Today is a major milestone for us, both in our efforts to deliver on long-held promises to the community, and to enable major new updates due later this year and beyond.

In this post we're going to cover what's new with today's launch, the recent history of the site, detail some work left to do, and preview what's coming later this year.

# Major changes

We had two main objectives with the new site:

1. Better serve the communities and users on Speedrun
2. Make it easier and faster for us to continue delivering on goal 1.

In order to meet these objectives, we rebuilt the whole site, back-end and front. Our release date was "when it's ready", which... just so happens to be today!

There's too much change to go into everything, but here are some of the highlights:

- **Fresh look and feel.** You may have noticed, but things look a bit different. We tried to keep the original spirit of Speedrun, but update it to look and feel like a website should in 2023. It's faster, prettier, and more reliable. Give it a try, we think you'll like it.
- **Game pages and leaderboards.** [Leaderboards](/only_up) are now wider, faster, and have a variety of new features. You can easily see the world record history, filter by more details (including verification status), and more! Check out a game page to see it in action.
- **Individual level support.** Level navigation is now built into the main leaderboard, and game pages now have a new separate [Levels tab](/pizza_tower/levels) where you can see an interactive summary of level record holders. This view can be filtered in the same way as the main leaderboard, including by subcategory!
- **Game management.** Game management has been completely overhauled. Speedrun is a complicated platform with a lot of configuration options for game moderators. We rebuilt it all with the primary goal of making sure that moderators felt confident when making changes. The site now explains every single option, warns about dangerous changes, and exposes new options to customize your communities.
- **Moderation tools.** We released the Moderator Hub feature almost 2 years ago to mixed reactions. We've been listening and taking notes, and are happy to say that we've rebuilt it from the ground up to address major points of feedback. The pending run list is now more dense, it's easy to search, you can assign runs to moderators, and the run review interface has been much improved.
- **Search.** Search is now faster, more accurate, and finds more content across the site. There's a new dedicated search results page where you can filter results. You can also easily bring up the search box with your keyboard, just press **/**. 
- **Game Discovery.** We've improved the [Games page](/games) to show popular new games and help you discover new games on different platforms and decades. We also standardized game cover image sizes (you may need to update them for the games you moderate.)
- **User pages.** [User pages](/users/Meta) got a fresh look and new features, including the ability to embed your Twitch stream when live, and improved access to various types of content like threads, comments, followers, and pending actions.
- **User following.** You can now follow users (in addition to games), and their runs will show up in your feed on the home page. User pages have Followers and Following tabs to help you discover new friends. We hope this will help you keep tabs on old friends and discover new game communities.
- **Group messaging.** We've overhauled [direct messaging](/messages) so you can make plans with the whole squad.
- **Guides and Resources.** We've given guides and resources a minor facelift, with more improvements planned in the future. You'll be happy to know that you can now drag and drop images and videos to upload them directly into guides, resources, news posts, etc.
- **New text editor.** The old Speedrun supported a weird markdown-ish text format, but didn't have an easy way to use it. We now have a new text editor with multiple modes (rich text, markdown, preview), which should make it a bit more pleasant to contribute guides, resources, news posts, or just express yourself when submitting a run or comment.
- **Internationalization.** Accessibility is important, and there's nothing more inaccessible than a webpage that you can't read. Speedrun is now fully translated into 17 different languages. The current translations are machine-generated, and their quality can best be described as "usable". Despite this, we see this as an important step forward for speedrunners who don't speak English, and we plan to make improvements.
- **Single sign-on and verified social connections.** You can now sign in with Discord, Google, or Twitch. Additionally you can [verify your Discord and Twitch](/settings/socials) accounts, giving your visitors confidence that they're talking to the real you.
- **... and lots more!**

It really should simply be *"more, better, faster"*.

We tried to make sure that all major existing functionality of the old site has been preserved or accounted for, but please let us know if we missed anything. The best place to do so is either in [The Site](/forums/the_site) forums, or by creating a [Bug Report](/support/tickets).

# History and lessons learned

Elo (the company that owns and operates Speedrun) acquired and began operating the site in 2020. Back then the site was struggling just to stay online. You may or not remember the famous **"Under Pressure"** error message that used to appear on nearly 40% of page loads.

