What Is ColdFusion?
FrameworkColdFusion (Adobe ColdFusion, Lucee) is a server-side platform with .cfm pages. Detection relies on the X-Powered-By header, the CFID/CFTOKEN cookies and .cfm links.
Detect ColdFusion on any website:
Why ColdFusion Matters
Framework choice shapes hiring, tooling, deploy targets, and long-term maintenance. If you've inherited a ColdFusion codebase, are comparing it against alternatives, or are trying to recreate a site that uses it, knowing how ColdFusion leaves fingerprints in production HTML is the fastest way to ground-truth the stack without opening the repo. We've fingerprinted ColdFusion on 3 live sites in our database, so the answers here are grounded in real scan data — not marketing copy.
Does ColdFusion Mean a Site Was Built With AI?
ColdFusion alone is not an AI signal.
A backend framework is standard web tooling used by hand-coding developers and AI tools alike. It becomes weak supporting context only in combination with other evidence — for example a shadcn/ui + Supabase + Vite bundle that matches a known AI-builder export — and never counts as proof on its own.
How this feeds the score: builder fingerprints, bundle artifacts and AI-tool traces are weighed separately from stack context like frameworks, libraries and hosting. The full breakdown is on How scores work.
How Websites Using ColdFusion Work
- `X-Powered-By: ColdFusion`
- `CFID` and `CFTOKEN` session cookies
- Relative .cfm links
Best Practices When Working With ColdFusion
Based on patterns in our scan dataset and the detection evidence tiers.
- →Start by running a ColdFusion detection scan on any URL you're evaluating — the 80+ signal engine returns a confidence score plus the exact markers it matched, which beats reading view-source by hand.
- →Cross-check the result against the full detection evidence in /how-scores-work — confidence tiers tell you whether a match is strong (headers + scripts) or circumstantial (a single HTML pattern).
- →Use ColdFusion detection results alongside the hosting + CDN signals on the same scan report — the framework only tells half the deployment story.
How we detect ColdFusion — see our methodology: AI Influence Score calculation, evidence tiers, and fingerprint signal types.
How Our Detector Identifies ColdFusion
Our scanner analyzes multiple layers of a website's technical fingerprint to detect ColdFusion usage.
- HTTP response headers: x-powered-by containing "ColdFusion" (high-confidence tier)
- Cookies named like "CFID=", "CFTOKEN=", "CFGLOBALS" (medium-confidence tier)
- Signal weights for ColdFusion: 85 points per high-tier match, 55 per medium, 25 per low — a site needs 60+ points before ColdFusion is reported.
Websites Built With ColdFusion
Real sites detected by our scanner
What ColdFusion Sites Usually Run Alongside
Technologies detected on the same domains as ColdFusion in our most recent scans. Counts are unique domains, not page views.
Frequently Asked Questions About ColdFusion
What is ColdFusion?+
ColdFusion (Adobe ColdFusion, Lucee) is a server-side platform with .cfm pages. Detection relies on the X-Powered-By header, the CFID/CFTOKEN cookies and .cfm links.
Does ColdFusion mean a website was built with AI?+
ColdFusion alone is not an AI signal. A backend framework is standard web tooling used by hand-coding developers and AI tools alike. It becomes weak supporting context only in combination with other evidence — for example a shadcn/ui + Supabase + Vite bundle that matches a known AI-builder export — and never counts as proof on its own.
Why does ColdFusion matter?+
Framework choice shapes hiring, tooling, deploy targets, and long-term maintenance. If you've inherited a ColdFusion codebase, are comparing it against alternatives, or are trying to recreate a site that uses it, knowing how ColdFusion leaves fingerprints in production HTML is the fastest way to ground-truth the stack without opening the repo. We've fingerprinted ColdFusion on 3 live sites in our database, so the answers here are grounded in real scan data — not marketing copy.
How do we detect ColdFusion?+
Our scanner checks for these signals: HTTP response headers: x-powered-by containing "ColdFusion" (high-confidence tier); Cookies named like "CFID=", "CFTOKEN=", "CFGLOBALS" (medium-confidence tier); Signal weights for ColdFusion: 85 points per high-tier match, 55 per medium, 25 per low — a site needs 60+ points before ColdFusion is reported.. Each match contributes to a confidence score, and the full evidence tiers are documented at /how-scores-work.
How many websites using ColdFusion are in the database?+
We've fingerprinted 3+ live sites built with ColdFusion across our scan dataset. The list refreshes as new scans come in.
What are the typical characteristics of a ColdFusion website?+
`X-Powered-By: ColdFusion`. `CFID` and `CFTOKEN` session cookies. Relative .cfm links
Related Tools & Technologies
Other frameworks we detect
Ready to put ColdFusion detection to work?
You now know what ColdFusion is, why it matters, how to spot it, and where the detection signals come from. The next step is using that knowledge on a real URL — yours, a competitor's, or a prospect's.