What is the Wordle Analyzer?
The Wordle Analyzer is a post-game review tool. You paste a finished game — your guesses and the answer — and it replays every turn, comparing your line against what an AI would have picked with the same information. It tells you how much information each guess revealed and whether it matched the best available option.
Unlike a solver that helps you during a live puzzle, the analyzer works after the fact. It has access to the answer, which means it can calculate exactly how many possibilities each guess eliminated and whether a different choice would have been stronger.
The AI line is not a fixed sequence — it recalculates after every one of your guesses using only the information that was available at that point. If you played SLATE and got feedback, the AI line shows what it would have picked next given those same clues.
What the Analysis Metrics Mean
Each analyzed turn shows four key numbers that tell you how well your guess performed.
Guess Quality
Measures how evenly your guess split the remaining candidates. A quality near 100% means the guess narrowed the pool roughly in half. Below 50% means the guess barely reduced the search space — another word would have been better.
Average Remaining
The average number of candidates that would remain after this guess across all possible answer combinations. Lower is better. Shown separately for the official answer list ("common") and the full valid guess list ("all").
Remaining After
The total number of words still consistent with the clues after this guess. This is the most intuitive metric — a good guess drops this number dramatically, especially early in the game when the clue state is sparse.
Hard Mode Violations
Lists any guesses that ignored confirmed clues. A "locked green" must stay in that position. A confirmed yellow must appear somewhere in the word. Violations are flagged even if the guess was a valid dictionary word.
How the AI Line Is Calculated
After each of your guesses, the analyzer builds the current clue state — which letters are green, yellow, or gray — and evaluates every valid 5-letter word as a potential next guess. For each candidate, it simulates what the clue pattern would look like against the actual answer and calculates how evenly that pattern would split the remaining pool.
This is entropy-based solving. A guess that produces many different possible clue patterns — each splitting the remaining candidates into groups of similar size — scores higher than one that mostly produces similar patterns. The AI picks the guess with the highest entropy score, not the one most likely to be correct.
The distinction matters. A guess that is likely to be the answer scores poorly on entropy because it does not reveal much information when it is wrong. A guess that is unlikely to be correct but produces highly informative clue patterns scores high because it eliminates the most candidates regardless of whether it was right.
When Hard Mode Checks Matter
Wordle's hard mode forces every guess to respect confirmed information. Once a letter is green, it must stay in that position for all future guesses. Once a letter is yellow, it must appear somewhere in a future guess. Breaking these rules is not illegal — the game allows it — but it violates hard mode's constraints.
The analyzer flags violations even if you eventually solved the puzzle. A common scenario: you get a green letter in position 2, then later in the game you use it in position 4. Technically a valid English word, but it violates the hard mode lock on position 2. The analysis will note this so you know it happened.
Most players accidentally break hard mode at least once per week. The violation is usually minor — swapping a locked letter to a different position — but it means you broke the discipline you committed to. The analyzer keeps you honest.
Common Patterns in Wordle Analysis
First guesses rarely score above 70%
With no information, any opening guess splits the pool by letter frequency. A good opener like CRANE or SLATE scores 60-65% because the remaining pool is still large and diverse. Excellent openers like TRAWL or TRACE can reach 68-72%.
The biggest quality jumps happen at turns 2 and 3
After the first guess you have actual clue patterns to work with. A good second guess can jump to 80-90% quality because it tests specific constraints. Turn 3 is where the pool usually shrinks to single digits if you've been playing well.
"Your line gained more information" is common after a lucky guess
If your guess happened to match the answer perfectly, the analyzer labels it as gaining more information than the AI — not because you played better, but because getting the exact answer in N guesses is better than the AI's expected N+1. This is luck, not skill, and the analyzer notes it with a luck label.
Late turns often show 100% quality
When only 2-3 candidates remain, any valid guess scores 100% quality because it eliminates everything except the answer. By turn 5 or 6, the hard part is done — the question is just which of the remaining words it is.
What the AI Line Cannot Tell You
The AI line optimizes for information gain across all possible answers. It does not care about your specific clue state or whether you are close to solving. It would recommend the same guess whether you have 1 guess left or 6.
This creates situations where the AI and human strategies diverge. In a 2-guess situation with 10 candidates left, the AI recommends the highest-entropy guess. You might instead pick one of the 10 candidates directly — it has 10% chance of being right, and if it is wrong you learn exactly which one it is. This is a valid strategy, but it is not what the AI recommends.
Use the analyzer to learn which patterns of clues are most informative, not to copy a specific sequence. After 10-20 analyzed games, most players develop an intuition for which letter patterns split the pool well — and they stop needing the tool for the hardest decisions.
What is Wordle?
Wordle is a daily word puzzle created by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn-based software engineer, and launched in October 2021. The New York Times acquired it in January 2022 for a seven-figure sum after it exploded to millions of daily players. The premise is simple: guess a 5-letter word in 6 tries. After each guess, colored tiles reveal which letters are correct, misplaced, or absent.
The game resets at midnight local time. Everyone gets the same word each day, which turned it into a social phenomenon — people share their colored tile grids on Twitter and group chats without revealing the answer. The answer list started at 2,315 words but the NYT has modified it over time, adding and removing words to keep things fresh.
What makes Wordle different from other word games is the information structure. Each guess eliminates a specific set of candidates based on letter position and presence. A good player uses this information systematically rather than guessing randomly, and that systematic approach is exactly what the analyzer measures.
