Website Hosting Checker
Who hosts a website, who runs its DNS and who handles its e-mail.
Check a website
Checking…
Hosting report
IP addresses
| Address | Network (AS) | Provider | Country | More |
|---|
DNS hosting
Country data: IP Geolocation by DB-IP (DB-IP IP to Country Lite, licensed CC BY 4.0). Routing: Team Cymru IP to ASN.
About the Website Hosting Checker
Enter a domain or URL to see who hosts the website — a cloud such as AWS, Google Cloud or Azure, a website platform such as Vercel, Netlify, Shopify, Squarespace or GitHub Pages, a web host, or a CDN such as Cloudflare, Akamai or Fastly in front of the real server. The checker resolves the site’s IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (and the www or bare-domain twin), follows its CNAME chain, and identifies each address’s network, provider, cloud service and region, and country.
The same report shows who runs the domain’s DNS (from its nameservers) and who handles its e-mail (from its MX records), with the evidence for every conclusion — so you can see why it says a site is on Netlify, not just that it is. Everything is public DNS and routing data; nothing is requested from the website itself.
How to use it
- Type a domain (
example.com), a subdomain (shop.example.com) or paste a URL. - Press Check hosting. For a bare domain the www name is checked too, and the other way round.
- Read the headline: where the site is hosted or which CDN serves it, with the server country, DNS host and e-mail provider underneath.
- Check the evidence: the CNAME chain, and for each IP address its network (AS number), provider, cloud service or region and country. Details opens the full IP Address Lookup for that address.
- Use Copy report, CSV (one row per address) or JSON to keep the results.
Examples
www.ghost.org
www.ghost.org: Hosted on Netlify, via Amazon Web Services (AWS) CNAME: www.ghost.org → g4.netlify.app 52.74.6.109 — AS16509 Amazon.com, Inc. · EC2 in ap-southeast-1 · Singapore
The CNAME names the platform; the addresses show the network its servers run on. DNS answers as seen from India — other places can get other addresses, and sites move over time.
www.bbc.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk: Served through Fastly CNAME: www.bbc.co.uk → www.bbc.co.uk.pri.bbc.co.uk → bbc.map.fastly.net E-mail: Broadcom Email Security.cloud
Visitors connect to Fastly’s edge servers; the servers behind them are not visible in DNS.
www.heroku.com
www.heroku.com: Hosted on WordPress VIP (Automattic) CNAME: www.heroku.com → heroku.go-vip.net
go-vip.net host names belong to WordPress VIP, Automattic’s enterprise WordPress hosting.
Common uses
- Finding out which host or platform a competitor’s or client’s website runs on before a migration or a pitch.
- Checking that a domain points where it should after moving hosts, adding a CDN or connecting a custom domain to a platform.
- Finding where to send a takedown or abuse report for a phishing or copyright-infringing site: the host or the CDN.
- Seeing which DNS provider and e-mail service a domain uses before changing nameservers or MX records.
How the host is identified
- CNAME targets. Platforms give each customer a host name to point to —
cname.vercel-dns.com(Vercel),*.netlify.app(Netlify),shops.myshopify.com(Shopify),ext-cust.squarespace.com(Squarespace),*.github.io(GitHub Pages),*.cloudfront.net(Amazon CloudFront),*.azurewebsites.net(Azure App Service),*.edgekey.net(Akamai) and many more. A recognised CNAME is the strongest evidence. - The network. Each address’s BGP origin AS (from Team Cymru’s IP to ASN service) names the network it lives on — for example AS16509 is Amazon, AS13335 Cloudflare and AS54113 Fastly. The AS numbers in the provider list were checked against their registered names.
- Published cloud ranges. AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, DigitalOcean, Akamai (Linode) and Vultr publish which addresses belong to which service, region or data centre; the checker matches against snapshots of those files.
- Country. From the DB-IP IP to Country Lite database (CC BY 4.0).
Why a CDN hides the real host
With a CDN or reverse proxy such as Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly or Amazon CloudFront, DNS points visitors to the CDN’s edge servers, which fetch pages from the site’s own (origin) server. The origin’s address is deliberately not published, so DNS-based tools can only report the CDN. The countries shown are then those of the edge servers DNS chose — often near you, not the origin.
DNS host and e-mail provider
The DNS host comes from the nameservers (NS records) of the zone the name belongs to — for example *.ns.cloudflare.com is Cloudflare DNS and ns-*.awsdns-* is Amazon Route 53. It is often different from the web host and from the registrar (the WHOIS lookup shows the registrar). The e-mail provider comes from the domain’s MX records: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail and others are recognised, as are filtering gateways such as Proofpoint or Mimecast that sit in front of the real mailboxes. A single MX record of “.” (null MX, RFC 7505) means the domain accepts no e-mail.
Bare domain and www
example.com and www.example.com are separate DNS names and can be hosted differently: often the bare domain redirects to www (or the other way round) from a different service, or the www name is a CNAME while the bare domain uses A records. The checker looks at both and says when they differ.
Limitations
- It reads DNS and routing data only. Response headers and page technology (CMS, server software) need a request to the site, which this page does not make.
- Behind a CDN, the real hosting provider cannot be seen in DNS. MySmartCoPilot does not try to uncover hidden origin servers.
- DNS answers can depend on where the question comes from (geo-DNS), so a site may show different addresses elsewhere in the world.
- Providers outside the built-in list are shown with their registered network name, and cloud regions only for the seven providers with published range files.
Privacy
The domain you enter is sent from your browser, without cookies, to Cloudflare’s DNS-over-HTTPS resolver (Google’s if Cloudflare cannot be reached) as DNS questions; the site’s IP addresses go to the same resolver for Team Cymru routing and reverse DNS questions. Countries are looked up in data files downloaded from MySmartCoPilot. Nothing is sent to the website itself, and MySmartCoPilot does not store your checks.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out who hosts a website?
Enter its domain here. The answer comes from the site’s DNS: a CNAME to a platform (such as Netlify or Shopify) names the platform; otherwise the network that owns its IP addresses (its AS number) names the host or CDN. The evidence list shows exactly which record led to the answer.
Why does it say the site is on Cloudflare, not the real host?
The site uses Cloudflare (or another CDN) as a reverse proxy, so its public DNS points only to Cloudflare. The real server is hidden by design. To report abuse, contact the CDN: Cloudflare, Akamai and others accept abuse reports and pass them on to the site’s host.
Is the web host the same as the domain registrar?
Not necessarily. The registrar is where the domain name is registered; the host runs the servers; a third company may run the DNS. Use the WHOIS lookup for the registrar.
How can I tell which e-mail service a company uses?
Look at the E-mail part of the report. It reads the domain’s MX records: smtp.google.com means Google Workspace, *.mail.protection.outlook.com Microsoft 365, and so on. A security gateway such as Proofpoint may hide which mailbox service is behind it.
Why is the server country different from where the company is?
Sites are hosted wherever the provider runs data centres, and CDNs answer from the edge server nearest the person asking. Country data is also an estimate (DB-IP Lite), most uncertain for CDN and anycast addresses.