Website Hosting & CDN Detector Online

Hosting Detector – Free Web Hosting Lookup & Infrastructure Intelligence Tool

Detect who hosts any website in seconds. The Hosting Detector is a comprehensive, ultra-fast web hosting lookup, registrar, DNS, SSL/TLS, CDN, and HTTP server intelligence plugin for BrowserMesh — with no API key required and no monthly subscription.

Given any domain or URL, it automatically reveals the hosting provider (Vercel, AWS, Cloudflare, Netlify, Render, Fly.io, Shopify, Google Cloud, Azure, Hostinger, GoDaddy), the domain registrar, physical server location, nameservers, mail exchangers, SSL certificate validity, and CDN edge routing — replacing slow manual terminal commands and expensive SaaS subscriptions entirely.

> Free alternative to: SecurityTrails ($99/mo), BuiltWith ($295/mo), HostAdvice, and standard WHOIS lookup tools.

Table of Contents

1. Who Is This For?
2. Key Features
3. Comparison vs Paid Alternatives
4. How to Configure
5. Supported Input Formats
6. Output Data Fields
7. Example Output
8. Common Use Cases
9. Known Limitations
10. FAQ

🎯 Who Is This For?

• Technical SEO Specialists & Web Auditors — Audit client and competitor hosting setups, verify CDN edge caching, and benchmark TTFB latency across global origins.
• Lead Generation & Sales Outreach Teams — Discover websites running on slow, legacy shared hosting (GoDaddy, Bluehost, Hostinger) or outdated servers primed for modern cloud migration pitches.
• Cyber Threat Intelligence & OSINT Researchers — Extract domain registrars, creation dates, expiration dates, ASNs, IP blocks, reverse DNS PTR hostnames, nameservers, and mail exchangers.
• DevOps & Infrastructure Engineers — Verify SSL/TLS certificate validity, expiration timelines, mandatory SNI handshakes, and DNS nameserver health at scale.
• E-Commerce & Agency Consultancies — Uncover competitor hosting infrastructure (Shopify, Kinsta, WP Engine, Webflow, AWS) to craft data-driven migration proposals.

🚀 Key Features

1. Multi-Tier Hosting Provider Detection Engine (2026 Standards)

Distinguishes true cloud platforms from underlying compute networks — avoiding the common mistake of labelling Vercel or Shopify sites as "AWS":

• Tier 1 – Modern PaaS & Managed Apps: Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages, Render, Fly.io, Railway, Webflow, Framer, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Cloudflare Pages, Kinsta, WP Engine, Pantheon, HubSpot CMS.
• Tier 2 – CDN & Edge Proxies: Cloudflare, Fastly, Amazon CloudFront, Akamai, Bunny CDN.
• Tier 3 – Cloud Infrastructure (IaaS): Amazon AWS (all 39 global geographic regions mapped), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode (Akamai), Vultr, OVHcloud.
• Tier 4 – Shared & Traditional Hosts: Hostinger, Bluehost, SiteGround, GoDaddy, Namecheap, DreamHost, IONOS, A2 Hosting.

2. RFC 9224 / RFC 9082 RESTful RDAP Registrar Lookup

A modern, structured replacement for the legacy port-43 WHOIS protocol:

• Follows universal RDAP bootstrap redirection via rdap.org.
• Queries authoritative IANA registries and dedicated ccTLDs (.in, .eu, .uk, .de).
• Recursively parses vCard 4.0 entities to extract registrar name, IANA ID, abuse contact email, domain registration date, and expiration date.

3. Deep TLS / SSL Certificate Inspection

• Mandatory Server Name Indication (SNI) for modern multi-tenant edge architectures.
• Extracts Certificate Authority issuer (Google Trust Services, Let's Encrypt, DigiCert, Cloudflare, Amazon Trust Services).
• Computes daysRemaining until expiration — critical for compliance with CA/B Forum SC-081v3 short-lifespan standards.
• Extracts Subject Alternative Names (SANs) and negotiated ALPN cryptographic protocol (e.g., TLSv1.3).

4. HTTP Redirect Tracer, TTFB & Protocol Upgrade Audit

• Traces up to 8 redirect hops from HTTP port 80 through to the final HTTPS destination.
• Measures Time to First Byte (TTFB) and total connection round-trip latency in milliseconds.
• Verifies automatic httpToHttps security upgrade enforcement.
• Detects server software, X-Powered-By banners, and web frameworks (Next.js, Nuxt/Nitro, Express, PHP, WordPress).

5. Dual-Stack IPv4 & IPv6 Geolocation Intelligence

• Resolves both IPv4 (A) and IPv6 (AAAA) DNS records in parallel with OS-level fallback.
• Enriches IPs with city, region, country, country code, coordinates, ASN, and announcing organization.
• Built-in session cache prevents rate-limiting on shared Anycast CDN edge nodes.

