What changed, and when.
Platform, UI, UX, rules and pricing, all in one place. Anything that changes how the race is decided always gets a dated entry here, so nothing about the rules ever moves quietly. Notable changes only: not every commit, not every bugfix.
- UIUX
The race view, redrawn: every rocket named, a camera that follows the leader
Every rocket in the Silo and the Trajectory now carries its name, laid out so no two names, rockets or labels overlap (vertical above or below a rocket, horizontal when there is room, and a thin leader line in a crowd). The height now zooms to where the rockets actually are, so an early race fills the whole cylinder instead of sitting in the bottom few pixels, and it eases outward as rockets climb; the plain 0 to 500 scale is one click away. Rockets are larger and drawn in more detail, with a lit body, a glowing exhaust and a soft glow in their sector colour, the glass cylinder turns with faint struts, and rockets that were level on both axes fan out instead of stacking. The latest weekly winner wears a gold star. A rocket that wins more than once now gets one badge that always shows its latest win and how many weeks it has won (the pinned one-week badge is still there), each win keeps its own story page, and a rocket's page lists the weeks it won.
Open the race → - RULESPRICINGPLATFORM
The cash prize is gone: a weekly win now earns a badge, a story and a blessing
No Weekly Sprint ever held a prize pool above $0, so the cash prize is withdrawn before anyone was owed anything. A weekly winner now earns things that cost nothing: a gold badge to embed on their own site, a page here for their story, one blessing (a fuel worth 5 to give to a young rocket) and a place under the race for the week. How a winner is decided is stricter and written down: fuel from at least two different people, a tie goes to whoever reached the total first, and the rockets the operator of runs.space runs can race but cannot be crowned. Before, the first rocket of a tie in whatever order the database returned it was the one shown. Runner tickets no longer fund anything: they buy a bigger voice for supporting others, and never a better shot at winning. The rules, Terms, pricing and privacy pages say so, and a new Winners page lists every winner with the real numbers.
Read the rules → - PLATFORMRULES
The Monday email now covers your Atlas listing, and the privacy page says so
If your account has a claimed profile on the Atlas (runs-this.today), the one weekly summary now says what is true about it: whether each listing answered our weekly check, whether it is racing here, and the one thing worth doing next, such as an address that stopped answering. If you have no rocket yet, that part comes first. It is still a single email a week, accounts without an Atlas profile see no change, and every copy has an unsubscribe link. The privacy page, which did not mention the weekly email before, now describes it.
Read the privacy page → - UX
Race a product straight from its Atlas listing
If you own a claimed listing on the Atlas, its dashboard now has a Race this project link under each product. It opens the launch form here already filled from the listing: name, tagline, address, a sector guess, platforms and your maker name. You check it, change what you like and press Launch; nothing is created before that, the same rules apply as for any rocket, and the form is only filled for the account that owns the listing.
Launch a rocket → - PLATFORM
New on the blog: The link you can't buy
Why runs.space stopped selling a followed link, what earns one now, and how this site and its sister site, the Atlas, work together. It also says plainly what the first numbers look like: about fifty listings offered to named makers across the two sites, none claimed, and six makers who launched on their own in a single night.
Read it → - UXPLATFORM
Add your rocket to the Atlas from Mission Control
Every rocket card in Mission Control now has a line for the Atlas, the hand-listed record on runs-this.today. One short form (tagline, status, a few tags, and a one-line bio if you have no profile there yet) sends a request that a person reviews; nothing is listed without your click and that review. Once it is approved the page exists, the link to your site on it is a followed one, and your rocket's page here shows an Also in the Atlas tag. Nothing is copied from your account except what the form shows.
Open Mission Control → - RULES
The privacy page now says the two sites share one account
runs.space and runs-this.today are run by the same person on the same database, so one account signs in on both. That was true from the start and is now written down in the privacy page, together with what each site can see of the other: this one reads which products are listed there, the Atlas reads the public race standings, and nothing is copied across unless you ask for it.
