Best Free Daily Puzzle Games (2026): Wordle, Connections, Nerdle and 12 More
A good daily puzzle takes a few minutes, gives everyone the same challenge, and then stops — no endless mode, no energy bar, nothing to buy. There are now hundreds of them. These are the ones people keep going back to, grouped by what they ask of your brain, with a note on which ones actually cost nothing.
Word games
Wordle
The one that started the format in 2021 and is still the most-played: guess a five-letter word in six tries, with coloured tiles telling you which letters are right. Free on the New York Times site without an account. Two to five minutes.
Connections
Sixteen words, four hidden groups of four. The groups overlap on purpose — a word that looks like it belongs to "things that are red" turns out to be a member of "___ wine". Also free at the NYT. The purple group is the one that gets people.
Strands
A themed word search where every letter on the board is used and one "spangram" runs edge to edge and names the theme. Free, from the NYT, a little longer than Wordle.
Quordle and Octordle
Wordle, four (or eight) boards at once, sharing the same guesses. Quordle is run by Merriam-Webster and is free; Octordle is the harder community version. For people who found Wordle too gentle.
Waffle
Six words in a waffle grid; swap letters into place in fifteen moves or fewer. Free, with a satisfying "every move counts" feel that Wordle lacks.
Number games
XXI
Our own. A 4×4 grid of digits, the same for everyone. Drag a path through neighbouring tiles that adds up to exactly 21. Anyone can find a three-tile answer; the score is how many tiles you used, and every grid has a seven, eight or nine hiding in it. Free, in the browser, no account. Under a minute if you take the easy way, longer if you don't. Today's grid is here.
Nerdle
Wordle for equations: guess an eight-character sum like 12+35=47, with the usual coloured feedback. Free, and the one to try if you like the Wordle loop but want arithmetic. There are mini, speed and "pro" variants.
Mathler
You are told the answer — say 36 — and have to find the six-character expression that equals it. Harder than it sounds because order of operations matters. Free, with easy and hard modes.
Sumplete
A grid of numbers with target sums for each row and column; delete numbers until the sums work. Closer to a Sudoku-style logic solve than a guessing game. Free, with sizes from 3×3 up.
Logic and grid games
LinkedIn's Queens, Tango and Zip
Surprisingly good. Queens is a place-one-per-region logic puzzle, Tango is a binary-fill game, Zip is a draw-a-path game. Free, one each per day, inside the LinkedIn app, which is the only catch.
NYT Mini and Letter Boxed
The Mini is a 5×5 crossword that takes a minute or two and is free. Letter Boxed asks you to spell words around the edge of a square. The full-size NYT Crossword and the complete Spelling Bee need a Games subscription, so they are off this list.
Sudoku of the day
Not a daily puzzle in the Wordle sense, but most of the big sudoku sites publish a free dated puzzle with a shareable time. Still the best pure-logic ten minutes available.
Geography and everything else
Worldle and Globle
Worldle shows you a country's silhouette and gives distance-and-direction hints toward the answer. Globle hides the country and colours your guesses warmer as you get closer. Both free, both good for learning where things actually are.
Framed
Guess the film from six progressively more revealing stills. Free. Satisfying if you watch a lot of films, humbling otherwise.
Bandle
Guess the song as instruments are added one by one. Free, and better than the music-guessing games that went behind logins.
TimeGuessr and Travle
TimeGuessr gives you a photograph; you guess the year and where it was taken. Travle asks for the shortest chain of bordering countries between two places. Both free, both the kind of thing you lose twenty minutes to on a Sunday.
How to pick
Most people settle on two or three. One word game, one number or logic game, one wild card. The sweet spot is the puzzle that takes you about as long as a coffee and gives you a result you'd actually send to someone — which is why the shareable-grid games (Wordle, Connections, XXI, Nerdle) outlast the ones that don't.
Questions
Are all of these actually free?
Every game listed here can be played daily at no cost, without a subscription, as of October 2026. Some have optional paid tiers or sit inside an app that needs an account (LinkedIn's games, for instance). The paid NYT puzzles — the full Crossword and complete Spelling Bee — are deliberately left off.
What's the best daily puzzle for someone who doesn't like word games?
Start with a number one. XXI and Nerdle are the closest to the Wordle loop without needing vocabulary, and Sumplete or a daily sudoku if you prefer pure logic to arithmetic.
Do daily puzzles reset at the same time for everyone?
Mostly at local midnight, so the 'same puzzle for everyone' is really 'same puzzle for everyone on the same calendar day'. XXI and Wordle both work this way. A few games use a fixed UTC time instead.