How to Find Out What Platform a Website Is Using: 6 Ways

Learning how to find out what platform a website is using takes about a minute, and most checks need no code. Run a browser extension, search the page source and test one URL. Together they name the platform on almost every store.

I tested each method in October 2026 on live sites: Allbirds, Gymshark, Nikon Canada, Cox & Cox, Wix, Squarespace and Webflow. I also checked woocommerce.com and our own devdiggers.com. I used Chrome, curl, and the Wappalyzer and BuiltWith extensions.

This guide shows how to tell what eCommerce platform a site is using with clues you can see yourself. You will get a table of the exact clues for each platform. You will also learn what to do when a store hides them.

How to Find Out What Platform a Website Is Using in Three Checks

Here is how to find out what platform a website is using: run an extension, search the source, and test a platform URL. Each check takes under a minute. Two matching clues from different checks name the platform with confidence.

Rank the clues by strength. A platform-specific file, such as a CDN host or a store ID in a header, is a strong clue. A plain word such as Shopify in a blog post is weak, because a store can mention a platform without running on it.

When a weak clue disagrees with a strong one, trust the strong one. Start with the tool, because it is the fastest. Move to the source and a URL only when the tool is unsure or you want proof.

Use a Browser Extension to Check the Website Platform

A browser extension is the quickest way to check the website platform. Wappalyzer and BuiltWith both read a page and list the technologies behind it. The result appears in a small popup, grouped by type, so you can read it at a glance.

Follow these steps:

1. Install the extension: Add Wappalyzer or the BuiltWith extension to Chrome from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open the site: Visit the home page of the store you want to check.
3. Click the extension icon: Wappalyzer groups its results by type, so find the eCommerce and CMS groups.
   
4. Cross-check with BuiltWith: Its popup has tabs such as Tech, Detailed and Meta, and each lists the tools it found.
   

People often ask how to find out what platform a website uses, and this is the fastest answer. On our own site, Wappalyzer listed WordPress as the CMS and WooCommerce as the eCommerce platform. That matches how devdiggers.com is built.

Tools read the same public clues you can read by hand. They can be wrong on stores that hide those clues, and they may lag after a replatform. Use the next methods to confirm.

Search the Page Source for Platform Clues

The page source holds the platform’s fingerprints, such as script hosts, file paths and meta tags. Open the source, press the find shortcut and search for a platform name or CDN host. A hit on a platform-specific file path is stronger proof than a plain word.

Use these steps in Chrome:

1. Open the page source: Right-click an empty part of the page and choose View page source, or press Ctrl+U (Cmd+Option+U on a Mac).
2. Open the search box: Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac).
3. Search for a clue: Type a marker from the table below and check the match count.
   

Here is what I found on real stores:

• Shopify: The Allbirds source holds cdn.shopify.com 13 times and the line Shopify.shop = "weareallbirds.myshopify.com".
• BigCommerce: The Nikon Canada store has the tag <meta name='platform' content='bigcommerce.stencil' /> and loads files from cdn11.bigcommerce.com.
• Magento: The Cox & Cox source has 46 mentions of Magento_, 18 text/x-magento-init scripts and file paths that start with /static/version.
• WooCommerce: The woocommerce.com source has a generator tag that reads WooCommerce 11.3.0-dev and files under /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/.
• Squarespace: The Squarespace home page source defines Static.SQUARESPACE_CONTEXT.
• Webflow: The Webflow home page source begins with a comment that says “This site was created in Webflow.”

Note: A miss proves little. On our own extensions page, a search for /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce finds nothing, because our theme loads WooCommerce files only on store pages. A search for the word woocommerce still returns 342 matches.

Tip: Do not search for short fragments. My first Magento test searched for mage and matched every site I tried, because the word image contains it. Search for Magento_ instead.

Test a URL to Detect an eCommerce Platform

Type a platform-specific path after the domain and read the reply. A Shopify store answers /cart.js with a JSON cart, and a WooCommerce store answers its Store API path with a product list. A real answer on one of these paths is strong proof.

These paths help you detect eCommerce platform clues without any tool.

Try these paths one at a time:

1. Shopify cart: Add /cart.js to the domain. The Shopify Ajax cart reference documents this path, and Allbirds returned a JSON cart with a token and "currency":"USD".
   
2. Shopify products: Add /products.json. Gymshark returned a products list. Allbirds answered with a rate limit message, so try a second store if you get one.
3. WooCommerce products: Add /wp-json/wc/store/v1/products. The WooCommerce Store API returned our product list, with prices in cents.
   
4. Magento account page: Add /customer/account/login/. Cox & Cox answered with its Customer Login page, and so did /checkout/cart/.

Run the same path on a store you know is on another platform. The Allbirds store answered /customer/account/login/ with a 404, which shows the path is Magento-specific.

A path that returns a 404 only rules out that platform on that path. Some stores block these paths or hide them behind a custom front end.