Read the privacy page → - PRICINGRULES
The Hangar Pass no longer sells a backlink
A followed link out of runs.space is now earned, never bought. It comes from a verified badge on your own site, or from reaching Orbit. The Hangar Pass ($49) still buys a permanent page at your own subdomain with room for the whole story, but the link on it is labelled sponsored until your badge is verified. The pricing page, the checkout text and section 7 of the Terms now say so. Why: search engines treat paid followed links as link spam, and money buying a ranking signal is the same mistake as money buying fuel. Nobody had bought a Hangar Pass yet.
See the Hangar Pass → - PLATFORM
The race now has a permanent record: the Atlas
runs.space is the week: a race, a winner, a new standing every Monday. The Atlas, at runs-this.today, is the record that stays: what people are running right now, listed by hand. The two now know each other. A rocket's page shows an Also in the Atlas tag when its product is listed there, and the Atlas shows who is racing and where each listed product stands. Links out of the Atlas are earned, not sold: followed once a listing is claimed and reviewed, or when its rocket carries a verified badge. Nothing about fuel, rank or prizes changed.
- UIFIX
A new picture for every link, and it now actually shows
When you share runs.space, a rocket, the race or an article, the preview now carries the Trajectory chart in the site's own fonts: every rocket on its own arc from the launch pad up to the gold Orbit line. A rocket's card shows its real fuel, rank and where it sits among the others. It was also missing in places: the Rockets page, the sponsor page, the race archive and the orbit pages had no preview picture at all, and the image's folder was closed to the crawlers that build link previews. Both are fixed. Networks keep a preview for up to a week, so a link you shared before may take a while to refresh.
- UX
Fuelling other rockets is one tap now
The race only works when makers back each other, and until now that meant finding a tiny rocket on a canvas. Mission Control now opens with Today's crew: three rockets that could use a lift, with a way to try each one and a FUEL button right there. The Rockets page has the same button on every card. There is also a short getting-started list (fuel three rockets, put your badge on your site, say what your rocket is), a welcome email when you launch, and a weekly note in the Monday digest. Nothing changed in the rules: fuel is still one per rocket per week, never on your own, and a paid boost never moves a card.
Browse the rockets → - UXPLATFORM
Say more about your rocket: pricing, platforms, who it's for
Launching and editing a rocket now has an optional "More about it" section: how it is priced (free, freemium, paid or open source), which platforms it runs on, who it is for, and who built it. It shows on the rocket's page and on its card in the Rockets view, and it fixes the page's search data, which used to say every product was free. The long write-up, video and screenshot gallery stay with a Hangar page or Orbit.
Add yours → - PRICINGPLATFORM
Sponsor a race week, from $99
The sponsor slot is now a clear offer. One brand per weekly Sprint is named under the race for the whole week, on the homepage and the race page, and stays on that week's results forever. The price starts at $99 a week and will rise as traffic does; a booked week keeps its price. It is visibility only: it never buys fuel, rank or prize, and the link is labelled as an ad. Sponsors get a tagged link and a recap after their week.
See the offer → - UXPLATFORM
Browse every rocket as a card
A new Rockets page lays out every rocket at once: logo, what it does, sector, fuel and a VISIT link, instead of one rocket at a time behind a click in the Silo. Filter by sector, sort by all-time fuel or this week's Sprint. The order is fuel and nothing else; a paid boost never moves a rocket.
Browse the rockets → - PLATFORM
Makers can now see the visits runs.space sends them
Every rocket's VISIT link now adds one to a private count that only its owner sees: in Mission Control (this week and the last 14 days) and in the Monday digest. One click per person per day, with bots and your own clicks left out. It counts clicks, not customers, and it never touches fuel, rank or the prize.
Open Mission Control → - PLATFORM
The first article: why a race instead of another directory
The blog has its first post. It tells the story of why runs.space is a race and not a list: what a directory and a launch day each get wrong, the rule everything else bends around (money buys visibility, never fuel), how the prize pool works, and an honest look at what seeding the first race taught us.
