Not every release is about scraping algorithms and API integrations. Sometimes the most impactful changes are the ones you see (or do not see, in the case of dark mode at midnight). v0.8 is our quality-of-life release, focused on user experience, stability, and building a foundation for sustainable growth.
Dark Mode
This was by far our most requested feature. DealMonitor now supports three theme modes: light, dark, and system-automatic. The system mode follows your operating system's preference, so if your computer switches to dark mode at sunset, DealMonitor switches with it.
We did not just invert the colors. Every component, every chart, every notification badge was carefully redesigned to look great in both modes. The price history charts use adjusted color palettes for dark backgrounds, tracker cards have proper contrast ratios, and the landing page transitions smoothly between themes.
Your theme preference is saved and persists across sessions. Switch to dark mode once, and DealMonitor remembers.
Sentry Error Monitoring
Before v0.8, when something went wrong for a user, we only found out if they reported it. That is not good enough. We integrated Sentry for both the frontend and backend, giving us real-time visibility into errors, crashes, and performance issues.
Privacy was our primary concern here. Sentry is completely opt-in. No error data is collected unless you explicitly enable it. When enabled, we collect only technical error information (stack traces, browser version, error messages) and never any personal data, tracked prices, or browsing activity.
For us as developers, the impact has been immediate. We are catching and fixing errors before they affect multiple users, and we can see exactly which browsers, devices, and configurations trigger issues. The mean time from error occurrence to fix has dropped dramatically.
Blog Launch
You are reading this on our blog, so you already know this feature shipped. But the blog is more than just a place to post release notes. It is part of our strategy to help users get the most out of price tracking.
We launched with four SEO-optimized posts covering smart shopping strategies, how AI price detection works, setting effective price alerts, and online price tracking guides. Every post is available in all nine languages that DealMonitor supports.
The blog is server-side rendered for fast loading and proper search engine indexing. Each post has structured metadata, Open Graph tags for social sharing, and proper heading hierarchy for accessibility.
SEO Improvements
Speaking of search engines, v0.8 includes a comprehensive SEO overhaul:
- Dynamic metadata for every page, including proper titles, descriptions, and canonical URLs.
- robots.txt that tells search engines exactly which pages to index and which to skip.
- sitemap.xml with all public pages and their last modification dates.
- Privacy page redesign with proper GDPR-compliant sections and clear structure.
These changes brought our SEObility score to 95%. More importantly, they help new users find DealMonitor when searching for price tracking tools.
Frontend Test Suite
We introduced Vitest as our frontend testing framework. The initial suite covers 26 tests across critical components: language detection, translation loading, price formatting, and URL validation.
Tests are not glamorous, but they are the reason we can ship features confidently. Every change is validated against these tests automatically, catching regressions before they reach production. We plan to expand the suite with every release.
Desktop Navigation
DealMonitor started as a mobile-first application, with navigation handled entirely through a burger menu. For desktop users, this was one click too many. v0.8 adds a persistent desktop navigation bar that gives you direct access to your dashboard, account settings, and the blog without opening a menu.
The mobile experience remains unchanged. The burger menu continues to work exactly as before on smaller screens. The desktop nav appears only when you have enough screen space to benefit from it.
Looking Forward
v0.8 is about polish and stability. It is the kind of release that makes everything else work better. Dark mode makes late-night deal hunting comfortable. Error monitoring helps us fix problems faster. The test suite prevents us from introducing new bugs. And the blog gives us a way to communicate directly with our users.
These improvements are live now. Sign in and toggle dark mode in the menu to see the new look. And if you notice anything off, Sentry will probably tell us before you do, but we always appreciate the feedback.
