How to find out what CMS a website is using
You find a site's CMS in the code of its pages. WordPress leaves files under /wp-content/, Wix loads images from static.wixstatic.com, Shopify from cdn.shopify.com, and many platforms put their name in a generator tag. The CMS detector fetches the page the way a search engine does and looks for those traces. You get the platform, the version where it shows, the theme, the page builder and whether a shop runs on it. Run on wordpress.org on 25 October 2026, it found WordPress 7.2 with three kinds of evidence.
It works on your own site and on a competitor's, without a browser extension. Knowing what a rival built on tells you what they can change quickly, what they pay every month and how hard a move would be for them.
What the detector recognises, and from what
The traces each platform leaves in its pages. Two kinds of evidence or more make the answer certain.
- WordPress
- Trace in the code/wp-content/, /wp-includes/, generator, api.w.org
- What else you seeversion, theme, Elementor or Divi, WooCommerce
- Shopify
- Trace in the codecdn.shopify.com, x-shopid header
- What else you seethe theme name
- Wix
- Trace in the codestatic.wixstatic.com, generator Wix.com Website Builder
- What else you seea hosted site builder
- Webflow
- Trace in the codedata-wf-site, website-files.com
- What else you seea hosted site builder
- Squarespace, Framer, Duda
- Trace in the codetheir own image servers and generator
- What else you seethe platform
- Drupal, Joomla, TYPO3
- Trace in the codegenerator, /sites/default/files/, /media/jui/
- What else you seean open source CMS, version where shown
- Next.js, Nuxt, Astro
- Trace in the code/_next/static/, /_nuxt/, astro-island
- What else you seea custom-built site or a headless CMS behind it
A custom site often shows only its framework, not a CMS. That is not a failure of the check: there is no CMS to find.
What the web is built with
What the web is built with
- WordPress39.6%
- No recognised CMS32.1%
- Shopify5.3%
- Wix4.2%
- Squarespace2.4%
- Joomla1.1%
- Webflow0.8%
- Drupal0.6%
Share of all websites, measured by W3Techs on 24 October 2026. No recognised CMS covers custom-built sites and sites that hide their platform.
What the platform tells you
WordPress is open source and, by W3Techs' count, powers 58.3 percent of all sites with a known CMS. You can move it to any host and there is a plugin for nearly everything, at the price of updates, backups and plugins to watch. Whether that is safe enough is covered in is WordPress safe, and why it gets slow in why is WordPress so slow.
Wix, Squarespace and Webflow are site builders with hosting included: a subscription and no maintenance, but the site does not come with you when you leave. Wix vs Squarespace and Webflow or WordPress weigh them up.
Shopify is a shop platform with cart, payments and stock built in, charged per month and per sale, which weighs more as you grow. Wix vs Shopify puts the costs side by side.
Next.js, Nuxt or Astro point to a custom site, sometimes with a headless CMS behind it for editing. No standard admin panel, but the site does exactly what it should and often loads faster. Lovable vs WordPress looks at the newest way of building one.
Checking it yourself in the source
Open the page in your browser and view the source: Ctrl+U on Windows, Cmd+Option+U on a Mac. Search with Ctrl+F for these words:
| Search for | What it means |
|---|---|
| generator | the platform's name and sometimes its version, if the site shows it |
| wp-content | WordPress, with the theme name in the path after it |
| wixstatic | Wix |
| cdn.shopify.com | Shopify, with the theme name further on in Shopify.theme |
| data-wf-site | Webflow |
| _next/static | a site in Next.js, custom built |
When the detector finds nothing
Some sites hide their platform: no generator tag, images on their own domain, a CDN in front. The detector then says it recognises nothing. Sites that keep crawlers out through robots.txt are not read; we respect that. And it reads one page: a shop on a subdomain or a blog on another platform only shows when you enter that address. To see how a page loads, use the website speed test; to see how Google reads it, the SEO checker.
CMS detection questions
What CMS is this site using?
Paste the address into the detector. It reads the page and looks for the traces each platform leaves, such as /wp-content/ for WordPress or cdn.shopify.com for Shopify, and names the platform with how certain it is.
How can I tell if a website is built with WordPress?
Look in the page source for /wp-content/ or /wp-includes/, or a generator tag naming WordPress. The detector does this for you and shows the theme and page builder as well.
Can a site hide its CMS?
Yes. Removing the generator tag, serving files from its own domain and putting a CDN in front can hide most traces. The detector then reports that it recognises nothing.
Is the CMS detector free?
Yes, without an account. It reads the page you enter and stores nothing.