A dle is a free browser game that gives everyone the same puzzle once a day. The name comes from the ending of Wordle, the five letter word game that took over group chats in early 2022. When the imitators arrived they kept the suffix: Worldle asked you to recognise countries, Heardle played song intros, Nerdle hid equations. Within months, dle had become the name of the genre itself.
The format has three load bearing rules. The puzzle is shared, so everyone plays the same challenge on the same day. It is small, usually a few minutes, which makes it a ritual rather than a time sink. And the result is shareable without spoilers, traditionally as a grid of coloured emoji that proves how you did without revealing the answer. Take any subject, apply those rules, and you have a dle. That recipe scales absurdly well, which is why there are now daily games about football transfers, Costco prices, Wikipedia articles and the tree of life.
This site exists because the genre outgrew its lists. We keep a hand checked directory of 126 dles and counting, sorted by subject, with working links. Start with the full directory, the best Wordle alternatives, or jump straight to a subject you love.