Hosting provider detector. From DNS + ASN.
Enter a domain. We resolve A record via Cloudflare DoH, look up the IP's ASN via ipapi.co, and identify the hosting provider category (cloud, dedicated, CDN-edge, platform-as-a-service).
Enter a domain. We resolve the A record via Cloudflare DoH, look up the IP's ASN via ipapi.co, and classify the hosting provider into tier (cloud / PaaS / CDN edge / dedicated / shared).
Sources used
- Cloudflare DoH — A record lookup
- ipapi.co — IP-to-ASN + organization lookup
- IANA ASN registry
- Hurricane Electric BGP toolkit — for deeper ASN exploration
The domain is sent only to Cloudflare DoH + ipapi.co. Digital Heroes does not log queries.
Privacy: queries go to Cloudflare DoH + ipapi.co only. Digital Heroes does not log.
Hosting tier reveals operational maturity.
Hosting choice signals operational maturity, cost profile, and technical sophistication. Hyperscale cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) signals enterprise-grade infrastructure with dedicated DevOps. Platform-as-a-service (Vercel, Netlify, Render, Fly.io) signals modern JAMstack workflow with rapid deploy cycles. Dedicated/VPS (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, OVH) signals direct-to-server ops, often early-stage or cost-conscious. Shared hosting (GoDaddy, Bluehost, Hostinger) signals small-business or unsophisticated tech setup. The detector composes Cloudflare DoH (resolves domain to IP) + ipapi.co (resolves IP to ASN/org) for the classification.
Three uses for hosting detection. Sales-prospect pre-call research — knowing a prospect runs on shared hosting vs Vercel changes the tech conversation entirely. Competitive infra intelligence — what tier are competitors on, where do they spend on infrastructure. Technical due diligence — a prospect saying 'we're on AWS' verified vs claimed makes a meaningful trust signal in M&A due diligence.
Tools in the same cluster: Web Server Detector for the origin-server tier. CDN Detector for the edge-tier identification. DNS Lookup for the broader DNS view.
Five answers.
How does the detector identify the hosting provider?
Two lookups composed: first, Cloudflare DoH resolves your domain's A record to its IP address. Second, ipapi.co looks up the IP's ASN (Autonomous System Number) and operator. The ASN identifies the network operator — AS13335 is Cloudflare, AS15169 is Google, AS16509 is Amazon AWS, AS14061 is DigitalOcean, AS24940 is Hetzner. The detector classifies the result into hosting tier (hyperscale cloud, platform-as-a-service, CDN edge, dedicated, shared).
What if the domain sits behind Cloudflare or another CDN?
Common scenario. The detector will identify Cloudflare as the front-facing host because the A record resolves to a Cloudflare IP. The actual origin (AWS, GCP, Hetzner) is hidden behind the CDN — by design, since CDN proxying is one of Cloudflare's core security features. To identify the true origin, you'd need an out-of-band signal: a non-proxied subdomain (origin.example.com), historical DNS records (SecurityTrails / DNSDumpster paid services), or response headers that leak origin info (rare but possible).
Why does hosting tier matter?
Hosting tier indicates operational maturity and cost profile. Hyperscale cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) signals enterprise-grade infrastructure, often dedicated DevOps team. Platform-as-a-service (Vercel, Netlify, Render) signals modern JAMstack workflow with fast deploy cycles. CDN edge (Cloudflare Workers, Fastly Compute@Edge) signals serverless-first architecture. Dedicated/VPS (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode) signals direct-to-server ops, often early-stage. Shared hosting (GoDaddy, Bluehost) signals small-business or low-traffic scenarios. The tier informs sales conversation, technical assumption, and competitive positioning.
How accurate is ASN-based hosting detection?
Country and ASN-level accuracy is 95%+ when the IP belongs to a known registered ASN. Hosting-tier classification depends on ASN-to-tier mapping, which is curated and may miss niche providers. Multi-tenant ASNs (AWS hosts thousands of customers) can't tell you which AWS customer the site is — you'd see 'Amazon AWS' but not 'Shopify on AWS'. For verifying a known provider claim (the prospect says they're on Vercel — confirm via this tool), accuracy is essentially 100%. For broad classification, expect occasional 'unknown ASN' results for newer/smaller hosts.
Does this tool save my data?
The domain you enter is sent to Cloudflare DoH (DNS lookup) and ipapi.co (ASN lookup). Nothing is logged on Digital Heroes servers. Each upstream API has its own privacy policy linked in the Sources panel.
Wrong tier for your stage?
Our web development engagements ship the right hosting tier per stack — Vercel/Netlify for Next.js + JAMstack, AWS + Cloudflare for enterprise-scale, Render/Fly.io for modern Rails/Python apps.
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