Best Crossword Apps for Android in 2026: Free and Paid

We checked every app on this page against its store listing today, September 22, 2026, before we wrote a word about it. The short version: Crossword Puzzle Redstone is the best free library of human-made crosswords on Android, Grid Genius is the pick if you want a crossword about your own topic, and Forkyz is the free, open-source answer for .puz files, though you install it from F-Droid rather than Google Play. NYT Games is the classic, and its full Crossword is a subscription.

This is the Android-only list. For the full cross-platform comparison, including iPhone and the web, read our best crossword puzzle apps roundup. Here we care about what a Google Play listing tells an Android user: the Contains ads label, the in-app purchase range, the words "offline" and "subscription", and whether the app is on the store at all. Three well-known Android crossword apps are not, and we name them below.

How we checked. We opened every listing on Google Play's US storefront on September 22, 2026, and Forkyz's page on F-Droid, since it is not on Google Play. Prices, ad labels and offline claims come from the listing text, plus the developer's own site where a listing was thin. We did not use star ratings or download counts, and we left out any detail we could not verify. Where a listing is silent, the table says "not stated".

The short list

• Best free library: Crossword Puzzle Redstone. Human-made puzzles from named constructors, offline solving, no subscription. Ad-supported.
• Best for a crossword about your own topic: Grid Genius. AI-generated puzzles on anything you type, a free maker, and a free daily challenge with a leaderboard.
• Best for the classic daily: NYT Games. The Crossword and its archive sit behind a NYT Games subscription.
• Best casual daily: Daily Themed Crossword. Three free themed puzzles a day, offline, ad-supported.
• Best magazine puzzles, pay as you go: Penny Dell Crossword Puzzles. Three free dailies, ad-free collections sold as in-app purchases.
• Best pop-culture daily: Crosswords With Friends. A themed puzzle every day of the week, plus a free mini and midi.
• Best variety pack: Puzzle Page. A daily page with 20+ puzzle types, crosswords included, and any purchase turns the ads off.
• Best paid newspaper downloader: Crosswords by Stand Alone. $9.99 once, no ad label, daily puzzles from newspaper sources.
• Best for .puz files, and no ads at all: Forkyz. Free and open source, from F-Droid.

Crossword apps for Android compared

Ads, offline and .puz columns come straight from each Google Play listing. In-app price ranges are the "per item" line Google Play prints under the install button.

"Not stated" under .puz import is not a coy "no". The catalog apps (NYT Games, Daily Themed Crossword, Penny Dell, Crosswords With Friends, Puzzle Page) describe only their own puzzles, and none of their listings mentions importing a file. If you own a folder of .puz files, Forkyz is the row that matters.

The apps, one by one

Grid Genius (free, AI puzzles on any topic)

Grid Genius is our app, so read this entry with that in mind. It is listed on Google Play as Grid Genius: Crossword Maker, and it does one thing no other app on this list does: type a topic, pick a size and a difficulty, and it builds a crossword about that topic, clues and all. Your first 3 AI puzzles are free, then you get 1 more free every day. Pro lifts the cap.

The free tier is more than a sampler. The daily challenge is free, with a global leaderboard and streak tracking. Community puzzles are free to solve. The word-list and freeform makers are free with no account, and the same free crossword puzzle maker runs on the website. AI Hints are the other difference: instead of only revealing letters, a hint rephrases the clue or adds a related fact, so you still solve the square yourself. Free accounts get 2 AI hints to start, a bonus hint every day, and more from rewarded ads.

Pro is $7.99 a month or $49.99 a year: unlimited AI generation and hints, ad-free play, news-grounded puzzles and premium themes. The free tier shows ads, and the listing carries the Contains ads and In-app purchases labels like every other free app here.

The honest limits. Puzzles are AI-generated on demand, not newspaper puzzles by a named constructor, so you will not find the editorial voice of a Times or a Guardian setter. The Android app does not import .puz files. It needs a connection to load a puzzle, so the offline route is printing one as a PDF before you fly. And Grid Genius is also on iOS and at play.gridgenius.app, so the Android app is one door of three, not the only one.

Crossword Puzzle Redstone (free, 30,000+ human-made puzzles)

If you want the largest free pile of real crosswords on Google Play, this is it. The listing promises "30,000+ human-made crossword puzzles from indie and industry-leading crossword creators for free, no subscriptions," and it names its constructors, among them Brendan Emmett Quigley, Sid Sivakumar, Paolo Pasco and Stella Zawistowski. Puzzles come in four difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard and Master) and three sizes (minis, midis and regular 15x15), themed and themeless.

