LaunchRanked

Website technology checker: what CMS is this site?

Enter a URL. We read the site's headers, cookies, generator tags and the files its page loads, and list the CMS or site builder, framework, host or CDN, analytics and tools we can identify, with the evidence for each.

Short answer: enter a URL. The result names the CMS or site builder, framework, host or CDN, analytics and common tools the site gives away, and shows what we saw for each one.

How detection works

We look for what a site can’t easily hide, in four places:

  • Response headers, such as server, x-powered-by, cf-ray and x-vercel-id.
  • Cookie names the response sets, for example Shopify’s _shopify_y.
  • Generator tags in the HTML, where WordPress, Ghost, Hugo, Astro and Gatsby put their name and often their version.
  • Files the page loads and markers in its code: /wp-content/, cdn.shopify.com, framerusercontent.com, __NEXT_DATA__, analytics and chat scripts.

How to read a detection

High confidence means a signal only that technology produces, or two good ones. Medium is one signal that nearly always means it. Version numbers are what the site says about itself. This is a heuristic: sites can remove generator tags and fake headers, so a missing technology proves nothing, and a headless setup (a Next.js front end on a WordPress back end) may show only the front end.

Cloudflare in the list tells you a site sits behind that CDN, not where its server is. A Universal Analytics tag is flagged as retired because Google stopped processing Universal Analytics data on July 1, 2023; a site that still carries only that tag isn’t collecting data in Google Analytics.

If your site is on one of these platforms

When the site runs on WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Framer, Wix, Ghost or Notion, AI SEO Autopilot publishes to it directly. Next.js sites can use our hosted blog or a GitHub pull request per article, and Markdown or MDX sites such as Astro, Hugo, Jekyll and Gatsby can use the pull request too. Anything else gets a signed webhook, or you download each article as Markdown or HTML. The result says which applies to the site you checked.

Want every header the server sent? Use the HTTP header checker. To see the security headers graded, use the security headers checker.

Questions

How do I tell what CMS a website uses?

Three places give most sites away: a generator meta tag in the page source (WordPress, Ghost, Hugo and Astro add one), asset paths such as /wp-content/ or cdn.shopify.com, and the response headers. This tool reads all three in one pass and shows what it saw. When a site hides all three, nothing can say for sure.

Can it tell me where a site is hosted?

Sometimes. Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages and a few WordPress hosts announce themselves in headers. Behind a CDN such as Cloudflare we see the CDN, not the server behind it. We don't look up IP addresses or hosting companies.

Why does it list React for a Next.js site?

Next.js, Gatsby and Remix are built on React, so we list React as implied and label it "Runs on another detection". We inferred it from the framework rather than seeing React itself.

Why did it find nothing, or the wrong thing?

The site may be custom-built, a CDN may strip the revealing headers, the HTML may be nearly empty because the page renders in the browser, or the site may have refused our request. A headless setup can also show only the front end. Treat a result as evidence, not a verdict.

Is it okay to run this on any site?

Yes. It requests the public page once, as LaunchRankedBot, the way a crawler would. It doesn't log in, submit forms or probe for weaknesses.

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