How to figure out what websites are built with

Every so often I’ll get a random tech question from a graphic designer friend.
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This week she texted me about a web design she wanted to replicate – “hey, I know you know how to scan the developer code. Is this site custom or a template?”
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It’s not magic to find out how things are made.
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Truth is, (almost) everything’s hidden in plain site – and it’s actually somewhat hard to hide what someone’s using to create their site (or course or e-commerce store).
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Here’s the quick trick to figuring out HOW a website is made.
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​First, go to https://builtwith.com and enter in the website address you’re curious about. ​
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If the site isn’t blocked, you’ll be able to find out everything from where they host their site, to what platform they’re using, to their newsletter software and what they’re using to measure metrics. While there’s a few sites that don’t give up the tech stack goods, usually you’ll be able to see exactly what they’ve got going on under the hood.
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Now if you can’t use the built with tool (or if you want more detailed info), you can do the following.
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In your browser (I use Google Chrome), go to View > Developer > View Source.​
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Doing this will bring up a page that looks like a lot of random code (it’s actually markup language – this is what specifies the structure and formatting of a web page).
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To figure out what platform or theme something is using, there’s a few things I look for.
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First, I fire up CMD + F (this is the shortcut for “find” on a mac) and search for “wordpress” – if you see that (or if you see the phrase “wp-content”) it’s a WordPress site.
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Next, to find the theme that someone is using, I search for the word “themes.” Now if it’s a custom theme, the theme author will often rename the theme (I usually name mine as the name of the client plus the year created).
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​(You can also use this WordPress specific tool if you don’t want to play hide and seek searching through the source for the theme – https://whatwpthemeisthat.com.)
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Now, what if it’s NOT a WordPress site? Here’s what to look for (doing the same view source technique). In general, you just need to look for multiple instances of the platform word.
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For Shopify – search for the word “shopify”
​For Squarespace – search for the word “squarespace”
​For Webflow – search for the word “webflow”
​For Kajabi – search for the word “kajabi”
​For Showit – search for the word “showit” – to note: Showit sites use WordPress for the blog back-end, so you may see WordPress listed in the source code. In that case, look for “showit” to confirm that it is a Showit site.
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​And one more quick hack to find out who designed and/or developed the site.

Look in the footer (the very bottom of the website) for “designed by” or a link named “site credits” for a link to the agency or designer.

If there aren’t any site credits, view source and search for “style.css” – often the designer will comment in the code with their info.

Use the builtwith.com tool mentioned above – sometimes you’ll see an “agency” listing with the relevant info.

Google the site name plus “designer” or “portfolio” – often the designer will put the site in their portfolio.