Two lines on the listing matter on Android. "You can solve crosswords offline" and, in the feature list, "Offline Mode" and "Dark Mode". The trade is ads: the listing carries the Contains ads label, and in-app items run from $0.99 to $34.99 per item, with no subscription. Its Data safety section says no data is shared with third parties, which is rarer than it should be in this category.

Who it is for: solvers who want newspaper-style puzzles, a lot of them, without paying for a subscription, and who can live with ads or buy them off.

NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword (subscription for the Crossword)

The New York Times Crossword lives inside the NYT Games app on Android, listed as NYT Games: Wordle & Crossword and free to download. The listing bundles the Crossword with Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, Strands, Sudoku, Pips, Tiles, Letter Boxed, the Mini and a new Midi. The Crossword is the classic daily that gets harder through the week, and the archive line is explicit: "Subscribers can solve over 10,000 past puzzles."

Two things the Android listing does not tell you. It does not print a subscription price (the in-app range is $0.99 to $299.99 per item, which spans the whole Times catalog), so the number you pay is the one the app shows at checkout. And it does not mention offline play. It carries no Contains ads label. Do not install it expecting a free daily crossword: the listing no longer describes the Mini as free, and the full Crossword is for subscribers. For a longer look at how it compares with an AI app, read Grid Genius vs the NYT Crossword.

Who it is for: anyone who wants the hand-edited daily and a subscription is fine.

Daily Themed Crossword (free, offline, three dailies)

Daily Themed Crossword, from PlaySimple Games, is the casual pick. The listing calls it "a free, offline crossword game" and promises "three free new themed daily puzzles, 365 days a year," at levels from easy to hard, with hints when you are stuck and progress sync across devices. Themed here means pop culture and general knowledge in a light, phone-first grid, not a 15x15 newspaper puzzle.

It is ad-supported (Contains ads label) with in-app items from $0.99 to $51.99 per item. The offline claim is right there on the listing, which makes it a good commute app.

Who it is for: ten-minutes-a-day solvers who want a gentle themed puzzle offline and do not mind ads.

Penny Dell Crossword Puzzles (three free dailies, ad-free sets)

Penny Dell brings the Penny Press and Dell magazine puzzles to Android under the name Penny Dell Crossword Puzzles, from Puzzle Nation Apps. The listing gives you three free crosswords a day in Easy, Medium and Hard, plus a free sampler of twelve puzzles. The rest of the catalog sells as in-app purchases: "Fun Sets and Deluxe Sets that offer 35 crossword puzzles with no ads," and "Ad-Free Crossword Puzzle Collections" of 150 puzzles each that "play offline". The What's New line shows a School Deluxe Set added for September 2026, so the sets keep coming.

The app itself is free with ads, and in-app items run from $0.99 to $49.99 per item. Solving features include a pen and pencil mode, Smart Step navigation and a show-errors button.

Who it is for: magazine crossword fans who would rather pay for a set they keep than subscribe.

Crosswords With Friends (free pop-culture daily)

Zynga's Crosswords With Friends is a daily crossword written around entertainment, pop culture and sports, with a theme for each day of the week (Movie Monday, TV Tuesday, through Sunday Funday). The listing credits co-editors Trip Payne and Amy Reynaldo, and it adds a free daily mini and midi, a leaderboard against friends, weekly challenges and puzzle packs. The listing notes it is an English-only game.

It carries the Contains ads label, with in-app items from $0.99 to $59.99 per item, and a VIP subscription that the listing says removes ads and unlocks archived puzzles daily. Offline play is not mentioned.

Who it is for: solvers who want a daily crossword about this week's TV, music and sports, and a leaderboard to argue over.

Puzzle Page (free, 20+ puzzle types)

Puzzle Page is not a crossword app so much as a daily puzzle magazine with a crossword in it. The listing promises "a new page of your favorite puzzles delivered free to your device every day," across "over 20 varieties of puzzle" including Crossword, Codeword, Wordsearch, Sudoku and Nonogram, with a calendar of "over 2,000 past days' pages". It says you can "continue playing puzzles offline without wifi".

The ad model is the friendliest on this list. The listing's own FAQ says "you can play Puzzle Page free forever in ad-supported mode" and "making any in-app purchase in Puzzle Page will disable ads." In-app items run from $2.99 to $49.99 per item, and a subscription unlocks every daily page, 300+ subscriber-only Special Issues and removes ads.

Who it is for: people who want a crossword some days and a sudoku or nonogram on others, in one app.

Crosswords by Stand Alone ($9.99, newspaper downloads)

Stand Alone's Crosswords is the one paid app on the list: $9.99 on Google Play, no Contains ads label, updated in March 2026. The listing is short: "download and solve crossword puzzles from around the world," with "new puzzles available every day from major newspapers, plus hints, clue listings, and tons more." The developer's FAQ names the free sources, among them Newsday, the Joseph and Sheffer puzzles, Jonesin' and Brendan Emmett Quigley, and lists premium sources such as the American Values Club Crossword that need their own subscription. The listing's in-app items run from $3.99 to $8.99 per item.

