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Hi, Hacker News! We are truly stunned to see us on top of HN today! :) WhatRuns is a free browser extension that shows you what runs a website – from ad netwo

Hi, Hacker News! We are truly stunned to see us on top of HN today! :) WhatRuns is a free browser extension that shows you what runs a website – from ad networks and developer tools to fonts and Wordpress plugins. You can also follow websites and get notified when they add or remove technologies. We soft-launched a couple of weeks back and was lucky enough to be picked up by the Chrome team. We were featured on the Chrome Webstore, landing us 12k active users in one week. It was a huge validation and helped us tremendously in squashing bugs and making a finished product. We realise we have a long way to go, and our little team is working round the clock to make it happen. We also launched on ProductHunt today: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/whatruns https://www.producthunt.com/posts/whatruns Would love to hear what you think :) UPDATE: Thank you for all the feedback! Sorry about the occasional false detections. We are looking into this. This is largely because we detect a considerably large number of technologies/plugins compared to our counterparts. Lots of possibilities for false pattern recognition etc. Rest assured our team is working round the clock to improve accuracy and add more technologies/plugins. Also, Our servers are going a bit cranky due to the huge traffic we are experiencing today. New websites (that was not loaded on WhatRuns before) are now queued up and might experience 2-3 seconds delay. This is to ensure best experience for our active users. Thank you so much for such a great response!

jaxondu 9y ago
Just check https://www.whatruns.com/website/vuejs.org https://www.whatruns.com/website/vuejs.org and you're showing the site as using EmberJS. Looks like you're not launch ready.
- jijosunny 9y ago
  Sorry you feel that way. We truly understand your frustration with detection accuracy, but when there are tens of thousands of technologies to detect, the only solution is to break things and move fast. We were featured on Chrome Webstore a few weeks back and got a great response (12k+ active users) helped us enormously in improving the accuracy and efficiency, and I'm sure HN and PH launch will be even more helpful in improving the product.
  - jaxondu 9y ago
    Sorry don't meant to be rude and I understand there are tens of thousands of technologies to detect. Kind of expecting your engine to be able to detect front end JS frameworks easier than backends, at least for those popular JS frameworks. In case you not notice the site I'm pointing to is the home page of VueJS and you're showing them using a competitor tech.
    - jijosunny 9y ago
      We're on it. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.
      - rjbwork 9y ago
        Well, at least you've got the business-speak down and can fix your bugs quickly. That'll get you far, I think.
        jijosunny 9y ago
        Haha, I'll take that as a compliment.
  - rocky1138 9y ago
    You will probably want to add GNU Social. I pointed it at my site https://kwat.chat https://kwat.chat and it came up with nothing. Also, Wordpress doesn't seem to be detected, either, on my other website: https://johnrockefeller.net https://johnrockefeller.net
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  > Looks like you're not launch ready. It's 2017 man, things are launched with kinks all the time now. Your definition of launch ready doesn't have to apply to everyone else.
  - celim307 9y ago
    Its kinda ridiculous that we've just accepted things are going to broken at launch.
    - jijosunny 9y ago
      I totally understand your point, but WhatRuns is not a broken extension. Google blessed us with more than 10k+ active users by featuring us on the Chrome Webstore front page :) and we have been improving the technology ever since. However, there is a lot of manual labour involved in correcting detection inaccuracies, which our team is working full-time on. Rest assured WR will only improve from here on. Thank you for dropping by!
      - throwaway613834 9y ago
        > WhatRuns is not a broken extension Try running it on www.example.com and let me know how many of those are accurate.
    - the-dude 9y ago
      Around ~2000 it became common knowledge to download the latest driver from the net instead of using the supplied one on the CD for hardware you just bought. That is the assumption of broken hardware to be shipped 17 years avant la lettre?
    - hk__2 9y ago
      Things are always broken at launch; you can’t prevent all the bugs and unexpected things always happen. IMHO it’s a very good thing we’ve "accepted things are going to broken at launch"; the "ship early, release often" model works a lot better than "wait 10 years before release so that everything is perfect but you’re 9 years late".
- moosingin3space 9y ago
  They discovered Discourse, which uses Ember.js.
- naspeh 9y ago
  https://github.com/discourse/discourse https://github.com/discourse/discourse > Built With: > - Ruby on Rails > - Ember.js > ... and it's been used at subdomain https://forum.vuejs.org/ https://forum.vuejs.org/. From another comment I understand that it shows all detecting stuff for all subdomains, so this is the case.
EGreg 9y ago
How does this differ from BuiltWith?
- jijosunny 9y ago
  Copying my previous reply: Comparing with Wappalyzer and BuiltWith, here's why we think we have something different (and maybe better): 1. WhatRuns detects fonts, Wordpress plugins and themes (tens of thousands of them). 2. Ability to follow sites (and know what techs websites started using/ditched). 3. Very lightweight compared to our counterparts, and arguably better UI ;) 4. More accurate data. BuiltWith can be very inaccurate as you might've already noticed. Wappalyzer is fairly accurate, but limited in technologies. WhatRuns is trying to be the best of both worlds.
- ggiaco 9y ago
  Others to consider are SiteStacks (http://sitestacks.com http://sitestacks.com) and Wappalyzer (http://wappalyzer.com http://wappalyzer.com)
marksomnian 9y ago
SUPER ANNOYING BUG. It seems to only look at the second-level domain, and thinks that websites with the same subdomain are the same. They are not.
- jijosunny 9y ago
  Update: WR just started supporting subdomains (version 1.5.4). It was the most requested feature; hope you like it!
- jijosunny 9y ago
  WR currently considers subdomains as a part of the main domain. Most users like to know the full tech stack of a website. If there is a blog at blog.company.com and if it is using Intercom, it can be a useful data. I hope this makes sense. Anyway, we will definitely address this concern and think about adding an option for subdomain separation.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    So as an example of where this is a problem - All NZ government websites are hosted underneath the govt.nz namespace, e.g. dia.govt.nz, treasury.govt.nz, ssc.govt.nz and so on. But all of them are evaluated as one, govt.nz. But they are all quite separately hosted and operated and use differing technologies. Looks like this works fine for other similar situations e.g. .co.uk. This is a really cool service, thanks for making it available for use!
    - Buge 9y ago
      govt.nz is listed in https://publicsuffix.org https://publicsuffix.org just like co.uk , so ideally software should treat them the same.
    - jijosunny 9y ago
      We frequently update our supporting TLDs to avoid this problem. It's important considering the plethora of new fancy TLDs that are popping up all the time. Thanks, and glad you liked the product!
portman 9y ago
Not sure if it's related to load, but whenever I try it on a long-tail site (i.e. not one you would have precached) it comes back with information about google.com instead of the domain I'm on.
- jijosunny 9y ago
  We just tried to replicate this issue but failed. It's working fine on our end. Can you share the URL in question so that we can take a look? Thanks!
  - mattzito 9y ago
    Not the GP, but I have seen this - http://www.thelittlebeettable.com/ http://www.thelittlebeettable.com/
    - jijosunny 9y ago
      Very strange. It is working fine on our side: https://cl.ly/1x150t1m0922 https://cl.ly/1x150t1m0922 I'll check this with our developer and get on it right away. Thank you so much for taking time to report this!
- panarky 9y ago
  Surprised to see google.com runs jquery - can't possibly be true. https://www.whatruns.com/website/google.com https://www.whatruns.com/website/google.com
hobarrera 9y ago
Plugin just spins forever with no results on one of my clients old websites: https://www.ideasenfoto.com/ https://www.ideasenfoto.com/ I tried a great deal of sites using similar tech, and an infinite spin is all I get on all cases.
- jijosunny 9y ago
  Strange, we are getting instant results: https://cl.ly/262c2l300g3g https://cl.ly/262c2l300g3g Please drop me a line if you're still experiencing this issue: jijo [at] whatruns.com. Thanks!
  - hobarrera 9y ago
    Huh, seems to be working now. Looks like it's not picking up Django! ;)

