Crossword Compiler Alternatives: 9 Free Tools for 2026

Crossword Compiler is not free. The Windows program costs at least $29 a year, or $65 to buy outright, and the free download on its site is a demo.

That money buys real depth, and for a working constructor it is often well spent. But if you want a free way to build a grid, export a .puz file, or print a puzzle for Friday's class, nine free tools cover most of the job. Some are serious construction software. Others turn a word list into a printable puzzle and nothing more.

How we checked. Every price, platform and file format below comes from each tool's own website, read on October 6, 2026. Prices are in US dollars. Where a site did not state something, we left it out. Grid Genius is our product: it is on the list, with its limits spelled out like everyone else's.

The 9 alternatives at a glance

The short version: Crosshare is the closest free match for American-style construction, Exet is the pick for cryptics, and Crossword Labs turns a word list into a printable puzzle with almost no setup. Crossword Compiler still leads on fill tools and publishing, and we say exactly where further down.

What Crossword Compiler costs in 2026

Crossword Compiler 11 is Windows software from WordWeb Software. It sells two ways, and these are the US list prices on its ordering pages as of October 2026:

• Yearly subscription. Basic is $29 a year, the Pro Bundle $78 a year, and Business $300 a year. The Pro Bundle adds the Professional Grid Filler, the WordWeb Pro dictionary and extra word lists. The program only runs while a subscription is active.
• One-time purchase. The program alone is $65, and the Professional Bundle is $189. A one-time license includes minor updates for one year.
• Free demo. The demo lets you try most features, but it ships with a few sample word lists and installs for one user.
• Mac. There is no Mac version. The developer suggests running Windows in Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion or VirtualBox, or on a cloud PC.

The money buys a deep toolkit. Autofill favors higher-scoring words from your lists, and Grid Insight flags duplicate words and unfillable areas as you build. A grid pattern generator, clue databases and an AI clue drafter (metered by a yearly quota) round it out. It makes American, cryptic, barred, clues-in-squares and coded crosswords, plus word searches and sudoku. Finished puzzles go out as print, PDF, image files, .puz files or interactive web puzzles.

Its developer says most New York Times puzzles are made with help from the program. No free tool on this list does all of that in one place, but most people need only part of it.

Free tools for professional-style grids

These four do what separates construction software from a word-list maker. You design the grid, place the black squares, and let autofill suggest the rest from a word list.

Crosshare (crosshare.org) is a free, ad-free and open-source site for building, sharing and solving crosswords. Its constructor runs in any modern browser, phones and tablets included. The autofiller fills the rest of the grid as you type entries, and pressing Enter tries a different fill.

Publishing is built in. Each puzzle gets a link, an embed code, and solver analytics with heatmaps of the squares where people got stuck. You can upload .puz and .ipuz files, export a .puz from the constructor, and offer solvers a PDF once a puzzle is published. Barred grids, rebuses and meta puzzles are supported too.

Exet (exet.app) is a free, open-source web app by Viresh Ratnakar for setting crosswords, and it is in active development: version 1.08.1 shipped in August 2026. It covers grid design, autofill and clue writing, with lookups for anagrams, homophones and spoonerisms that cryptic setters lean on.

Exet keeps every revision of your puzzles in your browser's local storage and never sends them to its server, unless you choose its free hosting. Finished puzzles download as .puz, as PDF, or in the Exolve format, and you can grab embed code for a website. It ships English, Hindi and Brazilian Portuguese word lists.

Phil is a free, open-source crossword maker that runs in the browser at keiranking.com/apps/phil. It does a few things well. You toggle black squares, run autofill, and swap the built-in dictionary for any text file of words you like.

Its export menu earns it a place here. Phil saves .puz and its own .xw format, prints a PDF, and prints a New York Times submission PDF.

Qxw is a free desktop program for Windows and Linux, released under the GPL. Its grid options are unusually broad: bars or blocks, hex and circular grids, even a Möbius strip, plus dozens of symmetry types and answer treatments such as ciphers and misprints.

While you fill, Qxw marks hotspots, the squares with the fewest possible letters, and warns you when a grid can no longer be filled. Autofill runs on the whole grid or a selected region, and the Windows download includes the UKACD word list.

Free makers for classrooms and parties

These tools skip grid design. You hand them words and clues, or just a topic, and they lay out the puzzle for you. That suits a vocabulary review, a party game or a newsletter, where the words matter more than a symmetric grid. Our roundup of the best free crossword puzzle makers covers this category in more depth.

