The best daily
puzzle games.

A daily puzzle is a small contract: one puzzle, once a day, the same for everyone. The format suits almost any kind of thinking, so this list is grouped by what the puzzle asks of you rather than by popularity. Everything here is free to start and runs in a browser. Brisk appears once, under mixed skills, because that is what it is.

Free daily puzzle websites, no app needed

If you want a daily puzzle in a browser with nothing to install and no subscription: Wordle and Connections at the New York Times, Quordle at Merriam-Webster, Worldle, Nerdle, Sumplete and Brisk are all free on the web. Brisk needs no account at all; the others keep streaks only if you sign in. Everything below plays in a browser unless marked otherwise.

Word puzzles

• Wordle (NYT). Five letters, six guesses. Still the reference point. Two to five minutes.
• Connections (NYT). Group sixteen words into four sets. Rewards lateral thinking and general knowledge. Three to eight minutes.
• Spelling Bee (NYT). Make as many words as you can from seven letters. Open-ended; the free version has a ceiling.
• Quordle. Four Wordles at once. The natural next step for people who find Wordle easy.
• Waffle. Rearrange letters to form six crossing words in fifteen swaps. Anagram skill under a move limit.

Number and logic puzzles

• Nerdle. Guess an equation instead of a word. The maths equivalent of Wordle.
• Sumplete. Cross out numbers so rows and columns sum to their targets. Grids from easy to punishing.
• Daily sudoku. Any newspaper site. The original logic-grid daily.
• Strands (NYT). A themed word search with a hidden spanning word. Sits between word and logic.
• Mini Crossword (NYT). A five-by-five crossword in about a minute. The smallest complete puzzle there is.

Geography and knowledge

• Worldle. Name a country from its outline, guided by distance and direction.
• Globle. Find the mystery country by temperature colouring on a globe.
• Tradle. Identify a country from what it exports. Educational despite itself.
• Framed. Six stills, one film. For cinema people.

Mixed skills

• Brisk. Six timed multiple-choice questions: two mental arithmetic, two word (an anagram and a meaning), two number patterns. Ranked by correct answers then time against everyone who played that day. About two minutes; explanations for every answer; no signup. Play today’s challenge.
• Puzzmo. A daily set of several small puzzles from the designer of Spelling Bee. Broader than Brisk, and a longer sit.
• Lumosity and Elevate free tiers. Three games a day from a larger library. See our honest Lumosity comparison before subscribing.

Building a routine that lasts

The daily format works because each puzzle is finished before it becomes a chore, and because everyone doing the same one gives you something to talk about. Spread your picks across skills rather than stacking five word games; variety of cognitive activity is the one feature of a puzzle habit that the research consistently favours. Play at the time of day you feel sharpest, which for most people over sixty is the morning. For the evidence behind those two suggestions, read why a few minutes a day.