letters around the sides of a square. You form words by connecting letters from different sides — consecutive letters can’t be from the same side. Each new word must start with the last letter of the previous word. The goal is to use all 12 letters in as few words as possible.

Two-word solutions exist for every puzzle and finding them is the ultimate flex. Our Anagram Solver can help you spot possible words from the available letters.

15. Strands (NYT) — Theme-Based Word Search

Strands hides themed words in a letter grid. You find words that relate to a given hint, plus one “spangram” that spans the entire board and reveals the theme. Non-theme words you find can be traded in for hints.

It combines word search mechanics with thematic thinking. The daily themes range from obvious to deeply clever, and the spangram is always satisfying to uncover.

How to Pick Your Next Word Game

The best alternative depends on what you enjoy about Wordle. If you love the deduction process, try Absurdle or Quordle for a harder version of the same logic. If you enjoy the daily ritual, games like Connections and Spelling Bee offer different but equally compelling daily habits.

For pure vocabulary training, games like Spelling Bee and Letterboxed will expand your word knowledge more than any Wordle variant. And if you want to practice your five-letter word skills before your daily Wordle attempt, Wordle Unlimited lets you warm up without consequences.

Whatever you choose, each of these games exercises different aspects of language and logic. Playing a mix of them regularly is one of the most enjoyable ways to build your vocabulary and sharpen your thinking — and it beats scrolling social media as a daily habit.