Fortune Wheels vs Wheel of Names: an honest comparison
Short answer first, because most comparison pages bury it: if you want one clean spinner wheel for picking a name, use Wheel of Names. If you want a wheel you can embed on your own site, or you need wheels for chores, prizes, dice, games and decisions in one place, Fortune Wheels does more.
That is the whole decision. The rest of this page is the detail behind it, including the cases where Fortune Wheels is plainly worse.
Side by side
True of both: free and ad-supported; no account needed to spin (an account is only needed to save a wheel); the draw uses crypto.getRandomValues() and both sites say so; weighted segments; remove-winner after a spin; embedding available; works on mobile.
Only Wheel of Names has:
Seven pages on the whole site — which is why it loads so fast
Years of classroom trust behind it
Only Fortune Wheels has:
80+ wheels instead of one, plus five games
A copyable results table for the draw
Mystery mode, which hides labels until the wheel stops
Every tool embeddable, not just the main wheel
Installable as a PWA, so it works offline after the first load
Where Wheel of Names wins
Not a token section. These are the reasons the site is still the default:
It is one page, and that is the product. Seven pages total. It opens fast, it does one thing, and nothing on the screen is asking for your attention.
It is the incumbent, and incumbents are reliable. Years of use in classrooms, no surprises, no redesigns that break your bookmark.
It is faster. Fewer scripts, less to load. On a school network or an old projector laptop, that gap is noticeable.
Its minimalism is a real feature. If you are picking a student in front of a class, a page with eleven other options is a distraction you did not ask for.
None of that is spin. If your need is "spin a wheel with names on it", Wheel of Names solves it and you should not spend an afternoon evaluating anything.
Where Fortune Wheels wins
Every wheel is embeddable, not just the main one. The embed builder covers all 80+ tools, so a classroom page can carry a name picker, a chore wheel and a sight-words wheel without three separate embeds from three separate sites.
Breadth. 80+ wheels across chores, prizes, food, decisions, dice, party games, sport and study — one bookmark instead of six.
Games the other site does not attempt. Money wheel against AI dealers, roulette against AI opponents. Play money only, no deposits, nothing to win — but they are games, not utilities.
An audit trail. The name wheel keeps a results table you can copy out, which is what you want if the draw happens in front of an audience and someone might question it later.
Mystery mode. Segment labels stay hidden until the wheel stops. Niche, but nothing else does it.
Where Fortune Wheels is worse, plainly
It is heavier. More pages, more scripts, slower first load. On a weak connection the difference is real.
It has more than you need. A site with 80 tools always has 79 you are not using. That is clutter, not a feature, when you wanted one wheel.
The games are not the point. If you arrived for a name picker, the money wheel and roulette are noise in the navigation.
Less history. Wheel of Names has years of classroom trust. Fortune Wheels does not, and no comparison table changes that.
Which should you use?
Use Wheel of Names if you want one spinner for names, you value speed and simplicity, and you will never need to put the wheel on your own page.
Use Fortune Wheels if you need the wheel embedded on a site you control, you want the other wheels as well, or the draw needs a copyable record.
The honest overlap is larger than either site would like to admit: for the plain case — paste names, spin, get a name — both work, both are free, and both draw the result with the browser's cryptographic random number generator before the animation starts. The difference shows up in what you need on the second and third day.
A note on fairness claims
Both sites use crypto.getRandomValues(), and both say so. Neither can offer you proof that the draw was honest, because both run in your browser and the person holding the browser controls it. That is exactly as trustworthy as a physical hat, and no more.
If you need a draw that a third party can verify, you need a different category of tool — one that commits to a seed before the draw. Neither of these is that tool, and any page claiming otherwise is overselling.
Frequently asked
Is Fortune Wheels a copy of Wheel of Names?
No. Wheel of Names is a single name picker; Fortune Wheels is a collection of 80+ wheels plus games. The name-picker wheel overlaps, the rest does not.
Which is better for teachers?
Wheel of Names for a single name draw. Fortune Wheels if you also want classroom jobs, sight words, maths operators or a bingo caller, or if you want the wheel on a class page.
Do both work on a phone?
Yes. Both are responsive and both work in mobile browsers. Fortune Wheels can also be installed to a home screen and works offline after the first load.
Do either of them cost anything?
No. Both are free and both are ad-supported. Neither has a paid tier that unlocks the wheel.
Can I use either for a raffle?
Both are fine for a small draw where the audience can see the screen. For anything with meaningful stakes, use a tool that lets a third party verify the draw — neither of these is built for that, and they should not be presented as if they were.