How to find out what CMS a website is using?

[dailypress]

How do I find out what CMS a random website is using? I like the Themes and functionality and would like to use the same CMS on my own site.

ServerSiders gives you info on some websites, but not new ones!

any other suggestions? I know for a fact its not Drupal for several reasons, the simple test being example.com/user gives a No Page Found error. And of course a million other reasons.

Im guessing its WordPress, but how do I know?

[martinibuster]

Try examinng the CSS files then running a small snippet, something unique, through a search engine. Sometimes there are support pages relative to the CMS that show up. That's of course if there's no indication in the source code, nestled in the comments.

As for Wordpress, the default login is /wp-login.php

[dailypress]

thank you Martinibuster. Apparently its not WP then either. I was wrong!

[mack]

Sometimes you will also see comments within the html. Viewing source might give you some clues.

Mack.

[Dijkgraaf]

You could always e-mail the webmaster of the website and ask them.

[rocknbil]

... the simple test being example.com/user gives a No Page Found error.

As for Wordpress, the default login is /wp-login.php

A note here, one of the things that makes open source CMS's so vulnerable is that the potential hacker can rely on the default locations of things. If the installation has been done without altering these, they can conjecture a lot of other recommended changes in the interest of best security practices aren't done as well.

My point is, testing for the default locations and/or settings in an open source CMS is not conclusive, especially if the developer is on the ball.

What makes you conclude that it's even a CMS? Or that the theme is not custom created?

If I were to approach this question, I'd probably pick something up from the source code that is likely not to have changed. One awesome (annoying) example is when you see MM_[anything] in the source code, it stands a 99% probability of being cranked out in Dreamweaver.

So look at something in the source of the "suspect" CMS and do a site: search for that. It can be anything, a chunk of widget code, a CSS selector, element ID or name, find something relatively unique and that will likely smoke out the original source. Or not, if it's custom created.

[choster]

As rocknbil notes, the lack of /user is not a clear-cut sign that Drupal isn't in use. The White House recently switched over to Drupal with much fanfare, but you won't find the login link that easily :-).

But by the same token, the people behind a high profile website are probably going to brag about it somewhere, which means you're quite often able to find a presentation, press release, white paper, or other piece of documentation. That, I find, is more reliable than looking for clues in the HTML source.

[dailypress]

You could always e-mail the webmaster of the website and ask them.

I doubt most people respond. They probably think it will raise competition knowing someone is analyzing their website.

[brotherhood of LAN]

The <meta name="generator"> tag is used by a lot of CMS's, that alongside the "powered by" tag some have at the footer.

Also, try copying and pasting some of the navbars or "template" text into a search engine.

Some people remove the 'fingerprints' from their CMS's because spammers find them this way.

[luvvips]

Through the source code but if you are using the firefox you can download firefox addon via the below link [addons.mozilla.org...]
or search Wappalyzer 1.7.1 add-ons in firefox and download.