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Is it at all possible to detect the list of plugins used on a WP site.

Also, beyond my initial hunch, how can confirm for fact that a blog is indeed powered by WP?

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  • kochu! very nice tips. detecting WP : try appending /wp-admin !
    – user13778
    Mar 3, 2012 at 8:35
  • Don't have enough rep to answer as this is a protected question but I'd like to say that at times i just look for 'www.[sitename]/wp-content/plugins' and if accessible it shows the list of plugins. Does not work in any case but it's definitely easy and worth trying.
    – Aurelio
    Jun 19, 2013 at 10:49
  • You can find it using wppluginchecker.earthpeople.se
    – user2238
    Sep 19, 2014 at 7:33

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Usually, you can detect WordPress itself by looking at the site's source code for the WordPress generator meta tag:

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 3.0.1" />

However, some sites remove this tag to hide the fact that they're running WP.

There's no foolproof way to detect the list of plug-ins that are running on a site, though. IMO this is an added security bonus - not all developers are as keen on updating their systems when things break (or vulnerabilities crop up) as the core team ... if a plug-in exposes a potential weakness on my system, the last think I want to do is advertise that fact.

However, any plug-in that adds code to the display (adding scripts, styles, meta tags, etc) might call itself out. Most scripts and styles will expose /wp-content/plugins/{plug-in name}/ in the URL. Some other front-end systems will use the name of the plug-in in some kind of an HTML comment like <!-- Begin Super Cool Plug-in Code -->.

But, generally, there's no easy way to generate a list of plug-ins used on a site unless a) you already know which plug-ins to look for or b) the site owner wants you to know.

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  • one can also try going to the wp-admin subfolder and other files found in a WordPress install
    – Tom J Nowell ♦
    Feb 13, 2012 at 12:05
  • /readme.html will reveal the version number as well
    – soulseekah
    Mar 12, 2012 at 11:32
  • There was a time when readme.html only revealed the latest major version. Sometimes, it doesn't get updated in an urgent security release and, since it's a static file, the version number doesn't get bumped. More often than not, though, you're right. Assuming it's still on the server ...
    – EAMann
    Mar 12, 2012 at 13:32
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I would add to also look in the source code for calls to their theme location, which by default would be /wp-content/themes/[themename]. You could also try loading default WP files left over from the installation such as license.txt or readme.html but if they're clever enough to hide the plug-in and theme locations they likely removed those files, too.

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To regurgitate and add to what everyone else said it seems there are a few ways you can snoop on other people's WordPress version, theme and plugins.

WordPress Version:

  1. This can be found in a meta tag in the head in the form of <meta name="generator" content=
  2. This can also commonly be found in the footer although it is sometime commented out where you can still view it in the HTML

WordPress Theme:

  1. Easiest way is to view the source and look for the theme stylesheet which will have all of the theme info in it (Theme Name, Author, Author Site, etc)
  2. This is also commonly found in the footer of free themes so the original developer can get a free link back to their website

WordPress Plugins:

  1. The easiest way is to look for an "I use these WordPress plugins" page which some bloggers do.
  2. You could also go through the source code and look for any scripts and stylesheets that might be loaded as well as any unique IDs or class names inserted by the plugins. So class='socialize', <link rel="stylesheet" href=".../wp-content/plugins/socialize/socialize.css" type="text/css" /> and <script type="text/javascript" src=".../wp-content/plugins/socialize/socialize.js"></script> would all be hints that the theme is using a plugin called Socialize.
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There are a couple of tools that will brute force all the known wordpress plugins.

Basically they just try to access /wp-content/plugins/$pluginname and if you get a forbidden you have found the plugin if its a 404 then the plugin is not installed.

http-wp-plugins.nse - nmap script does this

http://code.google.com/p/cms-explorer/ - as does this tool

This site seems to use the read the code methods mentioned previously to try to detect the plugins http://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan/

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  • We where curios about this too, and made a public available tool to kinda brute force check a site for plugins: wppluginchecker.earthpeople.se
    – Pär
    Nov 26, 2013 at 8:38
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adding up to what has been said :

detecting WP : try appending /wp-admin to the site address, maybe they didn't change it

detecting the plugins : Firebug - firefox extension :)

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