TL;DR:

• Event/Tournament and opponent filters added.
• New homepage, search UI, and improved mobile navigation (released in January).
• Masters Database updated with +143,000 new games in March and April, now at 9.91 million games.
• Subscription plan changes and changed limits for free accounts.
• Infrastructure migration: cloud → bare metal servers, CDN updated.

More filters: Event and Opponent

We’ve added two new filters for subscribers to help you explore games even better: Event and Opponent filter. You can now filter by specific tournaments or match series. Event names will auto-suggest as you type, making it easier to find what you're looking for. Opponent search allows you to filter games by a specific opponent. For now, this requires an exact name match, but we plan to improve it with smarter suggestions in future updates.

Search Update and Improved Mobile Navigation

Earlier this year, we’ve rolled out a set of UI improvements aimed at making ChessMonitor faster and easier to use. Search is now integrated directly into the top navigation, allowing you to access it instantly from anywhere on the site. The homepage also received a visual overhaul.

Mobile navigation has been improved as well, with a more accessible menu for smaller screens. These updates went live in January. If you haven’t checked out the new homepage yet, now’s a good time to take a look. 🙂

Masters Database: +143,000 games

The Masters Database was updated in March and April, adding 143,000 new games from over-the-board events, correspondence play, and other curated sources. This brings the total to 9,910,418 games. All FIDE ratings and history graphs are now up to date.

We’re now aiming for monthly updates to keep the database fresh and relevant. If you’re new to the Masters Database, you can read more here or explore profiles like Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, or Gukesh D.

Subscription Plan Changes

We’ve made several adjustments to our subscription plans to better reflect how ChessMonitor is used in practice.

The Professional plan no longer includes the Coaching feature. The plan was primarily used by coaches, teachers, and schools, and therefore coaching wasn’t relevant for most users of that plan. All current subscribers were informed in advance, and a solution was found in every case.

The Plus plan now includes higher limits for creating and updating other users' profiles. This change was driven by real usage (especially for tournament prep) where the original limits were occasionally too restrictive. We had initially set conservative limits to prevent abuse, but that hasn’t been an issue in practice. You can now create up to 30 profiles of others per month (previously 10), and update profiles up to 50 per month (previously 20).

We’ve also introduced limits on how many Chess.com and Lichess accounts can be linked per plan. Free users are limited to one of each, Plus allows five, and Professional allows up to ten. Existing users can keep their currently linked accounts, even if they exceed the limit, but they won’t be able to add more.

Plan	Chess.com	Lichess
Free	1	1
Plus	5	5
Professional	10	10

This change was necessary to ensure fair use, as free users with many linked accounts were consuming significant resources. In some extreme cases there were users with 27 linked accounts on the free plan. It also helps make the Plus plan more attractive and supports the continued development of ChessMonitor for everyone. As always, we’re open to feedback.

Infrastructure Migration

Behind the scenes, multiple critical changes have happened recently. ChessMonitor has moved from a cloud server to dedicated hardware, with all data now stored on bare metal servers in a data center in Aachen, Germany. This change improves performance, reliability, and long-term scalability.

We also switched our CDN provider from Cloudflare to Bunny.net to reduce latency and improve delivery times, particularly for users in Europe. More technical details on both migrations will be shared in dedicated posts in the coming weeks.

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We appreciate your feedback and support as we continue improving ChessMonitor. Join the discussion on Discord!