After we took over, the first task was stabilizing the site and solving some of the most obvious problems. Then we went and started adding features - some went over well, others most certainly did not (sorry). Through it all we experienced a lot of growth (site traffic more than doubled in a year), and learned some important lessons.

The biggest thing we learned? We needed to slow down, communicate thoughtfully, and deliver on the promise and potential of the site.

# Making big improvements

In mid-2022 we recognized that it was simply too hard to make progress on the features that users cared the most about, and we struggled to resolve complex bugs. Under the covers, Speedrun is actually an incredibly complex platform (you wouldn't believe the nuance involved in determining the place of a run!), but the software wasn't scaling in the way it needed to. The old site (PHP) was really showing its, and making improvements was both difficult and dangerous - not a good combination.

***... we had to rebuild it ...***

Rebuilding a complex piece of software is a last resort. It's especially difficult and complex when you need to do it at the same time as you keep the existing site up and running. Still, we think it was a necessary step to making the major improvements the site needed. It took a while, but we're happy with the result! Even more importantly, we now have the ability to iterate on the site (introduce features, fix bugs) much faster and more thoughtfully than before.

For the curious: the old site was written in PHP, and the new site is Go (backend) and TypeScript (frontend) - just over 300,000 lines of code. We store data in MySQL and Redis.

# We're not done yet

As with any big migration, there are bound to be limitations and loose threads. The biggest limitation with the new release is that we were not able to make any changes to the mappings between categories, levels, and variables. The reason is simple: so long as the old site was involved, it'd be nearly impossible to correctly introduce new mapping logic. We did manage to make some improvements in this area, but it's far from our true goal of arbitrary custom mapping. So, this remains on our todo list - we hope to accomplish it later this year.

Another area for improvement is internationalization. As described above, it works, but the translations are not very good. We plan to improve them in the coming weeks and months.

# Looking toward the future

We're incredibly excited to launch the new Speedrun, and are already hard at work on making more improvements. Once the dust settles, we're confident you'll enjoy using the site.

Additionally, we have a few areas of focus that we'll be working on this year:

- **Make it easier to improve your PB.** We plan to introduce new features that will help you understand your runs, learn from other runners in the community, and improve your times. It's going to get *fast* in here!
- **Discover new communities and friends.** The Speedrun community is social by nature, but it can be hard to find new activities. We plan to make it easier to stay connected with existing friends, meet new ones, and improve all of our game communities.
- **Encourage the spirit of competition.** Speedrunning is competitive by nature, but it's far from organized. We think we can help bring some excitement and order to the chaos. Buckle up!

Big updates aside, you can expect a fairly steady stream of minor improvements over the coming months.

# Closing thoughts

We hope that you're pleased with today's update. It's been a long time coming!

I'd like to offer a special **THANK YOU** to our [Speedrun Supporter](/supporter) subscribers. For those who aren't aware, Supporter helps you contribute directly to the development and growth of Speedrun. It offers a variety of features to improve your experience on the site, including making the site faster and more enjoyable to use by removing all advertisements.

For those who aren't subscribed to Supporter but like what you see here, please consider it! Your support means a lot to us, and it really does provide us with the resources needed to continue making major improvements.

Now, where was I in [Tears of the Kingdom](/totk)...

We're excited to launch the new Speedrun website! Read on to learn more about what's new, how we got here, and what's coming next.

Welcome to the new Speedrun

my 21 levels run is orphaned thanks to the removal of the category for it :^)

GG, did my strat but didnt hesitate after getting the first gem. :^)

@Wikdevos I believe using Incognito Mode allows you to start fresh, otherwise he probably cleared cookies before each run.

I think it's necessary personally idk about you.

wow.......... seems all of these runs were verified without bothering to retime them. add it to the list of terrible moderators i guess.

Did you mean to submit this as a full game run?

I'm glad to see someone is just as pissed off at this level as I was.

well... seems this run is lost media now.

Make a Cake: Back for Seconds!

ROBLOX: The Quest for Hamburger

Super Blocky Ball

Roblox: The Dropper

Mine Tower

Awesome Tanks

Time Witch

Waa Tanks!