Read the article → - FIX
The race now updates by itself
The Silo, the standings and the sprint leader are meant to move the moment anyone fuels a rocket. They had quietly been waiting for a page reload instead, because of a missing setting on our side. Fixed: when a rocket gets fuel you will see it climb without touching anything, and the prize pool figure updates live too.
Watch the race → - UX
See your rocket before you launch it
The launch form now shows your rocket as it will appear in the race, filled in as you type: name, tagline, logo, and the sector it will fly in. A broken logo link falls back to the rocket icon, so you can fix it before you submit.
Launch a rocket → - UXUI
A sprint clock, a fuel meter, and the race by keyboard
The race now shows how long the Sprint has left. It closes Monday at 00:00 UTC, and the countdown sits on the race page and on the homepage. A rocket's card shows how much fuel you have left today as a row of dots, tells you when your allowance refills, and marks rockets you have already fuelled this week (your browser remembers). Sending fuel now bursts on the rocket you fuelled, and your very first fuel gets a welcome. The scene works from the keyboard too: Tab to it, use the arrow keys to move between rockets, Escape to close a card.
See the race → - UIUX
Trajectory view and a sprint-leader crown
The race now has two views of the same rockets. Silo is the cylinder you know. Trajectory unrolls it: height is a rocket's all-time fuel, and how far across it sits is the fuel it earned this week, so you can see both races at once. Switch between them and the rockets glide from one layout to the other. Whoever has the most fuel this week now wears a gold crown in both views. We also fixed a layout gap on very wide or zoomed-out screens, where the side panels could be taller than the race itself.
See the race → - UXPLATFORM
Share buttons that know where they are
Every share button now says something different depending on where it sits and who is pressing it. From Mission Control it asks your followers to fuel your rocket, with your real rank and fuel in the caption. From a rocket's page it is a recommendation. Right after you fuel someone it asks you to pass it on. From the race page it leads with the prize pool and who is winning. Each one comes with its own preview image, a few angles to choose from, and room to edit before anything is posted. Share to X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Bluesky, Threads, WhatsApp or Telegram, or copy the caption and link.
- PLATFORM
A blog, and a log you can follow
There is now a blog for the longer story behind runs.space: how it is built, what a public race for products teaches us, and the reasoning behind the rules. This platform log got an upgrade too: every entry is tagged (Platform, UI, UX, Rules, Pricing, Fix) and filterable, rule and pricing changes carry a gold badge so nothing about how the race is decided ever moves quietly, and both have an RSS feed.
Read the blog → - UIUX
The race is a Silo now
The flat list of bars is gone. Every rocket now stands on a launch ring and climbs a glowing cylinder as it collects fuel, with Orbit as the gold ring at the top. Drag to spin it, hover or tap any rocket for its card (fuel it, visit it, or claim a reserved pad), and use the new Sectors panel to spotlight one kind of product. Standings can be ranked all-time or by this week's fuel. Height is always pure fuel: a paid Boost only adds a gold halo, never altitude. When you launch or edit a rocket you can now pick its sector too.
- PLATFORM
runs.space can finally email you
Claiming a pad, a purchase going through, your rocket getting its first fuel from someone else -- all of that used to happen silently unless you were staring at the screen. Now you get a real email at each of those moments, plus a Monday digest of what happened on the track that week if you own a rocket or you're on the waitlist. Every recurring email has a real, working unsubscribe -- the one-off moments (claim approved, purchase confirmed, first fuel) don't, since those aren't marketing. Also: your embeddable fuel badge can now be recolored to match your own site.
- UI
The homepage has a spotlight now
The full live track used to sit right in the homepage hero — great when there were a couple of rockets, cramped once the grid, feed, and reserved pads filled in and started crowding the headline. The hero now shows one rocket at a time in a rotating spotlight instead, with a clickable progress bar across the top so you can see (and jump to) whoever's up. Runner rockets get noticeably more time in the spotlight per turn — never more votes, just more seconds where every visitor sees them first. The full live track and mission feed still have a home, just below the hero with room to breathe. Also: SumoDir joins the "as featured on" strip.
