If you’ve ever seen a WordPress site that you really liked and wanted to find out what theme they were using, this post is for you.
Learning how to identify themes and plugins used on a WordPress site is an important part of understanding how a website functions, troubleshooting issues, and optimizing for performance.
In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of identifying themes and plugins both manually by inspecting the source code of a WordPress site, as well as using free online tools that can help you quickly identify what’s running on any given website.
Let’s get started!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can You Identify a Custom Theme?
If a WordPress theme was customized off of a standard theme, then it should be easily identified using the methods below.
However, you will be able to see the specific customizations used by examining the source code.
How Do I Find Out Which Plugins a Site Is Using?
Detector plugins will often display both themes and plugins that the target site is using.
However, if you want to know for sure which plugins a website has activated, you can check the source code.
If you search for terms like “wp-content/plugins” you should be able to see which plugins are in use.
Find a Site’s WordPress Theme Using an Online Tool
The easiest way to find out which theme a site is using is to use a theme detector tool.
You can use the tool by copying and pasting the URL of the site into the tool, and it will give you the name of the theme.
There are quite a few theme detector plugins available for WordPress, so we’ll give you a quick overview of the most popular ones and our favorites.
WP Theme Detector
To use this free online tool, go to the website, input a URL, and click the “What WordPress Theme is That?” button.
You will be given a list of themes that match the URL that you input.
What WP Theme Is That
Similarly to WP Theme Detector, What WP Theme Is That is a free online tool that can be used to identify WordPress themes and plugins.
It operates the same way; you input the URL of the site, and it gives you a list of themes and plugins that match.
It provides more information about the given site than some other options, making it a better choice if you’re wanting details about the site author and homepage in addition to the theme.
ScanWP
Our personal favorite option on this list is the ScanWP site.
It works the same way as the others, but offers even more detailed information about your target site, including how much the theme costs, where you can purchase it, and similar information for each identified plugin as well.
This tool will quickly detect the theme and plugins of any WordPress site, and display links so you can access the same products yourself and incorporate them into your own website.
The only downside to ScanWP is that it is a bit ad-heavy, but that keeps it free to use.
Find a Site’s WordPress Theme Using Source Code
Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a coder to figure out what WordPress theme a site is using.
And, using this method will likely be a much quicker and easier way for you to identify the themes and plugins (along with customizations!) of any WordPress site.
Just follow these steps to get started:
View Page Source
Viewing the page source for a website is straightforward.
- Start by navigating to the website you’re interested in identifying.
- Right-click on the page, then select ‘View Page Source’ from the menu.
- A new window will pop up, filled with the HTML code of the website’s page.
Here’s an example of the source code from wordpress.org.
Search for CSS Style Tags
Once you have the source code page up, hit CTRL+F to search for the CSS style tags by typing, “style.css”
The resulting highlights will show you which themes and plugins are in use on the site.
In this example, you can see this website uses the standard 2021 WordPress theme and a few plugins.
Wrapping Up
By following the steps outlined in this how-to guide, you should now have a better understanding of how to identify themes and plugins on WordPress sites.
You can use free online tools to quickly scan a website and get an idea of what its built with, or manually inspect the source code to find out more information.
In either case, being able to identify themes and plugins on WordPress sites is an important skill that can help you build better websites.
Let us know how it works for you in the comments below!
