Having access to a CMS Detector is important if you want to know how to find the CMS, Platform or Technology used by a Website. CMS stands for Content Management System and it refers to the environment in which a website operates. By knowing the type of CMS being used you ca get a feel for the scripts and templates that might be installed.
Website Platform Types
For example, there are many CMS’ available for those enthusiastic about starting their own website or developing applications or templates for such. There is WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, Drupal and Sharepoint, the most popular, and then there are many others that can fall in line. You can find out which CMS a specific website is using by using Chrome Extensions, FireFox Add Ons, and many other online tools that will be outlined below.
How do CMS detectors work?
CMS detectors help you find out the CMS of a website by automatically scanning the source code of the website that your are investigating. They also analyze the Framework in order to determine with certainty the type of Content Delivery System that is being used. The end result allows you to know, not only what the CMS is but also, the types of scripts/plugins installed and many other pieces of useful information that can come in handy for the regular programmer. That’s enough explaining! Here is a list of all the ways that you can gain access to a website platform checker or CMS detector.
How to Know A Website’s Platform
We’ll start by looking at the various CMS detectors for chrome that will allow you to find out what platform a website is running.
Chrome Extensions to detect CMS/Platform of a Website
W3Techs
W3Techs is one of the most robust extensions available for chrome when it comes to analyzing the backbone of a website. With this extension you can get near complete information of the website including:
- Website Background
- Content Management System (CMS)
- Server Side Programming Languages/Client Side Programming Languages
- Javascript Library
- Markup Language
- Character Encoding
- Image File Formats
- Site Elements
- SSL Certificate Authorities
- Social Widgets
- Web Server
- Traffic Analysis
- Advertising Networks
- Domain
- Language Etc…
As you can see you can get a ton load of data by using the extension.
Appspector
This extension will help web developer to inspect web framework / CMS and javascript library running on current browsing website. An icon will appear on address bar indicates the detected framework. Version detecting is being implemented.
Currently, this extension can detect more than 100 popular CMS and javascript libraries, and more will be added in future releases. Visit extension website for more detail.
Wappalyzer
Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more
BuiltWith
Perhaps the most famous CMS detector/platform sniffer on the web. Find out what the website you are visiting is built with using this extension.
The BuiltWith Chrome Extension lets you find out what a website is built with by a simple click on the builtwith icon!
BuiltWith is a web site profiler tool. Upon looking up a page, BuiltWith returns all the technologies it can find on the page. BuiltWith’s goal is to help developers, researchers and designers find out what technologies pages are using which may help them to decide what technologies to implement themselves.
Now let us discuss the FireFox Add Ons/CMS Detectors for FireFox that will allow you to know the platform on which a website runs.
FireFox Extensions to detect CMS/Platform of a Website
W3Techs
Yes, they also have a FireFox Add On. The functionalities are much the same as the Chrome extension listed above.
Wappalyzer
Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems,eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more. You can Browse the full list applications Wappalyzer detects if you need to by following the link.
These two are also available on Chrome. Now, let’s have a look at the ways in which you can use websites specifically developed to find information with regard to the contents of other sites.
BuiltWith
Trends, Intelligence and Internet Research
Founded in 2007, BuiltWith® is a website profiler, lead generation, competitive analysis and business intelligence tool providing technology adoption, e commerce data and usage analytics for the internet.
BuiltWith technology tracking includes widgets, analytics, frameworks, content management systems, advertisers, content delivery networks, web standards and web servers to name some of the technology categories they cover.
CMS Detector
Online Webtools has got a very nice CMS detector application which can be used just to find out the Content Management System used by a website or Framework used by a site.
W3Techs
The goal is to collect information about the usage of various types of technologies used for building and running websites, and to produce and publish surveys that give insights into that subject.
Guess Scritch
This tool will analyze websites and attempt to detect the platform, language, framework and other technologies used for any website. No plugins or extensions required and works with any browser!
WhatCMS
WhatCMS.org looks at a variety of factors within a webpage to determine what CMS a website is using, but it is admittedly not 100% accurate.
Do you know of any other ways to check what CMS a website is using? If you do then be sure to let us know so that we can expand the list. Thanks for reading.
The cms detector Firefox extensions were lacking to say the least. I had to use the chrome versions for better functionality.
Each detector has their pros and cons. Glad that you found one that works for you. Thanks for reading our list of best cms detectors.
As far as Chrome Extensions to detect CMS goes, builtwith is the best.
Builtwith does a good job as a platform detector. It also has many other features that are useful. Thanks for you comment.
Most website framework detectors do a good job but I have to agree that builtwith does the best job.
Nice. I see you’ve already decided what the best cms detector is. Thanks for you comment.
This is a cms detector online resource page. I very much appreciate it because I like to try various website platform sniffing tools to get a feel for which ones offer the most in dept/accurate analysis.
Thank you. I’m glad that our top cms detectors list promised some information/help for you.