jaxondu 9y ago

Just check https://www.whatruns.com/website/vuejs.org https://www.whatruns.com/website/vuejs.org and you're showing the site as using EmberJS. Looks like you're not launch ready.

jijosunny 9y ago
Sorry you feel that way. We truly understand your frustration with detection accuracy, but when there are tens of thousands of technologies to detect, the only solution is to break things and move fast. We were featured on Chrome Webstore a few weeks back and got a great response (12k+ active users) helped us enormously in improving the accuracy and efficiency, and I'm sure HN and PH launch will be even more helpful in improving the product.
- jaxondu 9y ago
  Sorry don't meant to be rude and I understand there are tens of thousands of technologies to detect. Kind of expecting your engine to be able to detect front end JS frameworks easier than backends, at least for those popular JS frameworks. In case you not notice the site I'm pointing to is the home page of VueJS and you're showing them using a competitor tech.
  - jijosunny 9y ago
    We're on it. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.
    - rjbwork 9y ago
      Well, at least you've got the business-speak down and can fix your bugs quickly. That'll get you far, I think.
      - jijosunny 9y ago
        Haha, I'll take that as a compliment.
- rocky1138 9y ago
  You will probably want to add GNU Social. I pointed it at my site https://kwat.chat https://kwat.chat and it came up with nothing. Also, Wordpress doesn't seem to be detected, either, on my other website: https://johnrockefeller.net https://johnrockefeller.net
0xfeba 9y ago
> Looks like you're not launch ready. It's 2017 man, things are launched with kinks all the time now. Your definition of launch ready doesn't have to apply to everyone else.
- celim307 9y ago
  Its kinda ridiculous that we've just accepted things are going to broken at launch.
  - jijosunny 9y ago
    I totally understand your point, but WhatRuns is not a broken extension. Google blessed us with more than 10k+ active users by featuring us on the Chrome Webstore front page :) and we have been improving the technology ever since. However, there is a lot of manual labour involved in correcting detection inaccuracies, which our team is working full-time on. Rest assured WR will only improve from here on. Thank you for dropping by!
    - throwaway613834 9y ago
      > WhatRuns is not a broken extension Try running it on www.example.com and let me know how many of those are accurate.
  - the-dude 9y ago
    Around ~2000 it became common knowledge to download the latest driver from the net instead of using the supplied one on the CD for hardware you just bought. That is the assumption of broken hardware to be shipped 17 years avant la lettre?
  - hk__2 9y ago
    Things are always broken at launch; you can’t prevent all the bugs and unexpected things always happen. IMHO it’s a very good thing we’ve "accepted things are going to broken at launch"; the "ship early, release often" model works a lot better than "wait 10 years before release so that everything is perfect but you’re 9 years late".
moosingin3space 9y ago
They discovered Discourse, which uses Ember.js.
naspeh 9y ago
https://github.com/discourse/discourse https://github.com/discourse/discourse > Built With: > - Ruby on Rails > - Ember.js > ... and it's been used at subdomain https://forum.vuejs.org/ https://forum.vuejs.org/. From another comment I understand that it shows all detecting stuff for all subdomains, so this is the case.

