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·5 min read

I Built a Wappalyzer Alternative — Here's What I Learned

StackRadarWeb DevOpen Source

Ever visited a website and wondered "what's this built with?" Maybe you're scoping out a competitor, researching a potential client, or just genuinely curious about the tech behind a beautiful site.

There are tools for this — Wappalyzer, BuiltWith, WhatRuns. But they're either paywalled, require browser extensions, or show you more ads than data. I wanted something simpler: paste a URL, get the tech stack. No sign-up, no extension, no BS.

So I built StackRadar.

What It Does

StackRadar scans any website and detects 150+ technologies across 25 categories:

  • Frameworks — Next.js, React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, and more
  • Hosting — Vercel, Netlify, AWS, Cloudflare, Fly.io
  • Analytics — Google Analytics, PostHog, Mixpanel, Plausible, Heap
  • Payments — Stripe, Razorpay, PayPal, Paddle
  • CMS — WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Contentful, Sanity
  • And 20 more categories — Auth, CDN, Build Tools, Monitoring, Email, Search, you name it

Each detection comes with a confidence indicator (High, Medium, Low) based on how many matching patterns were found.

How It Works Under the Hood

The detection engine is surprisingly straightforward. When you enter a URL, StackRadar:

  • Fetches the page server-side with a browser-like User-Agent
  • Reads HTTP headersX-Powered-By, Server, X-Vercel-Id, CF-Ray, etc.
  • Scans the HTML for script sources, meta tags, link tags, and inline patterns
  • Matches against 150+ regex patterns — each technology has 2-4 unique signatures
  • Extracts version numbers where possible from script URLs and meta tags

For example, detecting Next.js is as simple as looking for /_next/static or __NEXT_DATA__ in the HTML. Stripe? Check for js.stripe.com. Tailwind CSS? Look for utility class patterns.

The tricky part is avoiding false positives. A word like "express" appears on tons of websites in regular text. So for server-side frameworks, we rely on headers (X-Powered-By: Express) rather than body content.

Features That Set It Apart

Compare Mode — Scan two sites side-by-side and see what they share vs. what's unique. Great for competitive analysis.

Scan History — Your last 10 scans are saved locally. One click to revisit any previous result.

Share & Download — Generate shareable links or download results as images. Perfect for reports or social sharing.

Version Detection — Where possible, StackRadar extracts version numbers (e.g., Next.js v14.1.0).

The Tech Stack (Yes, It Scans Itself)

  • Next.js 15 with App Router
  • Tailwind CSS for styling
  • Framer Motion for animations
  • Lucide React for icons
  • Vercel for hosting
  • Supabase for the waitlist backend

If you scan stackradar.rushiraj.me with StackRadar... it detects itself. Meta.

What's Next

StackRadar is free and always will be for basic scans. I'm working on a Pro tier with:

  • Bulk scanning — paste 50+ URLs, get a CSV
  • API access — for developers who want to integrate
  • Export as PDF/PNG — branded reports for agencies
  • 90-day history — track how sites evolve over time

If that sounds useful, join the waitlist.

Try It

Head to stackradar.rushiraj.me and scan your favorite website. It takes about 3 seconds. Let me know what you find — I'm always adding new technologies to the detection engine.

The source code is on GitHub if you want to peek under the hood or contribute.

👨‍💻

Rushiraj Jadeja

Solo dev building privacy-first software from India.

Follow @rushirajjj →