MurmStack vs Wappalyzer
Both look at a web page and tell you something about it. They answer different questions, and the difference is inventory versus measurement.
Stated plainly: we make MurmStack. Wappalyzer is a good tool and its browser extension is free without an account. This page is about which question each one answers, not about which is better.
Short answer
Wappalyzer answers “what is this site built with?” — a categorised inventory of detected technologies. MurmStack answers “who did this page contact, and when?” — a count of distinct companies and a timeline of first contact.
An inventory tells you a site has an analytics tag. A measurement tells you the page contacted twenty-two separate companies, and twenty-two of them before a banner could ask you anything.
Side by side
| MurmStack | Wappalyzer | |
|---|---|---|
| Core output | Companies contacted, and when | Technologies detected, by category |
| Technology detection | Yes, with evidence per line | Yes, very broad catalogue |
| Counts distinct companies | Yes, merged to parent company | No |
| Timing of each contact | Yes, to the millisecond | No |
| Pre-consent reporting | Yes | No |
| Extension price | Free, no paid tier | Free, no account needed |
| Paid plans | None | From ~$250/mo for lookups and API |
Where Wappalyzer is genuinely better
- Catalogue breadth. Wappalyzer recognises far more technologies than MurmStack’s fingerprint set, and has done for years.
- Bulk and API work. Wappalyzer sells lookups, lists and an API. MurmStack has no backend and cannot do any of that, by design.
- Lead research. Finding every site that uses a given technology is Wappalyzer’s product, not MurmStack’s.
Where MurmStack does something else
A categorised list does not answer the question that matters when you are auditing a page: how much of it is other people’s code, and how early does that code run? So MurmStack measures:
- Distinct companies, not domains — Google reaching a page six ways is one company, and counting it six times inflates the number by a third.
- First contact per company, plotted across the first two seconds.
- What it cannot measure, said out loud: browsers hide the transfer size of most cross-origin requests, so no download total is shown.
Which should you use
Use Wappalyzer
You want to know what a site is built with, need breadth of detection, or you are building lead lists by technology.
Use MurmStack
You want to know how many companies a page talks to, how early they load, and which of them track people — with the evidence shown.
They are not mutually exclusive. Both are free browser extensions; installing both costs nothing.
Questions
Is Wappalyzer free?
The browser extension identifies technologies for free with no account. A free account adds a monthly lookup allowance; paid plans for bulk lookups and API access start around $250/month. MurmStack is free with no paid tier.
What is the best free Wappalyzer alternative?
It depends on the question. For a technology list, the free Wappalyzer extension is hard to beat. For how many companies a page contacted and when, MurmStack measures that and Wappalyzer does not.
Does Wappalyzer show trackers loading before consent?
No — it reports which technologies are present, not when each third party was contacted.
Which uses fewer permissions?
MurmStack requests activeTab and scripting with no host permissions. Check any extension’s current permissions on its Web Store listing before installing.