Is there such a thing available?

definitive · May 3, 2010

I remember reading a while back where someone mentioned that there was a way to tell what kind of a CMS a site was using. Is there such a site where you can simply plug a url in and it would tell you if it was using something like WP, Joomla, Drupal, etc.?

7on · May 3, 2010

"Usually" viewing the source would be good enough.

Cabbit · May 3, 2010

There is a Google Chrome extension that can do this, though i do not know its name.

definitive · May 3, 2010

7on said:
"Usually" viewing the source would be good enough.

yeah, but how would i know what it runs on if the system isn't mentioned specifically in the code? ex: i open up index.html or .php, and i search for "wordpress" or "drupal" or "joomla", and nothing comes up in the results. how else can i determine what they're using if it's a big site?

Ride9650 · May 3, 2010

definitive said:
yeah, but how would i know what it runs on if the system isn't mentioned specifically in the code? ex: i open up index.html or .php, and i search for "wordpress" or "drupal" or "joomla", and nothing comes up in the results. how else can i determine what they're using if it's a big site?

Yea, its never gonna be specifically mentioned. I think 7on was saying to use the source to see if there are any tell tale signs, for instance,
In wordpress, if the theme links to any assets within the theme folder itself, usually, its an absolute path which will follow this format
"www.mygreatsite.com/wp-content/themes"

Of course, the wp prefix could really stand for anything, but chances are its referring to wordpress.

Is there any particular reason you need to know?

Mhaddy · May 4, 2010

Ride9650 said:
Yea, its never gonna be specifically mentioned. I think 7on was saying to use the source to see if there are any tell tale signs, for instance,
In wordpress, if the theme links to any assets within the theme folder itself, usually, its an absolute path which will follow this format
"www.mygreatsite.com/wp-content/themes"

Of course, the wp prefix could really stand for anything, but chances are its referring to wordpress.

Is there any particular reason you need to know?

Sometimes it is specifically mentioned actually. You might see something like this on Joomla sites:

Code:

<meta name="generator" content="Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management" />

But I agree otherwise with what you said. Go to some sites where you know what CMS they're using and take a look at the source code. Get an idea for its content structure and URL naming scheme and see if you can recognize a familiar pattern. Then go to a site where you'd like to know and see if it matches up.

definitive · May 4, 2010

Ride9650 said:
Yea, its never gonna be specifically mentioned. I think 7on was saying to use the source to see if there are any tell tale signs, for instance,
In wordpress, if the theme links to any assets within the theme folder itself, usually, its an absolute path which will follow this format
"www.mygreatsite.com/wp-content/themes"

Of course, the wp prefix could really stand for anything, but chances are its referring to wordpress.

Is there any particular reason you need to know?

yeah, i know how to tell if a site is run using wordpress (most sites that utilize it usually use the default dir name). i'm just in the process of refreshing one of my sites, and i want to switch from wordpress to something new. i've been browsing around to see what the sites similar to mine are using, and from what i've seen most aren't on wordpress.

Cromulent · May 4, 2010

definitive said:
yeah, but how would i know what it runs on if the system isn't mentioned specifically in the code? ex: i open up index.html or .php, and i search for "wordpress" or "drupal" or "joomla", and nothing comes up in the results. how else can i determine what they're using if it's a big site?

If they use custom code, you will never know. Quite a few (most I imagine) big sites use their own systems.

jpyc7 · May 4, 2010

I realize all websites probably receive spam email to their webmaster email address, but one could maybe just ask them directly about their underlying technology.

That brings up a related question. If you are a web developer, is there any reason not to divulge the CMS you're using on a site you developed? Most websites belong to businesses whose main product is not the website. So is it a competitive disadvantage to disclose information about how their website is built?

VPrime · May 4, 2010

babyjenniferLB said:
There is a Google Chrome extension that can do this, though i do not know its name.

Chrome Sniffer

Cromulent · May 4, 2010

jpyc7 said:
That brings up a related question. If you are a web developer, is there any reason not to divulge the CMS you're using on a site you developed? Most websites belong to businesses whose main product is not the website. So is it a competitive disadvantage to disclose information about how their website is built?

Most of the time it would be meaningless. What would Apple put on their website? "Built with Apple CMS version 10"? What's the good in knowing that?

If a website is built with a community tool then it looks unprofessional to display that information on a corporate website. Plus it has probably been customised to a degree that it no longer really looks like the original code base anyway so that information would be useless anyway.

jpyc7 · May 5, 2010

Cromulent said:
jpyc7 said:

That brings up a related question. If you are a web developer, is there any reason not to divulge the CMS you're using on a site you developed? Most websites belong to businesses whose main product is not the website. So is it a competitive disadvantage to disclose information about how their website is built?

Click to expand...

Most of the time it would be meaningless. What would Apple put on their website? "Built with Apple CMS version 10"? What's the good in knowing that?

If a website is built with a community tool then it looks unprofessional to display that information on a corporate website. Plus it has probably been customised to a degree that it no longer really looks like the original code base anyway so that information would be useless anyway.

With respect to the proprietary system, I would actually think that Apple might want to proclaim that it is their own technology. It could seem more "professional". This mostly applies to technology companies.

Anyway, I wasn't actually thinking of websites putting that information on their website and whether that looks professional or not. I meant that in a person to person conversation, a developer could probably tell someone else what they used and their employer wouldn't care.

For example, Juniper Networks started with FreeBSD OS for their routers. Their competitors know it, but it doesn't help them very much (because you need much more for a router). For Juniper, the Linux die-hards engineer might not want to work for them while the FreeBSD devotees would, but this population of potential employees is insignificant compared to engineers who don't care.

Anyway, the OP mentioned learning what tool was used for similar looking sites to the one he/she wanted to develop. My guess is that they are all built with different CMSes and this information is unhelpful in making a choice.

Cromulent · May 5, 2010

jpyc7 said:
I meant that in a person to person conversation, a developer could probably tell someone else what they used and their employer wouldn't care.

Most web frameworks advertise big sites that use their framework so look on the framework sites themselves. Django, Ruby on Rails etc etc all do this.

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