The State of Wordle Alternatives in 2025

1Introduction

Josh Wardle probably didn't expect to invent a genre when he released Wordle in October 2021. But that's exactly what happened. Within months, everyone and their dog had built a Wordle clone.

Four years on, most of those clones are dead. The NYT bought Wordle. The hype faded. But here's the thing: dozens of alternatives didn't just survive. They built real audiences. Geography games, music guessers, sports trivia, math puzzles. Some pull in hundreds of thousands of visitors monthly.

We wanted to know why. So we analyzed 60 games that are still active today. Which categories work best? What do the top games have in common? Is there still room for new entrants?

2Methodology

We built a database of 60 Wordle alternatives. Each one was manually checked. Dead sites, broken games, and lazy clones didn't make the cut.

Where the numbers come from

Traffic estimates come from DataForSEO. They pull data from clickstream panels and search results. Not perfect, but good enough to compare sites against each other.

Ratings are ours. We played these games and rated them 1-5 based on gameplay, mobile experience, and overall polish. Yes, it's subjective. We tried to be fair.

Categories are based on primary mechanic. Some games blur lines. We picked the most obvious fit.

3Market Overview

Here's the big picture: 60 games pulling in around 6.1 million visits per month combined. That's a lot of people doing daily puzzles who aren't just playing Wordle.

Traffic Distribution

Traffic is top-heavy, like most things on the internet. A handful of games get massive traffic. Most get much less. No surprises there.

Just 7 games break 200K monthly visitors. That's 12% of the whole market. The other end? 17 games get under 10K visits. Probably passion projects, or games built for very specific audiences.

4Category Analysis

It's not all word games anymore. We're tracking 11 different categories now. People are guessing countries, songs, athletes, movies, math equations. You name it.

Games by Category

Word games still have the most entries. Makes sense. But geography games punch way above their weight in traffic. Sports trivia has some surprisingly loyal players too.

Average Traffic by Category

Here's where it gets interesting. Count the games, word puzzles win. But look at traffic per game? Different story. Some smaller categories crush it.

Movies & Visual takes the crown with 225K average monthly visits per game. The audience is clearly there.

5What Makes Games Succeed

60 games is enough to spot patterns. What do the winners have in common?

The Top 10 by Traffic

Does Difficulty Matter?

Do people want easy wins or a real challenge? We checked.

Hard games get the most traffic on average. Maybe puzzle people like a challenge. Or maybe harder games are just stickier. You keep coming back because you haven't beaten it yet.

Everyone's Free

100% of these games cost nothing. Wordle was free. The clones are free. That's just how it works now.

Most make money through ads. Some offer premium features like unlimited mode or ad removal. A few charge upfront, but only for very niche stuff where players will pay.

6The 2022 Boom and Its Aftermath

You can't talk about Wordle clones without talking about 2022. Wordle went viral. NYT bought it. And suddenly every developer on the planet wanted a piece.

The chart says it all. 46 games launched in 2022. That's 77% of everything we track. Pure gold rush energy.

Then 2023 hit and launches dropped to 12. The easy ideas were taken. New games actually had to be good.

2024 brought just 2 new games. The format isn't dead. It's just mature. You need something genuinely different to break in now.

7Key Takeaways

So what did we learn from 60 games?

8Full Data

Want to dig into the numbers yourself? All 60 games are on our main page. Filter, sort, explore. It's all there.