Best Sudoku Apps With Leaderboards and Game Center

If you want to see how your solving stacks up, pick an app whose leaderboard compares like with like. Sudoku Royale ranks one Daily Challenge that everyone plays, against friends or the world, plus a weekly belt league. Good Sudoku has global leaderboards on three daily modes. Brainium Sudoku and PeopleFun Sudoku rank scores, with friends included, and Sudoku Puzzle World ranks tournaments and events. Sudoku.com's listing mentions no leaderboard at all.

A leaderboard is only as good as what it measures. A board of fastest times on one shared puzzle is a fair race. A board of total points across thousands of different puzzles mostly measures who plays the most. Below, each app's ranking is described from its own App Store listing, along with whether the listing shows Game Center support.

The App Store facts

From each app's US App Store listing, checked October 26, 2026. Prices and paid items change, so check the listing before you buy.

Leaderboards compared

Three kinds of leaderboard

Same puzzle, ranked by time. Everyone gets one grid and the board orders you by how fast and cleanly you solved it. This is the fairest comparison, because nobody got an easier puzzle. Sudoku Royale's Daily Challenge and Good Sudoku's daily modes work this way.

Points over many puzzles. PeopleFun scores each puzzle on speed, accuracy and completed rows, columns and blocks, and its listing adds Runs, a streak of puzzles solved without a break. Brainium also has a scoring system with friend boards. These reward skill and stamina together: a strong player who plays twice a week will sit below a decent one who plays every evening.

Events and tournaments. Sudoku Puzzle World ranks limited-time events and tournaments, and OAKEVER's listing describes multiplayer tournaments against players worldwide. These come and go, which keeps them fresh but makes long-term comparison harder.

How Sudoku Royale's rankings work

The Daily Challenge is one new puzzle a day, the same for everyone. You get three lives, and each mistake adds 30 seconds to your time. Lose all three and you can still finish the puzzle, but that run no longer counts for the leaderboard. That rule keeps guessing out of the rankings: a fast time built on lucky guesses costs more than it gains. You can view the board for your friends or for everyone, and the app keeps your current and best streak and an archive of past days back to January 2026.

The Belts league is weekly. Every solve earns shurikens, which move you up from White toward Black belt, and you can play it with friends. It rewards steady solving across the week rather than one fast time.

If you play the optional live matches, matched games carry an Elo rating. Games against friends are unrated, so a friendly match never costs you points. Sudoku Royale also supports Game Center leaderboards, and your profile keeps games played, win rate, accuracy, best score and streak.

The honest limit: Sudoku Royale is new. It launched in 2026 and has 11 US ratings, so its world board is far smaller than those of apps with years of players. A top-ten finish means less there today than it will later.

Game Center: what it adds

Game Center is Apple's built-in system for leaderboards, achievements and friends. When an app uses it, your friends from other Game Center games show up without adding them again. Of the apps here, Sudoku Royale, Good Sudoku, Brainium Sudoku, PeopleFun Sudoku, Sudoku Puzzle World, Sudoku :), Sudoku: Brain Puzzle Games show Game Center on their listings. A listing that shows Game Center does not prove the app ranks sudoku times there, so the table above uses what each listing says it ranks.

Where another app is the better pick

• You want several daily leaderboards. Good Sudoku's three daily modes get harder through the week, each with a global board. Royale has one daily puzzle.
• You like events and trophies. Sudoku Puzzle World builds its rankings around tournaments, events and an awards cabinet.
• You want a score to chase on every puzzle. PeopleFun's points and Runs turn each grid into a score attempt. Royale's leaderboard is for the daily puzzle.
• You want a large existing field. Brainium and PeopleFun have years of players. Both show ads unless you pay to remove them.

Our pick

For a leaderboard that ranks the same puzzle for everyone, punishes guessing and lets you see just your friends, with no ads or purchases, download Sudoku Royale. For more on daily puzzles in general, see the best daily sudoku apps; for live, rated play, the competitive sudoku guide; and for ranking against people you know, the sudoku apps to play with friends. Every matchup is on the comparisons page.