Grid Genius is our product, so weigh this entry with that in mind. It does not replace Crossword Compiler for a constructor filling a themed 15x15 for a newspaper. It is for people who want a finished, playable puzzle without learning construction.

There are three ways to make one. AI generation builds a complete puzzle from any topic you type: the words, the clues and the grid. The Word List Builder arranges your own words and clues into a numbered grid, and the Freeform Editor lets you type letters square by square. Both run in the browser in our free crossword puzzle maker, with no account. Walkthroughs live in how to create a word list crossword and how to create a freeform crossword.

The website maker also speaks the constructor formats. It imports .puz, .ipuz and .jpz files, and exports .puz (Across Lite), .ipuz and .jpz, plus PDF, PNG and JPEG with a separate answer key. Solvers get AI Hints: instead of revealing letters, a hint rephrases the clue or adds a related fact, and each one helps a little more than the last. On Pro, the app also prints class sets: up to four shuffled layouts of one puzzle, each with its own answer key.

Crossword Labs (crosswordlabs.com) asks for one thing: a list with one answer and its clue per line. It builds the puzzle from that. There are no ads, no watermarks and no registration, and printing is free, including the answer key for your own puzzle.

Each puzzle gets a shareable link and solves on phones and tablets. You can print it, export it to PDF, Microsoft Word, SVG or an image, and embed it on a website.

The Teacher's Corner (theteacherscorner.net) runs a free crossword maker inside a larger worksheet site. You enter words and clues, start from a premade list, or let its AI draft the words and clues from a subject. Every puzzle comes with an answer key, and you can print it, save a PDF or image, or share a playable online version.

Formatting is the draw: fonts, colors, a picture behind the grid, a word bank and a name line.

EclipseCrossword (eclipsecrossword.com) is a free Windows app from Green Eclipse. You supply words and clues, and it builds the puzzle on your PC, with no ads and no trial limits. You print the result, share it online through the free Share EclipseCrossword service, or export the grid and clues into a word processor.

Armored Penguin's crossword maker (armoredpenguin.com) is a long-running, no-frills generator. It places every word you give it into a simple crossword, and its own page notes that newspaper-style grids are a harder job it does not attempt.

The options are generous for a free tool: HTML or PDF output with answer keys, a word bank, a quiz mode, information gap puzzles, and an online solver.

Where Crossword Compiler is still worth paying for

The free tools cover a lot, but not everything. For some people, Crossword Compiler is the right buy.

• Fill tools at depth. You edit word scores in place, and the filler runs multithreaded. The Pro Grid Filler goes further: it lists the 10 or 100 best-scoring fills and checks each candidate word for a complete fill before you commit. If you fill grids every week, that depth is what you pay for.
• One program for many puzzle types. American, cryptic, barred, clues-in-squares and coded crosswords sit alongside word searches and sudoku.
• A submission and publishing workflow. Clue databases store your clues with dates and citations, so you can avoid repeats. Review printouts put clues and answers side by side for editors. It imports and exports .puz, and its solving applet can be hosted online, or rebranded as your own on the Business plan.
• Licensing for organizations. Multi-user, teacher network and unlimited network licenses are available, and the developer accepts purchase orders and wire transfers.

If none of that describes you, a free tool will do.

How to choose

• You want to sell puzzles to newspapers. Start free with Crosshare or Phil; Phil even prints a New York Times submission PDF. Move to Crossword Compiler when your volume justifies $78 a year for the Pro Bundle.
• You set cryptics or barred puzzles. Use Exet in the browser, or Qxw on Windows and Linux.
• You are on a Mac. Crossword Compiler needs Windows in a virtual machine. Crosshare, Exet, Phil and Grid Genius all run in a Mac browser. CrossFire, a paid desktop alternative, runs on Mac, Windows and Linux for $50 one-time; unregistered copies close after an hour and cannot save.
• You have a word list and a class tomorrow. Use Crossword Labs, The Teacher's Corner or the Grid Genius Word List Builder, or EclipseCrossword offline on Windows. Our crossword puzzle maker for teachers guide covers the classroom workflow, and our Discovery Education Puzzlemaker alternatives compares the classroom makers in detail.
• You have a topic but no words. Grid Genius builds the whole puzzle, clues included; our guide to the AI crossword generator with clues shows how. The Teacher's Corner can also draft words and clues with AI.
• You need a .puz file. Crosshare, Exet, Phil and the Grid Genius website maker all export one.

Frequently asked questions