Clean Crosswords vs Crossword Islands
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Clean Crosswords
Enjoy a classic crossword experience designed for iOS devices. This app offers 1,800 puzzles with clues directly in the grid for easy viewing and play. It provides weeks of challenging fun in a clean, British English format.
- 1,800 crossword puzzles
- Clues in puzzle grid
- Classic British English
- Designed for iPhone and iPad
- Challenging fun
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Designed for iPhone and iPad and the new iOS and written in classic British English, Clean Crossword is different and possibly the best crossword ever published for iOS devices. The clues are shown right in the puzzle grid, making puzzles easy to view and play for weeks of challenging fun.
Crossword Islands
Embark on a global adventure by solving English crosswords on various islands. This game offers a challenging and engaging experience for crossword enthusiasts, featuring carefully selected words, excellent graphics, and sound.
- World travel theme
- Challenging word puzzles
- High-quality graphics and sound
- Regular updates
- English language crosswords
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Many of us dream about traveling the world. However, the truth is to be found somewhere else – in order to do anything more interesting our traveler has to be solving ... crosswords during sea voyages! Help him travel the world. It’s time for an adventure! There are many crosswords waiting for you on every island – you'll guess some words straight away, with others you'll have to think for a little longer – but that is the challenge. This is an ideal word game, much more interesting than word master type games (puzzle, picnic) – if you simply love crosswords and puzzles and cannot imagine even a day without solving such crosswords as the magic crossword, panoramic crossword, fill-in puzzle, crosswords on other grids and picnic, then this is the game for you! Carefully selected words, excellent graphics, and sounds make this game stand out from the other, pretty mundane crossword games. These are certainly the best crosswords in English! This crossword game combines the qualities of paper crosswords as well as the simplicity of many cool word games! Start now, as there will undoubtedly be more and more words added in the future. Numerous updates are scheduled, so as to ensure this crossword game remains the best word game on the market! Simplicity Games still powers the boat.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Clean Crosswords at 66% against Crossword Islands's 33%. Clean Crosswords also leads on ratings volume (1.9K vs 24) and rating (4.5 vs 4.2). Crossword Islands's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Clean Crosswords sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Crossword Islands sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Clean Crosswords holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Clean Crosswords has 1.9K ratings behind it against 24, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 66% of Clean Crosswords's written reviews are positive against 33% of Crossword Islands's.
Clean Crosswords ships an update every 4 months, Crossword Islands every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 16, 2026 and September 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Clean Crosswords | Crossword Islands |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (1.9K ratings) — better | 4.2 (24 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 65.8% of reviews — better | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.9K — better | 24 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 3 months — better |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 229 MB | 219 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | the binary family | Tomasz Dyrak |
Customer experience
Clean Crosswords
Crossword Islands
Bugs and requests
Clean Crosswords
Reported bugs
4 issues- Incorrect word definitions or answers
- Arrows pointing to wrong cells
- Puzzle progress not saving properly
- Ads causing app crashes or freezes
Requested features
5 requests- Dark mode option
- Progress tracking and statistics
- Ability to replay completed puzzles
- More variety in puzzle difficulty levels
- Better integration of American English
Crossword Islands
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Clean Crosswords
- Remove Ads$7.99
Crossword Islands
- Small pack of coins$0.99
- Medium pack of coins$1.99
- Big pack of coins$2.99
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- No Ads!$2.99
- Mega pack of coins - DISCOUNT$3.99
- Mega pack of coins$5.99
Questions
Is Clean Crosswords free?
Is Crossword Islands free?
Which has better reviews, Clean Crosswords or Crossword Islands?
Do Clean Crosswords or Crossword Islands have ads?
Which is updated more often, Clean Crosswords or Crossword Islands?
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