Use Cases

Competitor poaching

Find apps using a competitor's SDK and target them for switching.

Example: Bugsnag targeting Sentry users

1. Build a Clay table with 200+ desktop app names
2. Enrich with Desktop Insights HTTP API
3. Filter: Error Tracking = Sentry
4. Result: a list of apps actively using Sentry — warm leads for Bugsnag
5. Add enrichment: Apollo or Hunter to find VP Engineering contacts at each company
6. Push to Outreach for personalized outbound

The outreach writes itself: "I noticed your desktop app uses Sentry for error tracking. We'd love to show you how Bugsnag handles [specific pain point]..."

Greenfield prospecting

Find apps that don't use any SDK in your category.

Example: PostHog targeting apps without analytics

1. Enrich a table of desktop apps
2. Filter: Analytics = (empty/null)
3. Result: apps with zero analytics SDK — 65% of desktop apps have no analytics
4. These are greenfield opportunities with no incumbent to displace

This is the killer feature. BuiltWith can't do negative search for desktop apps. No one can, except Desktop Insights.

Technology migration tracking

Detect when apps switch from one technology to another.

Example: Monitoring Electron-to-Tauri migration

1. Filter: Runtime = electron
2. Re-run monthly
3. Compare: which apps dropped Electron? What did they switch to?

Investment due diligence

Evaluate a company's engineering stack before investing or acquiring.

1. Look up the company's desktop app
2. Check: modern frameworks (React, not jQuery)? Active dependencies? Recent version?
3. dependencyCount is a proxy for app complexity
4. Runtime reveals the technology bet (Electron = web team, native = platform team)

Enrichment chain pattern

Combine Desktop Insights with other Clay enrichments for complete prospect profiles:

1. Desktop Insights — Get app runtime, SDK stack, dependency count
2. Apollo / Hunter / PeopleDataLabs — Find engineering leads at the developer company
3. LinkedIn enrichment — Confirm title and seniority
4. AI step — Generate personalized outreach based on their specific tech stack
5. Push to CRM — Salesforce, HubSpot, or Outreach

Real data examples

Here's what Desktop Insights returns for well-known apps: