Website hosting checker: find who hosts any website
Enter a domain. We resolve its public IP addresses and read who that address block is registered to. A CDN in front is named as the CDN, not as the origin server.
Free, no signup, usually a few seconds.
You will see: the hosting company or CDN, the IP address, the network owner and the country.
How this check works
The check runs on our server. It does not log in, and it does not open a hosting account. It does five things.
It resolves the hostname with the server's own DNS resolver and keeps the public addresses: IPv4 (A) and IPv6 (AAAA). A private, loopback, or local address is refused. If the name does not resolve, there is no hosting result.
It looks up the first of those addresses in the IP registry, using RDAP. IPv4 is listed before IPv6, so an IPv4 address is the one that is looked up when both exist. The IANA bootstrap names the regional registry. rdap.org is used only when that lookup does not answer. From the record we keep the network name, the country, and the organisation listed as the registrant, administrative, or technical contact. We do not print an ASN number.
It asks for the reverse DNS name (the PTR record) of that same address, when one exists.
It requests the homepage once, connecting to the address it resolved, and it does not follow redirects. From that response it reads Server, Via, X-Powered-By, CF-Ray, and X-Served-By.
It then matches those strings, the reverse name, the network name, and the organisation against a fixed list. Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, and Akamai are on both the host list and the CDN list, so the headline says they sit in front of the site. Other matches, including clouds and website builders such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Wix, and Shopify, are reported as the host. GitHub Pages is recognised from a github.io name or from GitHub's published Pages addresses. If nothing matches, the headline is Unknown and the network owner is shown as the registry recorded it. The company you pay can be a customer of that network.
Name servers are not part of this check. The DNS lookup reads the live NS, A, AAAA, MX, and TXT records. The whois lookup reads the name servers stored on the registration.
How to read the result
Three headlines are possible. "Sits in front of the site" means a CDN we recognise, and the origin server is hidden. "Hosted at" means a company on the list, matched from the IP record or the headers. "Unknown" means we did not match a company. The line under it names the network owner, which may be the host or the provider the host buys from.
The IP line lists up to six public addresses. IPv6 is Yes when any of them is IPv6. Reverse DNS is the PTR name, or it is left blank. Network owner, network name, and country come from the IP's RDAP record. The Server header is whatever that one response sent. Because redirects are not followed, it can belong to a front door rather than the final page.
The names and the address below are made up. Nothing here was looked up.
- Headline
- Unknown
- What it means
- The IP belongs to Example Hosting Ltd. The name below is the network owner. The hosting company may be its customer.
- IP address
- 203.0.113.10
- IPv6
- No
- Reverse DNS
- web.example-host.test
- Network owner
- Example Hosting Ltd
- Network name
- EXAMPLE-HOST
- Country
- DE
- Server header
- nginx
A recognised CDN uses a different headline. Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, and Akamai say they sit in front of the site, and that the real server is hidden on purpose.
When it is useful
Reporting abuse. The network owner and the country are the place to start a complaint about the address. This page does not send the report. If the headline is a CDN, you are looking at the CDN, not at a hidden origin.
Moving a site. When nobody wrote down the host, the network owner and the Server header are the clue. Confirm it in the account before you change anything. A reseller does not appear when we only see the network they buy from.
Looking at how another site is set up. You can see a CDN, a website builder, or a cloud network. That is a technical fact about the front of the site. It is not traffic, revenue, or a ranking.
The same hostname is worth a whois lookup for the registrar and the expiry, a DNS lookup for the live records, an SSL checker pass for the certificate, and an is it down check for whether the site answers.
What this cannot tell you
A CDN hides the origin. There is no further step here that reveals the server behind Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, or Akamai.
The network owner is the organisation the address block is registered to. A smaller host can be their customer. When we do not recognise a brand, the result says Unknown rather than guessing a company.
One address is looked up in the registry (the first, with IPv4 before IPv6), and at most six addresses are listed. Redirects are not followed. The billing account, the plan name, and the control panel are not visible. A repeat of the same host within ten minutes returns the saved result.
Common questions
What does the website hosting checker look up?
It resolves the hostname to public IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, reads the IP registry record (network name, organisation, and country) for the first address, asks for the reverse DNS name, and reads the homepage response headers. It matches those against a fixed list of hosts and CDNs. It does not read the domain's name servers.
It says Cloudflare, but the site is not hosted there.
Correct. Cloudflare is a CDN and protection layer that sits in front of the real server and hides its IP. That is on purpose, and this check has no way to see the origin behind it. Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, and Akamai are reported the same way when they match.
Why look up where a site is hosted?
To find a company to write to about abuse, to see who hosts a site you are about to move when nobody wrote it down, or to see whether another site uses a CDN, a website builder, or a cloud network. The country of the address is also a clue about distance. None of this measures traffic or quality.
What is the network name?
It is the name of the address block in the IP registry. We do not show an ASN number. The organisation on that record is often a cloud or network provider, and the company that bills for the site may be its customer.
Can this find the server behind a CDN?
No. When the result names Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, or Akamai as sitting in front, the origin address is hidden. The check stops there.
Is the company in the result the owner of the domain?
No. This page is about the network that answers for the hostname. The registrar, the creation date, and the expiry are on the whois lookup, and the domain owner's name is usually redacted there too.
Is there a limit?
Up to 20 checks an hour from one connection, with no account. A result is kept for ten minutes, so checking the same address twice returns the saved one.