How to find out programming language of website?

Discussion in 'Programming' started by mspider, May 27, 2011.

  1. #1
    Which is the easiest way to determine programming language of web site or web application?

    I wonder in which language and framework is web site build?
    For example like mailchimp.com or allhours.com...

    Thanks for any tips and suggestion...
     
    mspider, May 27, 2011 IP
  2. sautaja

    sautaja Peon

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    #2
    It is not an easy job. But sometimes you can definitely find something by looking at the file extension, eg: test.php (PHP) , test.aspx (ASP.net), and test.cgi (Perl)
     
    sautaja, May 27, 2011 IP
  3. mspider

    mspider Guest

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    #3
    Looks like this is harder than I thought. I tried builtwith.com which is okay but not what Im looking for...
     
    mspider, May 30, 2011 IP
  4. bigmac_lfc

    bigmac_lfc Peon

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    #4
    View source and sometimes you will get clues by seeing what scripts etc are being called, also sometimes there will be meta information or comments that might have useful info. As was said above the usual file extensions. Also on some sites you can add extensions and see if they get resolved properly
     
    bigmac_lfc, May 31, 2011 IP
  5. regdom

    regdom Peon

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    #5
    It looks like a very custom (and expensive) app/script,it may be php
     
    regdom, May 31, 2011 IP
  6. X P S

    X P S Well-Known Member

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    #6
    allhours.com/index gave me this url in the address bar: https://allhours.com/Error/Error.htm?aspxerrorpath=/index still it is pretty difficult to say but may be they are using aspx!

    http://mailchimp.com/index.php returns mailchimp.com while for any other try (i.e. index.asp) it gives error page, so its in PHP.


    It says in its footer:
    http://builtwith.com/TermsAndConditions.aspx
     
    X P S, May 31, 2011 IP
  7. jiteshjk

    jiteshjk Active Member

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    #7
    Wappalyzer for Firefox/Chrome shows you which language/OS etc. websites use: wappalyzer.com/download
     
    jiteshjk, Aug 19, 2013 IP
  8. ThePHPMaster

    ThePHPMaster Well-Known Member

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    #8
    Download Firebug, then when loading the page inspect and view the headers. You can figure out the type of language it is running on by the system or x-powered-by headers. For example, mailchimp.com says server: nginx, which is mostly used alongside php and allhours.com says X-Powered-By: ASP.NET.
     
    ThePHPMaster, Aug 19, 2013 IP
  9. Richard Vallée

    Richard Vallée Greenhorn

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    #9
    There is no bullet-proof way of doing this. Most websites will have headers that indicate what it could be running, but it's not entirely reliable. It depends on whether the site wants this information to be known or not. You simply can't know for sure if they're not trying to spoof their technology as a faulty security-by-obscurity measure.

    Most large websites will reliably report.
     
    Richard Vallée, Aug 21, 2013 IP
  10. crazyblogger

    crazyblogger Active Member

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    #10
    This is a perfect method. But as usual the x-Powered-by can be hidden but most developer ignore it. So, as far as I know this is the most accurate method of finding the language used.
     
    crazyblogger, Aug 22, 2013 IP
  11. mmerlinn

    mmerlinn Prominent Member

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    #11
    There is NO fool proof way of determining which programming language built the website. For example, my website is built and maintained using FoxPro Mac, but there is no way in the world you could ever know that unless I told you.
     
    mmerlinn, Sep 14, 2013 IP