How to Play Wordle
Enter any valid 5-letter English word
Your first guess can be any recognized English word — it does not have to be from the answer list. Words like CRANE, SLATE, and TRACE are popular openers because they test common letters across multiple positions.
Read the colored feedback tiles
Green means the letter is correct and in the right position. Yellow means the letter appears in the answer but somewhere else. Gray means the letter does not appear at all. This three-color system is the entire information mechanism.
Use the clues to narrow the answer
Green letters are locked in position. Yellow letters must appear somewhere else in future guesses. Gray letters are eliminated entirely. Combine these constraints to work toward the answer within 6 guesses.
Optional: play in hard mode
Hard mode forces you to use every revealed clue. Green letters must stay in that position. Yellow letters must appear somewhere in each subsequent guess. It is more restrictive but makes the game more satisfying when you solve it.
Tips for Getting Better at Wordle
Better Wordle play comes down to maximizing information per guess. Here are the strategies that the analyzer consistently confirms as optimal.
Start with words that test 5 unique common letters
CRANE, SLATE, TRACE, and RAISE all test 5 unique letters from the most common set (A, E, R, S, T, L, C, N, I). The analyzer scores these openers around 62-67% quality — meaning they eliminate roughly 60-70% of possible answers on the first guess alone.
On guess 2, test new letters unless forced otherwise
If your opener reveals 2 green tiles and 3 gray tiles, do not reuse the green letters' positions as your primary strategy. Instead, test 3-4 new letters to gather more elimination data. Only commit to building a word around your known greens when the candidate list drops below 20.
Account for positional lock-in early
If position 3 is green with E, every future guess must have E in position 3. The analyzer flags violations of this in hard mode. In normal mode, ignoring this rule wastes guesses — you already know the letter and its position, so testing it elsewhere provides zero new information.
Why Players Use a Wordle Analyzer
Most people use the analyzer out of curiosity, not desperation. They solve the daily puzzle on their own, then paste their game to see how they did compared to optimal play. The result is usually humbling — even experienced players regularly find that their guess 2 or 3 scored below 60% quality, meaning an alternative guess would have eliminated twice as many candidates.
Some players use it to settle arguments. "I should have guessed RAISE on turn 2, not ARISE" — the analyzer gives a definitive answer. Others use it to learn hard mode discipline. If you keep breaking hard mode rules without realizing it, the analyzer catches every violation.
The honest use case: when you are on guess 5 with 6 candidates remaining and no clear way to distinguish them. The analyzer shows you which guess gives the most information, and sometimes that information is the difference between guessing correctly on turn 6 or running out of tries.
Wordle vs Similar Word Games
Wordle spawned dozens of variants. Understanding the differences helps you choose which tools to use.
Wordle vs Quordle
Quordle gives you 9 guesses to solve four 5-letter words simultaneously. The strategy is completely different — you need a first guess that covers common letters across all four boards. The analyzer does not handle Quordle because the multi-board state creates different constraint interactions.
Wordle vs Nerdle
Nerdle replaces letters with mathematical equations. Same feedback system (green/purple/black), but the search space has structural constraints — operators, equals signs, and arithmetic validity. A dedicated Nerdle solver handles these constraints; the Wordle analyzer cannot.
Wordle vs Semantle
Semantle uses semantic similarity instead of letter positions. You guess words and get a numerical score showing how close they are in meaning to the answer. No green or yellow tiles — just a gradient from cold to hot. The strategies are completely different; Semantle rewards vocabulary breadth over letter pattern knowledge.
Wordle Analyzer FAQs
How is the Wordle Analyzer different from a Wordle solver?
A solver helps you find the next move while a puzzle is live. The analyzer reviews a completed game and grades each guess against what an AI would have done with the same information. It shows how much you gained or lost at every step.
Can shared links spoil the answer?
No. Shared analyzer links encode the game in the URL query string. When you open one, the page shows a spoiler warning and waits for you to confirm before revealing the answer and analysis.
What does hard mode checking flag?
Hard mode requires every guess to respect confirmed clues — green letters must stay in place, yellow letters must appear somewhere. The analyzer flags any guess that violates a locked clue, even if it was technically a valid word.
What is guess quality?
Quality measures how well your guess narrowed the remaining possibilities. A guess that splits the remaining pool roughly in half scores near 100%. A guess that barely reduces the candidate set scores low. It is calculated from entropy — how much information each guess revealed.
Does this work for Wordle variants like Dordle or Quordle?
No. The analyzer is built for the original 5-letter Wordle only. Variants with multiple simultaneous boards produce different clue states that this tool does not model.
Where does the AI line come from?
The AI line is recalculated after each of your guesses using the same clue state you had at that moment. It is the best-ranked guess from a dictionary of 12,000+ words based on information gain — not a fixed strategy or pre-programmed sequence.
What do the "remaining words preview" labels mean?
"Common" labels words from the official answer list. "Other" labels words that are valid guesses but were never actual answers. The analyzer tracks both because a good early guess narrows the entire guess pool, not just the plausible answers.
Can I analyze games in unlimited or practice mode?
Yes. Enter any sequence of 1-6 guesses followed by the answer, mark hard mode if you played it, and run the analysis. The tool works for any finished game regardless of whether it was the daily puzzle.