Possible to check if a website is being served through static html or ASP.NET?

Question

Is there a way to tell (as a client) if there is any server side code that's being processed (PHP/ASP.NET) or if it's simply static html files?

Answer 1

Try builtwith.com, it will tell you everything it can find out about the platform the server is running on.

Answer 2

You can't always know for sure. Here's an example why. I can set apache to handle a specific extension any way I want. I can have php render a .html document which contains PHP.

All the user will see is they are served an HTML document (.html extension).

For the most part though, the extension can give you a hint, but also if there's dynamic content that's a good clue.