- UX
Hover a rocket's name to actually see it
The image next to each rocket on the live track was a 20px thumbnail -- easy to miss, impossible to actually look at. Hovering a name now pops a real preview: a bigger image, the tagline, and a direct link to the product. Also new: runs.space is starting to show up elsewhere -- see the "as featured on" strip at the bottom of the page.
- UXRULES
Super Fuel finally has a button
Super Fuel -- the 5x weekly vote that's been part of the Runner pitch since launch -- had no way to actually send one; the button didn't exist. It does now, on every rocket's fuel row and on its own page, for Runners who haven't spent this week's yet. Fueling also finally tells you it worked: a clear confirmation with how much you have left, instead of the row just quietly updating.
- RULESPRICING
Runner moves to your account, not your rocket
Runner's bigger daily fuel budget and weekly Super Fuel were always account-wide, but the buy button lived on each rocket's card, which made it look like a per-rocket upgrade. It's now one panel at the top of Mission Control: your current tier, exactly how much fuel you have left to give today, and (if you're a Walker) both purchase options with a picker for which rocket shows the badge. The navbar's Mission Control button is also a dropdown now, showing that same tier and fuel-remaining at a glance plus a fast sign-out, from anywhere on the site.
- RULES
Launch as many rockets as you want
One account, one rocket at a time was the old rule — now you can launch as many as you want. What stays fixed: one URL is one rocket, forever, and a launched rocket can only be edited or deleted, never resubmitted. Mission Control now lists every rocket you're racing, each with its own fuel history, edit/badge/profile links, and upgrade options, instead of showing just one. Also fixed a real sign-in bug along the way: a rare case where the site could briefly disagree with itself about whether you were signed in.
- PLATFORMUX
A live mission feed, rules in the nav, and a site machines can read
The homepage and the race page now show a Mission Feed: every fuel, Super Fuel, launch and orbit as it happens, refreshed live. No names, no invented activity — when the track is quiet, it says so. The full contest rules were always written but only reachable from the footer; they're in the navbar and under the homepage briefing now. And for the machines: an RSS feed of launches and orbits at /feed.xml, an llms.txt so AI agents can understand runs.space without scraping it, and a web app manifest so it installs cleanly on a phone.
- PLATFORM
The Genesis grid is real
20 pads, seeded and live — hand-picked builders from the wider indie/OSS community plus a few fresh off Product Hunt. runs.space is the actual homepage now, not a coming-soon page: the live track, the tiers, everything. If your project is already reserved, claim your pad. If it isn't, launch your own — it's free.
- PLATFORMUX
Every rocket gets a picture
Rocket pages and the live race grid were text-only until now. Submitting a rocket automatically grabs a preview image straight from your product's own page — no upload, no required field — and it shows up on your rocket's page and as a thumbnail on the track. Paste your own logo/screenshot URL any time to override it, from launch or from Mission Control.
- UI
A real type system
Four purpose-built display faces replaced the single default font: a hero headline face for the big moments, a wordmark face for the RUNS.SPACE logo everywhere it appears, a navbar/footer face for chrome, and a distinct body face for every paragraph. Header and footer now line up on the same edges as the page body instead of running full-bleed, and a CSS layering bug that made the mobile menu silently ignore its own hide/show rules got found and fixed along the way.
- PRICINGPLATFORM
The money rail
Hangar Pass, Runner tickets and subscriptions, Signal Boost, and Re-entry Burn all went live end to end — Stripe Checkout, webhook fulfilment, and a payments ledger that can't double-grant on a replayed event. Runner never adds fuel to your own rocket; it buys a bigger daily budget to support other rockets, one 5× vote a week, and a share of the prize pool.
- PLATFORM
Rocket pages get their own address
Every rocket that reaches Orbit — or buys a Hangar Pass — gets a permanent page at [yourslug].runs.space, with its own minimal nav so it reads as your page, not a mirror of the whole site.
- PLATFORM
The Space Race begins
runs.space pivoted from a static directory to a live race: submit a rocket, fuel other people's, and climb from Earth to Orbit at 500 fuel. Nothing dies here — a finished rocket keeps its page forever.