3 Methods to Detect Competitor Shopify Apps for Free (With Tools & Prompts)
Three quick and free methods to detect what apps your competitors are using on their Shopify stores. Includes tools and AI prompts.
Three Methods, Easy & Free
Disclaimer: None of these methods are 100% accurate or comprehensive. Use them as reference only.
Method 1: Using Browser Extensions or Third-Party Tools
My go-to tool is Store Leads, a Chrome browser extension that works out of the box for anyone.
How to Use:
- After installation, the extension automatically detects when you browse any Shopify store
- It displays various store information, including "Apps & Stacks"
- You can click directly to jump to the App Store
Hidden Feature:
When browsing the Shopify App Store, you can see the e-commerce websites of app reviewers—a clever way to reverse-lookup stores.
Tool Link: https://storeleads.app/
Method 2: DIY with AI Assistance
Some stores are too new or niche to be indexed by third-party tools. In these cases, we need to do it ourselves.
The Principle:
The logic behind finding a store's apps is simple: all plugin traces are "hidden" in the raw HTML code, which is completely public. Anyone can read it, including you.
Most people feel intimidated by the word "code," but with AI, you don't need to understand any code. Just throw the code at AI and tell it what you need.
How to Do It:
- Visit any Shopify store, press Ctrl+U, or right-click and select "View Page Source"
- Copy the raw HTML (you may need to copy in chunks due to length limits)
- Paste it into your favorite AI tool
- Ask: "From this HTML code, can you analyze and identify what third-party apps are being used?"
Advanced Tips:
- Optimize your prompts for more precise results
- Learn some basic HTML knowledge to understand what plugin traces look like and where they typically appear
- If you're tech-savvy, you can even build a cleaning script or a cleaning + AI recognition application
Startup Idea: There's a web app business idea right here!
Method 3: Browse for Inspiration? Try Selofy
The two methods above (especially the second one) are part of the technical strategy I used to build Selofy. The N8N workflow essentially cleans the raw HTML with a code node to compress CSS and content HTML, then passes it to an AI agent for analysis.
So, I recommend checking out Selofy, a platform that helps you find competitors and their apps.
Besides finding what apps certain brands use, you can also see what themes they're using, traffic data scraped from SimilarWeb, and other strategies worth learning from.
You can also view detailed introductions of specific apps (some might even have exclusive discounts).
Platform Link: https://www.selofy.com
FAQ
Summary
Detecting competitor apps is an important part of e-commerce competitive research. Through Store Leads, AI analysis of HTML code, and the Selofy platform, you can quickly understand your competitors' tech stacks and app choices.
Remember, these methods have limited accuracy and should be used as directional references rather than absolute truth. Most importantly, use this information to optimize your own business decisions rather than blindly imitating competitors.
