Specification

apps.json

Wappalyzer uses a long list of regular expressions to evaluate web pages and detect web applications. The list is located at src/apps.json.

Example

"Application Name": { 
	"website": "example.com", 
	"cats":    [ 1 ], 
	"headers": { "X-Powered-By": "Application Name" },
	"url":     ".+\\.application-name\\.com",
	"html":    "<link[^>]application-name\\.css", 
	"meta":    { "generator": [ "Application Name", "Alternative Application Name" ] },
	"script":  "application-name-([0-9.]+)\\.js\\;confidence:50\\;version:\\1",
	"env":     "ApplicationName",
	"implies": "PHP\\;confidence:50",
	"excludes": "Other Application Name"
	}

JSON fields

Refer to the JSON schema.

field	type	description	Example
website	string	URL of the application's website, with the protocol left off.	"example.com"
cats	array	List of category IDs. See apps.json for the complete list.	[ 1, 6 ]
env	array / string	Global JavaScript variables, e.g. jQuery. Note that this will only detect top-level variables; e.g. the following will not work: ^jQuery\\.fooBar$.	"^jQuery$"
headers	object	HTTP Response headers, e.g. X-Powered-By.	{ "X-Powered-By": "^Hello(?:World|Universe)" }
html	array / string	Full HTML response body.	"<a [^>]*href=\"[^\"]+/foo/bar"
implies	array / string	The presence of one application can imply the presence of another, e.g. Drupal means PHP is also in use.	[ "PHP", "jQuery" ]
excludes	array / string	Opposite of implies. The presence of one application can exclude the presence of another.	"Apache"
url	array / string	URL of the page, e.g. http://wordpress.com/index.php.	"/cart/checkout\\?(?:.*&)?shopname_sess="
meta	object	HTML meta tags, e.g. generator.	{ "generator": "^Hello(?:World|Universe)" }
script	array / string	src attribute of HTML script tags, e.g. jquery.js.	"my_js_lib\\.js"

Except cats and website all fields are optional and accept one or more patterns (either a string or an array of regular expressions).

Patterns

Patterns are case insensitive regular expressions. No surrounding delimiters or flags are used. Note that escape characters need to be escaped themselves for the JSON to be valid. Slashes (/) do not need to be escaped.

Optional fields may be appended, separated by \\;:

field	description
confidence	Indicates less reliable patterns that may cause false positives. The aim is to achieve a combined confidence of 100%. Defaults to 100% for unspecified fields.
version	Gets the version number from a pattern match using a special syntax.

The confidence field may also be applied to the implied field. The implied confidence is multiplied by confidence of the pattern that identified the original application.

Version syntax

example	description
\\1	Returns the first match
\\1?a:	Returns a if the first match contains a value, nothing otherwise
\\1?a:b	Returns a if the first match contains a value, b otherwise
\\1?:b	Returns nothing if the first match contains a value, b otherwise
foo\\1	Returns foo with the first match appended

Hints & Pitfalls

When adding patterns, make sure you think of the following: ####Unnecessary use of capturing groups Regular expressions can have capturing groups, e.g. (bar). #####Problem The text matched by the group is stored for later use, which makes it slower than non-capturing groups. #####Solution Use non-capturing groups (e.g. (?:bar)) or no group at all (e.g. bar) where appropriate.

Too generic patterns

Patterns should only match web pages that are actually using the app. #####Problem

• All environment variables up to and including three characters may occur in JavaScript generated by the Google Closure Compiler.
• Too generic HTML patterns may match plain text.
• Etc…

#####Solution

• Make sure the things you are trying to match are sufficiently long and not too generic.
• Make sure your patterns won't match plain HTML.
• If your pattern is somewhat generic but there is a good reason to include it, you can give it a lower confidence percentage; e.g. \\;confidence:20. Confidence for multiple patterns is added together, so you can have multiple lower-confidence patterns which together give a high confidence.