Roblox: GRUMPY GRAN

The Official Longest Platformer (Scratch)

obby but you're a bird

Every run over the past 6 months have been piling up due to me being inactive and the other mod, Currently there was 58 runs in the queue. I will be doing every single one and hopefully reviving this page a bit,

Also feel free to dm me at Chroma#3774 abought you wanting your run verified or any questions

All runs will be verified

As a community request, jumpless and boostless were added as full-game categories. 

I added Luxtra as a moderator (since they moderate the SBB discord), and added Rube7, YT_Valentin and dankdarkel_ as verifiers to keep up with submissions. 

Leaderboard Updates

rulse  for IRL cheating

Items/No Items category to the obbies please

Noops

zir0nic

aqple

Kwaol

VyPr

pile

wowaname

Glitchedblood

Chrepuhon

limabean06

YUMmy_Bacon5

6lp4vpzw

Gaming_64

zonaryharpy9

Zanum

eqp8wpk5

CapTheCat6

Michael_00006

il2a

Alessandrolol

jackzfiml

Galaxxys

SlowRunnerVM

CosmicStar

grnts8

Parzim

SuperGamer64

Wikdevos

Mario Kart DS

Exit Path

Squishy the Suicidal Pig

Peggle Deluxe

Minesweeper

Fireboy and Watergirl 1 - The Forest Temple

I Wanna Be The Danny Tanner

I Wanna Wanna

I Wanna Be The My Heart Goes On

There Is No Game

Agar.io

ROBLOX: Speed Run 4

I Wanna Fly The Far Away

I Wanna Be The Four Seasons

Paper Roblox 2: Beyond the Fold

GyroSphere Trials

Super Dangerous Dungeons

Super Fun And Short Obby

Terraria

Red Plumber Adventure Obby!

Clone Drone In The Danger Zone

ROBLOX: Speed Run V

Give Up

Paint the Town Red

ROBLOX: Escape Memes Obby!

Dispersio

ROBLOX: Escape The iPhone 5 Obby!

Leap

30th Anniversary of PAC-MAN

Roblox: Teamwork Obby

ROBLOX: Climb 2000 Stairs to VIP

Make a Cake And Feed the Giant Noob

Roblox Quest 2: Distorted Dimensions

ROBLOX: Slenderman Obby

ROBLOX: Flood Escape 2

ROBLOX: Longest Obby in Roblox | 1000+ Obstacles & Hangout

Quik: Gravity Flip Platformer

Roblox: Gravity Shift

Puzznic (PS)

Hoshi Saga

Space Funeral

Bloons Tower Defense 6

Money Movers

You Can't Do Simple Maths Under Pressure

Eternal Towers of Hell

ROBLOX: The CrusheR

Sticky Ninja Academy

Google Snake

Terraria Category Extensions

ROBLOX: Goose's Random Obbies

Micro Platformer

ROBLOX: Great Citadel of Difficulty Chart

ROBLOX: The NEAT Project

Getting Over It (Scratch edition)

Google Minesweeper

Friendly Fire

ROBLOX: Obby Island

Minecraft 4K

Cookie Clicker Category Extensions

ROBLOX: box land

Minecraft (Classic)

Tornado Outbreak

ROBLOX: Doc's Difficulty Chart Obby

ROBLOX: Super Golf

ROBLOX: Emerald Skies Obby 2

Windows Series Category Extensions

Teardown

Ball at Work: A Fun and Unique Game of Skill and Patience!

Sushi Cat

The Crusty Quest

Sushi Cat 2

Red Remover Player Pack

Cyber Shadow

Red Remover Player Pack 2

Ham Race 2

Cross Virus

Mini Blocks

World Cat Cup

Cat Shot

Monster Box

Mine Tower (Mobile)

ROBLOX: Risky Ropes

Laminate Pieces

A man and his pig

ROBLOX: Doc's Obby Challenges

Purple's Totally Tubular Towers 2

Eternal Towers of Hell Category Extensions

5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel

Other Scratch Games

Factris

PowerWash Simulator

Demolition City

ROBLOX: Skateboard Difficulty Chart Obby

Ball Buster

4d9r