Scrabble vs Words With Friends Compared

At a glance, Scrabble and Words With Friends are the same game: a 15×15 grid, a rack of seven tiles, and points for building words in crossword fashion. Play both for a while, though, and the differences start to matter. Letter values, the bonus for using all seven tiles, the premium squares and the word list are all different, and each one changes what a good move looks like.

The quick comparison

Letter values: where the scoring differs

Both games give vowels and the most common consonants the lowest values, but Words With Friends spreads the values more widely. Here are the letters that differ:

Everything else is the same in both games: A, E, I, O, R, S, T at 1; D at 2; F and W at 4; K at 5; X at 8; Q and Z at 10.

The practical effect is that ordinary words score a little more in WWF. HELLO is 8 points in Scrabble and 9 in Words With Friends; PLAYING goes from 13 to 16; JUMBO jumps from 16 to 21. Players who switch from Scrabble often undervalue their L, N, B, C, M and P tiles in WWF.

The bonus for using all seven tiles

In Scrabble, a play that uses all seven tiles earns 50 extra points, and finding these "bingos" is the heart of competitive strategy. Strong players keep a balanced rack of common letters (often called "rack leave") specifically to maximise their chances of a bingo next turn.

In Words With Friends the bonus is 35 points. It's still worth having, but it's a smaller share of a typical score, so heavy premium-square plays with high-value letters can be just as good as a seven-tile play. In practice, WWF rewards opportunism slightly more and long-term rack management slightly less.

Premium squares

Both boards have double-letter, triple-letter, double-word and triple-word squares, but they're laid out differently. Scrabble's triple-word squares sit in the corners and at the middle of each edge, so they're reached by long words running along the outside. Words With Friends keeps its triple-word squares on the edges but moves them away from the corners, and arranges its letter premiums in a different pattern. The lanes that lead to big scores are therefore in different places, and habits learned on one board can steer you wrong on the other.

The key habit that transfers between both games: before you play, look at which premium squares your move opens up for your opponent.

Dictionaries: the biggest hidden difference

The word list decides which words are legal, and it's where most arguments between players start.

Scrabble uses two official lists:

• In the US and Canada, the NASPA Word List (NWL), the successor to the TWL06 list. Our "Scrabble US" setting uses TWL06, which has about 179,000 words of 2 to 15 letters.
• In the UK and most other countries, Collins Scrabble Words (also known as SOWPODS), which is much larger (around 268,000 words in the edition we use) because it includes many British, Commonwealth and dialect words.

Words With Friends uses its own dictionary. It started from the public-domain ENABLE list (about 173,000 words) and has been edited by Zynga over the years: modern slang added, offensive words removed, and some obscure words dropped. That's why a word that's valid in one game can be rejected in the other.

A few examples of words that behave differently:

• QI and ZA are valid in both TWL06 and Collins but are not in the ENABLE list.
• CH, ZO and QIBLA are valid only in Collins.
• Two-letter words in general vary between lists. Our full guide to two-letter Scrabble words has the details.

When you check a word in our word checker, you'll see whether it's accepted in each list.

Challenges and invalid words

In Scrabble, you can play any word you like, but your opponent can challenge it. If the word isn't in the agreed dictionary, the play comes off the board and you score nothing for that turn. (Depending on the rules, an unsuccessful challenge can cost the challenger a turn or a few points.) Bluffing with plausible-looking words is part of tournament play.

Words With Friends checks every word as you submit it. If it's not in the dictionary, the app tells you and you can try again, with no penalty. This makes trial-and-error possible in WWF in a way that would be disastrous in Scrabble.

End of the game

Both games end when one player uses their last tile and the bag is empty (or after a series of passes). In both, the player who goes out first gains an advantage from the tiles left on the opponent's rack, so holding high-value tiles like Q or Z late in the game is risky. If you draw the Q without a U, our Q-without-U guide has the escape routes.

Which habits carry over?

Most good habits work in both games:

1. Learn the two-letter words for your game's dictionary.
2. Play parallel to existing words to score in two directions.
3. Use the S and blanks wisely. They're the most flexible tiles in either game.
4. Defend the triple-word squares, wherever they are on your board.
5. Study after the game: an anagram solver shows which bingos or big plays you missed.

What changes is mostly arithmetic. In Words With Friends, value your L, N, U, B, C, M and P a little more highly and the all-seven bonus a little less. In Scrabble, think more about keeping a balanced rack for a 50-point bingo next turn. Get those adjustments right and you'll be dangerous in both.