What is a CMS Detector?
A CMS Detector is a tool that determines what type of content management system (CMS) is used to power a website. A CMS is a piece of software that allows you to build, manage and publish web content without writing any code from scratch (such as WordPress, Shopify or Wix).
Our CMS Detector will download the source of the site's page to scan for known strings, URLs, and patterns that may indicate the running version of a website's CMS.
Detectable CMS Platforms?
The tool looks for signatures of these popular CMS platforms:
- WordPress — The majority of websites are powered by WordPress at 40% of internet sites. Detected through wp-content, wp-includes and wp-json directories. Found in wp-content, wp-includes and wp-json files.
- Shopify — The top e-commerce platform. It is identified by the presence of cdn.shopify and .myshopify in the URLs.
- Wix — A drag-and-drop website builder. Marked by wixstatic and WIX markers.
- Joomla — Open-source CMS. It can be detected by option=com_ and /media/jui/.
- Drupal — Enterprise CMS. The paths used to identify are defined in /sites/default/ paths.
- Squarespace — Website builder. Detected using references to static.squarespace.
- Magento — E-commerce platform. Detected by skin/frontend and varien signatures.
- Blogger — Google's blogging platform. Found through links on blogspot.com.
How to Use the CMS Detector
- Type in a web address (e.g.
https://www.example.com) or a domain name. - Click Detect CMS.
- Display the CMS platform name detected.
Why Detect a CMS?
- There are security issues with every CMS. To help security teams assess risk, identify the CMS.
- Competitive Analysis — Get to know what technologies are used to create their websites.
- Research development planning – Find out which CMS platforms are in demand in your field before you select one.
- Plugin/theme research — This is the process of narrowing down the possible plugins and themes that a site could be using.
Privacy
The source of the page is downloaded directly and analyzed client side using our tool. There is no storage, logging or sharing of URLs, results or IP addresses.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is CMS detected?
The tool downloads HTML source code of a target page and looks for certain unique characteristics (like a specific path to CSS/JS files, meta tags, HTML comments, etc.) which are representative of each of the CMS platforms.
Is the CMS Detector free?
Yes. There are no sign-ups, limits or captchas. No sign-ups, no limits, and no captchas.
If you don't find a CMS, what then?
The website could have a custom-built solution, a headless CMS, or a platform not included in our detection signatures. It can even be a static site built using a tool such as Hugo or Jekyll.
Is it possible for a site to have more than one CMS?
However, it's not uncommon for some businesses to have more than one of these systems, such as a WordPress blog on a Shopify store. The detector will display the names of all platform(s) it detects.