FAQ

Desktop Insights is a technographics platform for desktop software. We track every SDK, framework, and dependency used by macOS and Windows applications — giving sales, security, and research teams the technology intelligence they need to make better decisions.

We download and analyze macOS and Windows app bundles directly. For Electron apps, we extract package.json, CREDITS.html, and asar archives. For native macOS apps, we inspect framework plists, CocoaPods bundles, SPM resource bundles, and run binary string analysis. For Windows apps, we analyze MSI/MSIX installers, PE binaries, and embedded manifests. This gives us the most accurate and comprehensive desktop technology dataset available.

We track thousands of macOS and Windows applications across every category — including tools like Figma, Slack, Discord, VS Code, Notion, 1Password, Spotify, and Linear. We continuously expand our coverage and can add specific applications on request for enterprise customers.

We monitor app update endpoints (Sparkle feeds, Electron update URLs, download pages) and re-extract technology data whenever a new version is released. Most popular apps are checked every few minutes, ensuring near real-time accuracy.

Yes. Create a free account to browse the app directory and see technology stacks for any tracked application. Contact us for a demo of the full platform, including version history, alerts, and API access.

Yes. We offer REST API access for querying technology data programmatically. The API supports lookup, search, trends, SBOM export, and webhook subscriptions. Contact us to discuss API access, bulk data feeds, and CRM integrations.

SDK vendors tracking adoption and identifying competitive displacement opportunities. Sales teams at developer tools companies building prospect lists based on desktop technology usage. Security and compliance teams monitoring vulnerable dependencies across their software supply chain. GTM engineers enriching accounts on Clay, Apollo, and Salesforce with desktop technographic data. Investors and analysts using desktop technology adoption as an alternative data signal.

Yes. You can enrich Clay tables with desktop app technology data using Clay's HTTP API enrichment step — no native integration required. Add a column of app names, connect it to our API, and get back structured data including runtime, SDK categories (error tracking, analytics, feature flags, and more), dependency counts, and developer info. It's ideal for competitive displacement campaigns, greenfield prospecting, and enrichment chains with Apollo or Hunter. See our Clay integration guide in the docs for step-by-step setup.

BuiltWith and Wappalyzer detect technologies on websites by scanning HTML, JavaScript, and HTTP headers. Desktop Insights analyzes actual desktop application binaries — extracting package.json from Electron apps, inspecting framework plists in native macOS apps, analyzing PE binaries and installers on Windows, and running dependency analysis on compiled code. These are completely different data domains with zero overlap. If a company ships a desktop app, BuiltWith and Wappalyzer can't tell you what's inside it. We can.