EGreg 9y ago

How does this differ from BuiltWith?

jijosunny 9y ago
Copying my previous reply: Comparing with Wappalyzer and BuiltWith, here's why we think we have something different (and maybe better): 1. WhatRuns detects fonts, Wordpress plugins and themes (tens of thousands of them). 2. Ability to follow sites (and know what techs websites started using/ditched). 3. Very lightweight compared to our counterparts, and arguably better UI ;) 4. More accurate data. BuiltWith can be very inaccurate as you might've already noticed. Wappalyzer is fairly accurate, but limited in technologies. WhatRuns is trying to be the best of both worlds.
ggiaco 9y ago
Others to consider are SiteStacks (http://sitestacks.com http://sitestacks.com) and Wappalyzer (http://wappalyzer.com http://wappalyzer.com)

marksomnian 9y ago

SUPER ANNOYING BUG. It seems to only look at the second-level domain, and thinks that websites with the same subdomain are the same. They are not.

jijosunny 9y ago
Update: WR just started supporting subdomains (version 1.5.4). It was the most requested feature; hope you like it!
jijosunny 9y ago
WR currently considers subdomains as a part of the main domain. Most users like to know the full tech stack of a website. If there is a blog at blog.company.com and if it is using Intercom, it can be a useful data. I hope this makes sense. Anyway, we will definitely address this concern and think about adding an option for subdomain separation.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  So as an example of where this is a problem - All NZ government websites are hosted underneath the govt.nz namespace, e.g. dia.govt.nz, treasury.govt.nz, ssc.govt.nz and so on. But all of them are evaluated as one, govt.nz. But they are all quite separately hosted and operated and use differing technologies. Looks like this works fine for other similar situations e.g. .co.uk. This is a really cool service, thanks for making it available for use!
  - Buge 9y ago
    govt.nz is listed in https://publicsuffix.org https://publicsuffix.org just like co.uk , so ideally software should treat them the same.
  - jijosunny 9y ago
    We frequently update our supporting TLDs to avoid this problem. It's important considering the plethora of new fancy TLDs that are popping up all the time. Thanks, and glad you liked the product!

portman 9y ago

Not sure if it's related to load, but whenever I try it on a long-tail site (i.e. not one you would have precached) it comes back with information about google.com instead of the domain I'm on.

jijosunny 9y ago
We just tried to replicate this issue but failed. It's working fine on our end. Can you share the URL in question so that we can take a look? Thanks!
- mattzito 9y ago
  Not the GP, but I have seen this - http://www.thelittlebeettable.com/ http://www.thelittlebeettable.com/
  - jijosunny 9y ago
    Very strange. It is working fine on our side: https://cl.ly/1x150t1m0922 https://cl.ly/1x150t1m0922 I'll check this with our developer and get on it right away. Thank you so much for taking time to report this!
panarky 9y ago
Surprised to see google.com runs jquery - can't possibly be true. https://www.whatruns.com/website/google.com https://www.whatruns.com/website/google.com

hobarrera 9y ago

Plugin just spins forever with no results on one of my clients old websites: https://www.ideasenfoto.com/ https://www.ideasenfoto.com/ I tried a great deal of sites using similar tech, and an infinite spin is all I get on all cases.

jijosunny 9y ago
Strange, we are getting instant results: https://cl.ly/262c2l300g3g https://cl.ly/262c2l300g3g Please drop me a line if you're still experiencing this issue: jijo [at] whatruns.com. Thanks!
- hobarrera 9y ago
  Huh, seems to be working now. Looks like it's not picking up Django! ;)