Best Instagram scrapers in 2026

An Instagram scraper is a tool that collects public Instagram data, such as profile details, posts, hashtags and engagement counts, and returns it as structured records. An Instagram web scraper does the same by loading pages, while an API returns JSON.

The one thing to know before you pick one: Instagram hides most data behind a login, so any tool you can use without handing over your own account is limited to public profiles and posts. Treat anything that asks for your credentials as a risk to that account.

Our data lists three vendors with dedicated Instagram tooling: Crawlbase, SerpApi and Apify.

Expect limits even with public data. Instagram rate-limits heavily, shows login prompts after a few page views, and changes its page structure often. That is why a maintained actor or API tends to hold up better than a script you wrote last spring. It is also why you should test on a realistic batch, not on three profiles, before you trust a tool with a weekly job.

Apify's Instagram Scraper actor, made by Apify, is the most direct starting point if you want posts, profiles and hashtags from one tool. Apify has a free monthly platform credit, and the cost depends on the actor you run.

Crawlbase lists an Instagram scraper inside its Crawling API, which suits teams that already use it for other sites. SerpApi has an Instagram Profile API, so it fits profile lookups but is not described as a posts or hashtag tool in our notes. Entry prices are from $25/mo for SerpApi and $149/mo for Crawlbase, and Apify's entry price is not verified.

Browse AI and the general-purpose APIs do not list an Instagram tool in our data, so we leave them out.

How the three differ in practice: Apify is a marketplace, so you pick an actor, set inputs such as usernames or hashtags, and download results. A Crawling API is a request-response service you call from code. SerpApi returns a profile as JSON from a single search call. If you have no developer, Apify's actor interface is the friendliest of the three.

Profiles, posts and hashtags are separate datasets, and each one costs differently. Decide which one you need before you test.

Follower and following lists are the hardest part of Instagram, because they are usually only visible to logged-in users and are personal data about many people. An Instagram follower scraper and an Instagram following scraper are among the most searched tools, but our data does not confirm that any listed vendor offers them.

Check an actor's description and recent reviews. If it needs your login, you risk your account and break platform rules. If it returns only the follower count, that is a profile field, not a list. For email lists, an Instagram email scraper only finds addresses people published themselves, and using them for outreach is a privacy and anti-spam question.

An Instagram scraper on GitHub or in Python is worth it for learning or a one-off task, and rarely for production. Instagram changes often, so many open-source projects stop working or get abandoned.

If you try one, check the date of the last commit, the open issues and whether it needs your login. Compare the time you spend fixing it with the monthly price of a maintained actor or API. Running your own scraper at scale also means buying proxies; our residential proxies ranking shows what that part costs.

Most legitimate projects need only a few public fields, and a smaller field list means a cheaper and safer scraper. Typical uses are:

Collecting public information is lawful in many places, but Meta's terms restrict automated access, and privacy laws apply to personal data. Neither a tool nor a GitHub script changes that.

Courts and platform terms differ by country. Stay with public data, avoid private accounts and personal details you have no reason to hold, and ask a lawyer before building a business on the results.

Test the tool on 100 public profiles or posts and divide the bill by the number of complete records.

Look at the output fields against your use case, the free tier (Apify's monthly credit, SerpApi's free monthly searches), and how often runs return partial data. Check SerpApi if profile lookups are all you need, and our scraping API ranking to compare plans across vendors.

A free Instagram scraper exists only as a trial or a small monthly allowance, which is enough to check the output of a few dozen profiles. Free browser extensions and scripts often ask for your Instagram login. Handing over credentials risks the account and breaks Instagram's rules, so we would not use them for anything that matters. After a test, compare per-1,000-post pricing in the free scraping APIs ranking.