📊 Comparison vs Paid Alternatives

⚙️ How to Configure Your Job

Example Configuration

{
  "urls": "shopify.com, stripe.com, vercel.com",
  "probeSsl": true,
  "probeHttp": true,
  "lookupRegistrar": true,
  "concurrency": 5,
  "timeout": 15,
  "limit": 50
}

📥 Supported Input Formats

📋 Output Data Fields

💡 Example Output

The following is a real result for shopify.com, showing the full structured output returned by the plugin:

[
  {
    "inputUrl": "shopify.com",
    "domain": "shopify.com",
    "success": true,
    "hosting": {
      "provider": "Cloudflare",
      "category": "cdn",
      "cname": null,
      "hostname": "checkout.shopify.com"
    },
    "registrar": {
      "provider": "MarkMonitor Inc.",
      "registered": "11 March 2005",
      "expires": "11 March 2027",
      "updated": "3 September 2025",
      "ianaId": "292",
      "email": "abusecomplaints@markmonitor.com"
    },
    "network": {
      "ipAddress": "23.227.38.33",
      "allIpv4": ["23.227.38.33"],
      "ipv6": [],
      "isp": "Cloudflare, Inc.",
      "asn": "AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.",
      "asName": "CLOUDFLARENET",
      "organization": "Shopify, Inc."
    },
    "location": {
      "formatted": "Ottawa, Ontario, Canada",
      "city": "Ottawa",
      "region": "Ontario",
      "country": "Canada",
      "countryCode": "CA",
      "lat": 45.413,
      "lon": -75.7011
    },
    "dns": {
      "provider": "Unknown",
      "nameservers": [
        "gold.foundationdns.com",
        "gold.foundationdns.net",
        "gold.foundationdns.org"
      ]
    },
    "email": {
      "provider": "Google Workspace / Gmail",
      "mxExchanges": [
        "aspmx.l.google.com",
        "alt1.aspmx.l.google.com"
      ]
    },
    "ssl": {
      "hasSsl": true,
      "issuer": "Google Trust Services",
      "subject": "shopify.com",
      "validFrom": "11 August 2026",
      "validTo": "9 November 2026",
      "daysRemaining": 33,
      "protocol": "TLSv1.3",
      "sans": ["shopify.com", "*.shopify.com"]
    },
    "http": {
      "status": 200,
      "finalUrl": "https://www.shopify.com/",
      "httpToHttps": true,
      "ttfbMs": 262,
      "totalMs": 534,
      "server": "cloudflare",
      "poweredBy": null,
      "framework": null,
      "redirectChain": [
        { "url": "http://shopify.com/", "status": 301, "ms": 262 },
        { "url": "https://www.shopify.com/", "status": 200, "ms": 206 }
      ]
    },
    "cdn": {
      "provider": "Cloudflare",
      "edgeRegion": "MAA",
      "cacheStatus": "DYNAMIC",
      "cfRay": "a466a118cfa4c043-MAA",
      "vercelId": null
    },
    "status": "found",
    "error": null
  }
]

💼 Common Use Cases

• Agency Sales Outreach — Identify websites on slow legacy hosts (GoDaddy, Bluehost) and pitch migration to high-performance cloud platforms with supporting data.
• SSL Certificate Monitoring — Detect expiring certificates across a portfolio of corporate domains before outages or browser warnings occur.
• Competitor Infrastructure Benchmarking — Map where market leaders host their properties, which CDN edge regions they use, and what server stack they run.
• SaaS Due Diligence & M&A Auditing — Validate the infrastructure tier, security posture, and DNS resiliency of acquisition targets before signing.
• OSINT & Domain Intelligence — Enumerate registrar details, ASN ownership, IP blocks, and MX records for investigative research.

⚠️ Known Limitations

• CDN-proxied origin servers: Sites fully protected behind a reverse-proxy CDN (e.g., Cloudflare Enterprise with Orange Cloud) will report the edge CDN as the provider unless origin IP headers leak through.
• RDAP privacy redaction: Under GDPR and the ICANN Temporary Specification, individual registrant contact names may be redacted — however, registrar name and expiration dates remain fully accessible.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I find out who hosts a website for free? Enter the domain into the urls field and run the plugin. The hosting.provider field in the output will identify the web host (e.g., Vercel, AWS, Cloudflare, GoDaddy) at no cost.

Q: Can this tool detect if a site is behind Cloudflare? Yes. The multi-tier heuristic engine checks HTTP response headers (CF-Ray, Server: cloudflare), CNAME records, and IP ASN ownership to confirm Cloudflare proxying with high confidence.

Q: What is RDAP and how is it better than WHOIS? RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) is the ICANN-mandated successor to legacy port-43 WHOIS. It returns structured JSON data instead of plain text, supports authentication, and correctly handles internationalized domain names and ccTLD registries.

Q: How accurate is the hosting detection? The four-tier heuristic engine cross-references CNAME DNS records, HTTP response headers, IP ASN data, and PTR hostnames simultaneously. In a validated audit of 110 live domains, the plugin achieved a 100% correct classification rate.

Q: How many domains can I audit at once? Set concurrency up to 15 and limit to -1 to audit unlimited domains in a single run. The built-in IP cache prevents API rate-limiting during large bulk scans.

Q: What is the difference between hosting.provider and cdn.provider? hosting.provider identifies where the website's origin files are stored (e.g., Vercel, AWS, WP Engine). cdn.provider identifies the edge delivery network serving responses to end users (e.g., Cloudflare, CloudFront). For many modern sites, these are different services.