Candy Crush Saga vs Words With Friends
Which is better in 2026? Five scores, side by side.
Candy Crush Saga is the better app overall, scoring 7.9 to 7.5. Candy Crush Saga wins on 4 of the 5 scores, Words With Friends on 0, with 1 tied.
Casual players who want an endless, familiar match-3 fix
Friends and families who want a slow, chatty word rivalry on their phones
Score by score
The details
| Feature | Candy Crush Saga | Words With Friends |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Puzzle & Word Games | Puzzle & Word Games |
| Category rank | #5 of 12 | #10 of 12 |
| Developer | King | Zynga |
| Pricing | Free + paid plans | Free + paid plans |
| Usable for free | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone & iPad | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android | ✓ | ✓ |
Common questions
Is Candy Crush Saga better than Words With Friends?
Candy Crush Saga is the better app overall, scoring 7.9 to 7.5. Candy Crush Saga wins on 4 of the 5 scores, Words With Friends on 0, with 1 tied.
Which is cheaper, Candy Crush Saga or Words With Friends?
Candy Crush Saga: Free to play; boosters, extra moves and gold bar packs from $0.99. Words With Friends: Free with ads; coins from $0.99 and a $9.99 Ad Free Bundle in the App Store. On value for money, Candy Crush Saga scores higher.
Do Candy Crush Saga and Words With Friends work on the same devices?
Yes, both run on iPhone & iPad, Android.
Which is more private, Candy Crush Saga or Words With Friends?
Candy Crush Saga scores higher on privacy (5.0/10). App Store label: purchases, location, contact info, user content, identifiers and usage data may be used to track you, and contacts are among the data linked to your identity.
Strengths and weaknesses
Candy Crush Saga
- An enormous level count you'll never exhaust
- Plays offline when you have no signal
- Daily rewards hand out free boosters and lives
- Hard levels lean on paid moves and boosters
- A long list of tracking on the App Store label
Candy Crush Saga is still the match-3 game everyone knows, and it's still good at what it does. Thousands of levels, weekly updates and themed events mean you'll never run out of boards, and you can play offline on a flight. The squeeze comes on harder levels, where extra moves and boosters cost real money. Its App Store label also lists a long run of tracking data.
Full Candy Crush Saga review
Words With Friends
- Easy to keep long-running games going with friends
- Solo modes for when nobody has taken a turn
- The dictionary just grew by more than 25,000 words
- Ads between moves unless you pay to remove them
- Purchases include paid random items
- Heavy tracking on the App Store privacy label
Words With Friends is still the easiest way to keep a word rivalry going with people you know. You take turns on a crossword-style board at your own pace, Smart Match finds opponents when friends go quiet, and Solo Challenge pits you against WordMasters. An October 2026 update added more than 25,000 playable words and a way to report bad ones. The catch is clutter: ads between moves, paid random items and heavy tracking.
Full Words With Friends review