Read the Response Headers

Response headers sometimes name the platform outright. Open the Network tab, reload the page and click the first request to see them. Look in its Response headers for a name that belongs to one platform, such as a store ID.

Not every platform sends one, so treat a missing header as no information.

Use these steps in Chrome:

1. Open DevTools: Press F12, or Ctrl+Shift+I (Cmd+Option+I on a Mac).
2. Open the Network tab: Click Network, then reload the page.
3. Pick the first request: Click the page request at the top of the list.
4. Read the response headers: Look for the names below. The Chrome DevTools network reference explains the panel.

You can also read headers without a browser. This curl command prints them and keeps only the BigCommerce line:

curl -sI -A "Mozilla/5.0" https://store.nikon.ca/ | grep -i "x-bc"

These are the headers I saw:

• BigCommerce: Nikon Canada sent x-bc-store-id: 1000915007. The x-bc prefix is the clue.
• Wix: The Wix home page sent x-wix-request-id and server: Pepyaka.
• Squarespace: The Squarespace home page sent server: Squarespace.
• Shopify: Allbirds sent only server: cloudflare to my test, so do not rely on headers alone for Shopify.

How to Find Out What Website Builder Was Used

To find out what website builder was used, look for the builder’s own asset host or its signature in the source. Hosted builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Webflow load every page from their own domains. That makes them easier to name than a self-hosted store.

Look for these signs:

• Wix: The Wix home page source loads files from wixstatic.com 183 times in my test.
• Squarespace: Look for static1.squarespace.com and the Static.SQUARESPACE_CONTEXT object.
• Webflow: Look for the “created in Webflow” comment, the data-wf-site attribute and w-nav classes.

A builder that is not hosted, such as WordPress, leaves clues in its own folders instead. A /wp-content/ path or a wp-json link points to WordPress. If a store sits on WordPress, check for WooCommerce next.

If you are choosing a builder for your own site, our guide to create a WordPress site from scratch shows the self-hosted route. It takes about an hour and needs no code.

What to Do When Detection Tools Fail

When detection tools fail, the site is usually headless. A headless store runs its customer-facing pages on a separate framework and talks to the platform through an API. The homepage then carries no platform names, so you must look at the network traffic.

I hit this on two stores. The Paul Smith and Liverpool FC store pages sent x-powered-by: Nuxt, and neither page held a Magento, Shopify or WooCommerce marker. Both pages showed a front-end framework and nothing about the commerce platform behind it.

Here is what to try:

1. Open the Network tab: Reload a product page and filter requests by Fetch/XHR.
2. Look for API hosts: A request to a myshopify.com host or a graphql.json path points to Shopify.
   
3. Check the checkout: Add a product to the cart and see which domain the checkout opens on.
4. Read the footer: Some stores still print a powered by line.

If none of this works, treat the answer as unknown. Do not guess from the theme or the design, because a similar look can sit on any platform.

What I Found on Real Stores

Every platform in this guide was checked on a live site in October 2026. The table lists the store, the platform I found and the clue that settled it. Where a store hid its platform, the table says so plainly.

Site	Platform found	Strongest clue
Allbirds	Shopify	Shopify.shop line and /cart.js JSON
Gymshark	Shopify	/products.json returned a product list
Nikon Canada store	BigCommerce	bigcommerce.stencil meta tag and x-bc-store-id header
Cox & Cox	Magento	Magento_ scripts and a working /customer/account/login/
woocommerce.com	WooCommerce	Generator tag and /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/
devdiggers.com	WooCommerce	Store API products at /wp-json/wc/store/v1/products
Wix	Wix	x-wix-request-id header and wixstatic.com files
Squarespace	Squarespace	server: Squarespace header
Paul Smith	Not shown	Page sent x-powered-by: Nuxt, no platform marker
Liverpool FC store	Not shown	Page sent x-powered-by: Nuxt, no platform marker

Two lessons came out of this test. First, the strongest proof was always a platform-specific file or path, never a plain word. Second, two of ten stores gave no answer, so a quarter of your checks may end as unknown.

Gymshark and Allbirds also show why you should test more than one path. Allbirds rate limited /products.json but answered /cart.js without trouble.

Which Method Should You Use?

Use a tool for speed, the page source for proof, and a URL or header for a second confirmation. Switch to the network tab only for headless stores. Two clues that agree are enough for most research, so do not spend an hour on one store.

Why does this matter? Knowing a competitor’s platform tells you what features they can add cheaply. It also shows which stack your own shoppers expect.

If you study rivals, pair this with our guide to PDP in eCommerce and our look at the product listing page in eCommerce.

Conclusion

Now you know how to find out what platform a website is using. Start with Wappalyzer or BuiltWith, confirm in the page source, and finish with one URL or header test. Two matching clues are enough for most stores.

When the clues are missing, check the network tab for a headless setup, and accept an unknown answer when nothing shows. Once you know the platform, you can benchmark rivals against your own numbers. Our guide to calculate customer lifetime value in eCommerce is a good next step.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)