Comparison

Crosswords Plus . vs Astraware Acrostic

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Crosswords Plus .

Engage with a classic crossword experience where clues are integrated directly into the puzzle grid. Enjoy 1200 unique puzzles across four difficulty levels, designed for both quick breaks and extended challenges. Immerse yourself with customizable interfaces and optional sound effects.

Highlights
  • Clues integrated into the puzzle grid
  • 1200 unique puzzles
  • 4 difficulty levels
  • 3 interface options
  • Optional sound effects
  • Customizable grid sizes
Features
Read full description

Arrow Words is a classic crossword app with a useful twist. In arrow words puzzles, the clues are shown right in the puzzle grid, making them easy to view and play on the iPad screen. This lovingly produced app includes 1200 all-new Arrow Words puzzles in 4 levels. Easier levels use simpler words and a smaller grid, perfect for a short break. Harder levels have tougher clues and larger puzzle grids for hours of challenging fun. Also, careful editing and a huge pool of words ensure that clues don’t repeat too often. The sound and graphics are also designed for true crossword aficionados. Choose from three visual interfaces that recreate the atmosphere of the crossword in the Sunday paper. If you miss using your favorite pen to solve puzzels, you’ll love the optional sounds of a moving pen as you fill in the squares, custom recorded for each letter! PLEASE NOTE: our puzzles are created by British puzzle editors especially with players from Commonwealth countries in mind. Of course, North American players are welcome to join the fun. Features: • Once you’ve solved an Arrow Words puzzle on the iPad, you’ll never go back to paper! • 1200 puzzles, 4 difficulty levels and grid sizes • 3 interface options: Classic, News, Colour • Optional sound effects and background music • iPod function support

About

Astraware Acrostic

Solve word clues to uncover a vertical target word. Enjoy quick puzzles perfect for short breaks, with daily and weekly challenges. Features include helpful hints and global leaderboards.

Highlights
  • Solve word clues to find a vertical target word
  • 50 built-in free puzzles
  • Daily and weekly new puzzles
  • Global leaderboard competition
  • Vowel/consonant highlighting
  • Helpful hints available
Features
Read full description

Astraware Acrostic is a quick-style word puzzle game - solve the clues to reveal the words and find the vertical target word that connects through them all! Perfect if you love Crosswords but like something a bit quicker that you can fit into a shorter break and still finish a puzzle! There are 50 built-in free puzzles with a range of difficulties and sizes, so you can play offline at any time. You get free unlimited access to play two new Daily Acrostic puzzles each day, and compete on the global leaderboard! There's a free Weekender puzzle available each week with a larger puzzle and trickier clues. The unique twist are some novel features to boost your progress - highlighting in puzzle shows you where vowels and consonants appear, and each time you get one of the horizontal words, the target letter is revealed throughout the puzzle! Still need a bit of a hint? (Everyone does, from time to time!) - ask for a hint for a small time cost and our bookend-hints give you the first and last letters of the word which we've found are a huge help! Astraware Acrostic Top Features: - Free unlimited access to our Daily and Weekender puzzles, each with their own online high score table - submit your times and see how you compare! - 50 free puzzles in a range of sizes for hours of play - Play any of the puzzles from the past week and catch up whenever you like! - Unlimited helpful hints - Clues and answers are written for an international English-speaking audience whether you are American, British, Canadian, Australian or maybe learning English as a student. Astraware Acrostics are hand-crafted quick-style puzzles with a broad range of clues using general knowledge that are popular on the puzzle pages of many major newspapers such as The Times, The Guardian, National Post and the New York Times (NYT) crosswords! Clues might also include synonyms and anagrams, and the occasional slightly cryptic puzzle too! If you love this game, you will be pleased to know that we have other apps available in this range: Astraware CodeWords, Kriss Kross, Word Search, and of course Astraware Crosswords for the dedicated enthusiast! Puzzles Plus Subscription Terms and Details Puzzles Plus is our optional subscription for Acrostic which entitles you to play all of the available Daily, Weekender and Stream puzzles as soon as they are available, without in-game adverts. Subscribers can also choose to highlight their high scores with a choice of badges. Subscriptions are available with renewal periods of either monthly, quarterly, or yearly. The price shown is the cost of the renewal, with the saving as a comparison to the monthly option. After you confirm a subscription, you will have a free trial period of seven days. Your iTunes Account will be charged as soon as the free trial is over. If you cancel the subscription at any time before the free trial is over, you will not be billed. The subscriptions are automatically renewing, and you will be charged again at the end of your current subscription period. Your subscription will automatically renew unless you turn this off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. The renewal cost will be the same for each subscription period, and will be charged within the 24 hours before the end of your current subscription. You can manage the subscriptions at any time by going to the Account Settings in the Settings App after purchase. There are options to either change to a different renewal period (at a different price) or to cancel your subscription completely. If you cancel the renewal you will still have access to the Puzzles Plus features until the full subscription period is complete. If you confirm the purchase of a subscription before the free trial is complete, any unused portion of the trial will be lost. These terms are available at : https://www.astraware.com/about/puzzlesplus/ For more information on Data and Privacy, see our Privacy page at http://www.astraware.com/privacy

