FAQ

Desktop Insights is BuiltWith for desktop apps. We download macOS and Windows applications, extract the SDKs, frameworks, and dependency versions from the shipped binaries, and track how they change release by release. Sales, security, and research teams use it to answer questions a website scanner can't: what does Figma use for crash reporting, how many Electron apps still bundle an outdated Chromium, which apps adopted SwiftUI this year.

We download the actual app bundle or installer and analyze it. For Electron apps we read package.json, CREDITS.html, and asar archives. For native macOS apps we inspect framework plists, CocoaPods and SwiftPM bundles, linked libraries, and binary strings. For Windows apps we unpack MSI/MSIX installers and analyze PE binaries, .NET assemblies, and embedded manifests. Each detection carries a confidence band and the evidence it came from, and when a binary carries no extractable signal we report nothing rather than guess.

Tens of thousands of macOS and Windows applications, ingested from Homebrew, the Mac App Store, winget, the Microsoft Store, and GitHub releases — including Figma, Slack, Discord, VS Code, Notion, 1Password, Spotify, and Linear. New apps are discovered automatically, and we can add specific applications on request for enterprise customers.

We poll the package sources and stores we ingest from every hour and re-extract an app whenever a new version appears, so a profile reflects the currently shipping build rather than a one-time scan. Every app profile shows when it was last extracted.

Yes. The app directory is free to browse — no account needed — and shows each app's runtime, signing status, entitlements, and which SDK categories it was detected to use. Full SDK and dependency lists, exact versions, version history, and API access are part of the enterprise plan; book a demo to see them on the apps you care about.

Yes. The REST API has three endpoints today: lookup (the full technology profile of one app), search (find apps by what they use or don't use), and export (stream a filtered result set as CSV or NDJSON). Trends, version history, compare, and webhooks are on the roadmap. Contact us for a key; the docs cover setup, including Clay and the MCP server.

SDK vendors tracking their own adoption and their competitors'. Sales teams at developer-tools companies building prospect lists from what apps actually ship. Security and compliance teams checking which apps bundle vulnerable dependency versions. GTM engineers enriching Clay tables with desktop technographic data. Investors and analysts using desktop technology adoption as an alternative data signal.

Yes. Enrich Clay tables through Clay's HTTP API enrichment step — no native integration required. Add a column of app names, point it at our lookup endpoint, and get back runtime, SDK categories (error tracking, analytics, feature flags, and more), dependency counts, and developer info. It works for competitive displacement campaigns, greenfield prospecting, and enrichment chains alongside Apollo or Hunter. The Clay integration guide in the docs walks through setup step by step.

BuiltWith and Wappalyzer detect technologies on websites by scanning HTML, JavaScript, and HTTP headers. Desktop Insights analyzes the desktop application binaries themselves — package.json inside Electron apps, framework plists in native macOS apps, PE binaries and installers on Windows, and dependency evidence in compiled code. The two barely overlap: if a company ships a desktop app, BuiltWith and Wappalyzer can't tell you what's inside it. We can.