Daily Crosswords
Play today's Crossword
A free alternative to the NYT Crossword
A full-size 15×15 grid every day, and you never have to enter a credit card to solve it.
The New York Times daily crossword is the standard the whole hobby measures itself against, and it is entirely behind a paywall: today's puzzle, the archive, all of it needs a NYT Games or All Access subscription. The free part of NYT Games is the Mini.
The Daily Crossword here is a standard 15×15 American-style grid — symmetric black squares, fully checked, numbered across and down — served fresh every day and free to solve in your browser. It is the same daily puzzle the Daily Crosswords & Word Games iPhone app serves.
Side by side
| Daily Crossword | NYT Crossword | |
|---|---|---|
| Grid | 15×15, new puzzle daily | 15×15 weekdays, 21×21 Sunday |
| Today's puzzle | Free | Subscription required |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| Past puzzles | In the app: from $0.99/month, 7-day free trial | Subscription required |
| Difficulty curve | Steady, approachable | Ramps Monday → Saturday |
| Timer & streaks | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-check & reveal | Yes | Yes |
| Themed puzzles | Themeless | Most days, with rebus and tricks |
| Plays on | Any browser, iPhone app | nytimes.com, NYT Games app |
NYT details reflect nytimes.com as best we understand it and may change; check there for current terms.
Honest differences
The NYT crossword is edited by a full-time team and constructed by hundreds of contributors, with themes, rebus squares and Thursday trickery that reward years of solving. If that is what you want, nothing else is quite it.
The Daily Crossword aims at something different: a clean, fair, full-size grid you can actually finish over lunch, every single day, without wondering whether your subscription renewed. Clues are direct, the difficulty stays roughly level through the week, and there are no gimmicks to decode before you can start filling.
What you get for free
- A 15×15 crossword every day, plus a 5×5 Mini, Gram Slam, Word Lapse and Sudoku.
- Timer, auto-check, reveal letter and a pause that hides the grid.
- Streaks and a share card after each solve — stored in your browser, no account.
- No ads on the web version.
What the app adds
The iPhone app carries every past daily crossword and 14,500 more puzzles across six games, along with stats, leaderboards and a sixth daily game, Mind Reader. The archive is $0.99 a month or $6.99 a year after a 7-day free trial; the six daily puzzles stay free.
Daily Crosswords & Word Games is an independent app and website. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by The New York Times Company. "The New York Times" and "NYT Games" are trademarks of The New York Times Company and are used here only to identify the products being compared.