How to detect WordPress Themes and Plugins

I’m proud to say that I’m a website stalker, I love looking at websites especially diy websites and working out how they are built, its how I learn and keep myself inspired.

If you’re like me and have visited a website and loved the way it looked, or seen a feature and was curious as to what plugin they used to achieve it or even wondered if they are also building it on WordPress.

Well, today is your lucky day, im going to show you how I do it and how easy for you to as well, don’t worry you don’t have to be able to read and understand the code.

Reading Code:

One of the easiest ways to tell if a site is using WordPress If you’re on a desktop computer is to check the source code. You can even see what theme and plugins the site is using.

Step One

1. Visit the website you want to check, in this case i’m checking WP Basics 101
2. Anywhere on the website – Right Click > View Source

Step Two

To identify if the site is using WordPress, In the source code you want to look for words like – WordPress, WP Content, WP-Includes, WP-json, Which means the website is using WordPress.

To identify what theme the website is using you want to look for /wp-content/themes/themename, in this example, the WP Basics 101 site is using the Astra theme so the code will be wp-content/themes/Astra.

To identify what plugins the website you want to look for /wp-content/plugins/pluginname, in this example the WP Basics 101 site is using WooCommerce so the code will be wp-content/plugins/woocommerce.

Tip: use Cmd + F on a mac or ctrl + f on windows to bring up a search tab and write the word you are looking for. E.g WordPress, Themes, Plugins

Using websites

To find out what plugin, theme or if its on WordPress, the easiest way especially if you’re on a mobile is to use websites to do the work for you, below is a list of websites I use to discover different things about the site in question.

WP Theme Detector

WP Theme Detector is a free tool that enables you to find out about the WordPress theme and plugins being used by a particular site. Its really easy to use, all you have to do is enter the url and press enter and it will do its thing. While there are plenty of others out there, in my opinion its the best one on the market.

Below is a screen shot of a scan i did of a WP Basics 101, it shows what theme and plugins the website is using, the theme detector dose not show if the sites using security and backup plugins for security reasons, but you can look at the code if need be.

Other websites you can try:

• Scan WP
• What Theme Is That
• Make a Website Hub
• Small SEO Tools
• Themes Info

Chrome extensions you can try:

• WP Sniffer
• WordPress Theme Detective
• What Is The Theme