Screenshots

Crosswords Plus .4 screens
Astraware Acrostic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Astraware Acrostic at Free against Crosswords Plus .'s $4.99. Astraware Acrostic also leads on update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 5 months). Crosswords Plus .'s advantage is ads (none vs shown) and rating (4.8 vs 4.5). On review sentiment, ratings volume, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Astraware Acrostic is free to download; Crosswords Plus . costs $4.99 up front. Crosswords Plus . sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and Astraware Acrostic sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Crosswords Plus . holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 59 and 53 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 83% of Crosswords Plus .'s written reviews are positive against 76% of Astraware Acrostic's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Crosswords Plus . ships an update every 5 months, Astraware Acrostic every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Crosswords Plus . versus Astraware Acrostic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCrosswords Plus .Astraware Acrostic
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating4.8 (59 ratings) — better4.5 (53 ratings)
Positive reviews82.8% of reviews — better76.2% of reviews
Number of ratings59 — better53
Update frequencyEvery 5 monthsEvery 6 weeks — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS11.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size93 MB35 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerthe binary familyAstraware Limited

Customer experience

Crosswords Plus .

All ratings59 ratings
Positive94.9%
Neutral3.4%
Negative1.7%
Written reviews163 reviews
Positive82.8%
Neutral9.2%
Negative8.0%

Astraware Acrostic

All ratings53 ratings
Positive84.9%
Neutral5.7%
Negative9.4%
Written reviews21 reviews
Positive76.2%
Neutral4.8%
Negative19.0%

Bugs and requests

Crosswords Plus .

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Puzzle completion not always recognized properly
  • Compatibility issues with newer iOS versions

Requested features

4 requests
  • Ability to resize puzzles to fit screen better
  • Option to mark errors/incomplete squares
  • More frequent puzzle updates
  • Scoring/progress tracking system

Astraware Acrostic

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Crosswords Plus .

One-time5
  • 300 Puzzles4 variants$1.99
  • 300 Puzzles (easy)$1.99
  • 300 Puzzles (normal)$1.99
Show 2 more
  • 300 Puzzles (difficult)$1.99
  • 300 Puzzles (very difficult)$1.99
8 purchases

Astraware Acrostic

Subscriptions3
  • Puzzles Plus7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Puzzles Plus7 Days trial$2.993 Months
  • Puzzles Plus7 Days trial$7.991 Year
One-time5
  • Easy Pack$0.99
  • Tough Pack$0.99
  • Ad-Free Daily Puzzles$2.99
Show 2 more
  • Deluxe Pack$2.99
  • Calendar Pack 2017$4.99

Questions

Is Crosswords Plus . free?
Crosswords Plus . costs $4.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Astraware Acrostic free?
Astraware Acrostic is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Crosswords Plus . or Astraware Acrostic?
Crosswords Plus . is rated higher. Crosswords Plus . averages 4.8 out of 5 from 59 ratings, while Astraware Acrostic averages 4.5 from 53 ratings.
Do Crosswords Plus . or Astraware Acrostic have ads?
Astraware Acrostic shows ads; Crosswords Plus . does not.
Which is updated more often, Crosswords Plus . or Astraware Acrostic?
Crosswords Plus . ships an update every 5 months, and Astraware Acrostic every 6 weeks. Most recently, Crosswords Plus . was updated on November 1, 2026 and Astraware Acrostic on October 22, 2026.

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