How to determine the CMS of the site? 10 ways to find out what platform your site is made on

The website engine is the platform on which it is based. To determine the CMS of a resource, it is not at all necessary to have any special skills. You can do this directly in the browser window, even without being an administrator. Having carried out such monitoring of competing resources, you can choose the most optimal engine for the future site.

When is it necessary to determine the CMS of a site?

CMS – software, is a tool through which the site is managed. The CMS platform allows you to work with the following options:

• information contained on the site;
• resource database.

The use of ready-made CMS does not require knowledge in the field of programming; for this, the resource has an admin panel where you need to enter a login and password in order to gain access to the engine.

It is usually required to determine the CMS on which the site is developed in such cases:

1. When there are no ideas before creating your own web resource.
2. A third-party site attracted with its design and easy navigation.
3. It is necessary to find out all the shortcomings of popular engines in order to choose the optimal CMS for the future resource.

How to find out which engine the site is on, manually

It is often possible to determine what type of CMS a site is running on without leaving the resource itself. It will be possible to do this manually according to the source code. Finding such information is often obtained completely free of charge and without the help of third-party services.

CMS name in page source code

The fastest way to determine the site’s CMS is to access the html code directly. The determination is carried out according to the following algorithm:

On the page of the site whose engine you want to define, press the key combination U+Ctrl. This will bring up the source code.
In the html encoding, find the line with the content meta name=”generator” content.

You can find out the name of the CMS from the information after the word “content”. All work is carried out online and does not require IT knowledge.

Please note that you can also find examples of sites on a specific engine using this site – https://publicwww.com/

File paths

You can also define CMS using folder addresses, which are often specified in the structure. Most developers of Internet resources prefer to remove the name of the engine in the source page code, or the site can be self-written.

If the lines with the path to the js files contain phrases like “wp-content”, this indicates that the engine is based on WordPress.

Mention in the footer

The footer or footer of the site often contains information, where there is also a content management system. As a rule, the name of the CMS will be indicated in small letters at the very bottom. This is only possible if the site developers used a template that does not always remove the name of the engine from the footer.

You can also contact the developers of the Internet resource directly. Sometimes they leave a link in the footer for visitors to ask questions.

Link structure analysis

Another fairly simple way to determine the CMS is to carefully study the link structure of the site. However, this method works only if the URLs are generated without the participation of the so-called CNC.

Some links contain segments that talk about the engine used. For example, WordPress is characterized by the presence of “site name/p=123”.

admin login address

The address leading to the web resource administration mode may contain certain words indicating the type of engine:

• 1СBitrix — name/auth;
• WordPress – title/wp-admin;
• Drupal – name /user/;
• Joomla – name/administrator;
• OpenCart – name/admin.

You can judge the engine only if the introduction of any of the lines leads to the admin field, where you need to specify a username and password to enter the system.

Service pages in the robots.txt file

Additionally, information in robots.txt can help. The CMS is determined by following a link, such as a resource/robots.txt. It is enough to drive this combination into the address bar of the browser, the information is in the public domain.

HTTP headers

A popular, but not always working, way to test a site’s engine is to examine the http headers. It is advisable to use the Google Chrome browser, which contains the Http Headers extension. The server always sends a response from visited sites to this utility, where all information about the URL is stored.

In addition, the extension saves “cookies” in itself, where sets of characters indicating a particular engine can also be seen. For example, if the phrase “wp-settings” is present, this indicates WordPress at the core of the site.

Using free services to check CMS online

You can determine the engine using special services, among which there are free programs. This method is considered the fastest and most reliable, the user will get the result in just a few seconds. It is enough to drive in the URL of the site in a special field for entering data.

The most popular and simple free services for determining CMS:

1. Whatcms. The service allows you to determine not only the name of the engine of the Internet resource, but also the version on which it is made. It has a very simple interface and performance.
2. Built with. A fairly simple program that quickly determines the platform on which the Internet portal is made. In addition to the name of the engine, Built With provides information about installed plugins.
3. Itrack. The simplest service that will quickly determine the name of the engine, indicating its version. Able to recognize more than 80 types of platforms. Also available as a browser extension.
4. Webdatastats. The database of this free service contains up to 1000 platforms. It defines not only little-known CMS, but also popular website builders, frameworks, and desktop software.
5. 2IP. The service database contains about 70 engines that the system is able to determine. Among the disadvantages of the program is too slow action, the waiting time for a response can be up to 3-5 minutes. As a result, 2IP gives a list of engines, and next to it indicates what features of it were found during the analysis of the Internet resource.
6. Be1. Another not very popular, but useful service for determining the platform on which the Internet portal was created. Allows you to find out the engine of several sites at once. One of the advantages of the service is the ability to copy and share a link with the results of checking a web resource.

All free services are usually limited in scope. You can use them only to recognize the name of the engine.

Using a browser extension to define a CMS

This method is only suitable for users of Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Yandex. Browser.

The most popular extensions that define the type of CMS:

1. RDS Bar. The extension is suitable for many browsers – Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Yandex. Browser. This tool is often used by SEOs and webmasters. For beginners, the extension can be difficult to understand due to the presence of a large set of functions.
2. Wappalyzer. An ideal tool to find out the engine of an Internet resource through Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers. The extension is able to determine the platform of the resource automatically. In addition, the built-in service recognizes libraries, frameworks and analytical systems.

First you need to install the utility, and then, being on the resource itself, press the right mouse button. In addition, extensions provide the ability to find out the type of engine by entering the URL in a special interface field.

Server and desktop parsers

An additional way to determine the site engine is to use server-side or desktop-type parsers. These are special programs that will allow you to obtain the necessary data after purchasing and installing the software. Differ in wide functionality and coverage. For example, the desktop parser A-Parser is able to detect over 600 platforms (engines).

There are many ways to get the version and type of site engine. Most of them do not require investments and special skills, but at the same time they determine only the name of the platform. To get more detailed information about a web resource, you can use paid software.