Neither the listing nor the FAQ says whether it opens a .puz file you already have, so we do not claim it. What it does is fetch a newspaper's puzzle for you each day, which for many solvers is the whole point.

Who it is for: solvers who want newspaper crosswords delivered daily, would pay once to skip ads, and do not need an AI or a maker.

Forkyz (free, open source, .puz)

Forkyz is the app Android crossword veterans mean when they say "the Shortyz one". It is an unofficial fork of Shortyz, licensed under the GPL, and it is not on Google Play: you install it from F-Droid, where version 86 landed on September 12, 2026 and needs Android 6.0 or newer. It imports Across Lite (.puz), JPZ and IPuz files, and a long tail of newspaper formats besides. Its built-in downloaders fetch Newsday, the Thomas Joseph and Sheffer puzzles, Universal, USA Today, Jonesin', Premier, the Wall Street Journal weekend puzzle, the Guardian and Independent daily cryptics, and more.

F-Droid flags exactly one thing about it: it "connects to theguardian.com to obtain puzzles," which is F-Droid's way of saying a downloader talks to a newspaper. No ads flag, no tracking flag, no price. The trade is that Forkyz is a player, not a library. Nobody writes puzzles for it; you bring them.

Who it is for: anyone with .puz files, a favorite newspaper puzzle, and no patience for ads.

Apps that left Google Play

Three names still show up in "best crossword app Android" lists and are not on the store. We checked each package on September 22, 2026.

• Shortyz. The original open-source .puz app is no longer listed on Google Play. Forkyz is its maintained fork, on F-Droid.
• alphacross. The other .puz app people still recommend. Its Google Play page is gone too.
• Guardian Puzzles. The Guardian's standalone puzzles app is not on Google Play on the US, UK or India storefronts. The Guardian still publishes its Quick and Cryptic crosswords at theguardian.com/crosswords, and that page works in a phone browser. Forkyz also downloads the Guardian daily cryptic.

If a listicle links you to one of these, its store check is older than ours.

Android quirks worth knowing

• Read the two labels. Under the install button, Google Play prints "Contains ads" and "In-app purchases" when they apply, and a "per item" price range for the purchases. Every free library above shows both labels. NYT Games and Stand Alone show only In-app purchases. That range is the fastest honesty check on the store.
• Subscriptions live in the Play Store, not the app. A crossword subscription bought on Android is managed in the Play Store app under your account's subscriptions, which is where you cancel it. Puzzle Page's listing spells this out, and the same is true for every subscription sold through Google Play.
• Offline means three different things. Redstone, Daily Themed Crossword and Puzzle Page say the app plays offline. Penny Dell's paid collections play offline. Forkyz plays whatever files are already on the phone. Grid Genius loads puzzles from the server, so print a PDF before a flight; our how to print crossword puzzles guide covers it.
• Tablets and Chromebooks. A Google Play listing shows separate screenshot tabs for phone, tablet and Chromebook when the developer has uploaded them. If you solve on a 10-inch tablet, check that the tablet tab has screenshots before you install; if it is empty, expect a phone layout stretched to fit.
• Sideloading is a real option here. Forkyz comes from F-Droid, an open-source app store you install as an APK once. Updates then arrive through the F-Droid client rather than Google Play. It is an extra step, and it is the only route to a free, ad-free .puz player on Android today.
• The back gesture. Android's system back can close a puzzle mid-solve. The first time you use a new app, back out of a half-finished grid on purpose and reopen it, so you know whether it saved before it matters.

How to choose

• You want a lot of real crosswords for free. Crossword Puzzle Redstone, and buy the ads off if they wear on you.
• You want a crossword about a topic you pick. Grid Genius. Start with the free daily and your 3 free AI puzzles, then decide on Pro.
• You want the Times. NYT Games, with a subscription for the Crossword and its archive.
• You want something light on the train. Daily Themed Crossword, which plays offline.
• You have .puz files or a favorite newspaper puzzle. Forkyz from F-Droid, or Stand Alone's Crosswords if you would rather pay $9.99 and stay inside Google Play.
• You want crosswords some days and sudoku on others. Puzzle Page, where any $2.99 purchase turns the ads off.
• You want zero ads. Forkyz for free, Stand Alone for $9.99, or Grid Genius Pro if you also want AI puzzles and hints. Our crossword apps with no ads guide goes deeper on that question, and if crosswords are only part of your habit, see the best word games of 2026.

Frequently asked questions