Can you detect what framework a website is running on or what cms they use?

Question

If you have a suspicion that a website is running on a certain framework or using a certain CMS is there a way to tell for certain? I have found methods for drupal using the Live HTTP headers plugin (http://www.lullabot.com/articles/is-site-running-drupal) but I am currently looking for a way to figure out if a site is using the Zend framework. If you are aware of any methods of determining the framework or cms of a website I think this would be a good place to collect that information.

Thanks!

Answer 1

There's no sure fire way to tell. Looking at the source, comparing file names, directories and includes should give you a good idea but you can't be certain.

Answer 2

• 100 Look at the HTML generated code
• 200 Identify the JS scripts and relevant code that might be added by the CMS
• 300 Google a portion of code that seems indicative of the framework (like a particular function)
• 400 If you get many results indicating the same CMS you're lucky, else go to 300

Answer 3

If I'm really keen to find out, the first thing I try is builtwith.com .

Answer 4

This applies more to frameworks such as CodeIgniter, where the developer has complete control over the rendered code, so searching for part of that won't give much in the way of results.

A lot of the time, unless they're really trying to hide it, is look for the license.txt file.

Another method is to force a 404, which normally has some default template, which may be the original, and although it doesn't say the framework, you quickly recognize these.

Another method I've used to identify them is by the name of the cookie it leaves, I know CodeIgniter leaves cookies called ci_session by default

As with most methods, non of these are gauranteed to work, as they can all be changed, but may help point you in the right direction

Answer 5

http://guess.scritch.org does pretty well for alot of CMS's, frameworks and platforms.