For a tool for scraping public Instagram profiles, the first results are instaloader/instaloader, datalux/osintgram (Osintgram is a self-hostable CLI tool that uses headless browser automation to extract public Instagram profile data for OSINT purposes, fitting the category of an Instagram scraper with likely support for posts, comments, followers, and session handling) and justanotherarchivist/snscrape. ping/instagram_private_api and subzeroid/instagrapi round out the shortlist. Compare the match explanations and check the project documentation against your requirements.
Find the best Instagram profile scrapers. We compare top open-source tools ranked by activity and reliability to help you pick the right one.
Instaloader is a Python library and command-line utility designed for the automated retrieval, archiving, and analysis of Instagram content. It provides a programmatic interface to fetch media, captions, and metadata from public or private profiles, hashtags, and stories, while maintaining persistent user sessions for authorized access. The tool distinguishes itself through robust archive management and traffic control mechanisms. It supports incremental synchronization, allowing users to resume interrupted downloads and update local collections without redundant requests. To ensure reliable
Instaloader is a dedicated command-line tool and library for scraping Instagram data, supporting extraction of posts, media, captions, comments, follower and following lists, with built-in pagination handling, rate-limit management, session-based login, and export to CSV/JSON — fitting your requirements for a self-hostable Instagram scraper.
Osintgram is a command-line utility designed for open-source intelligence gathering and the extraction of public data from social media profiles. It functions as a framework for collecting and processing user information to assist in digital investigations and the mapping of digital footprints. The tool distinguishes itself through a modular architecture that organizes intelligence-gathering tasks into independent scripts, all sharing a unified session state and data processing pipeline. It utilizes headless browser automation and session-based interactions to mimic legitimate user behavior,
Osintgram is a self-hostable CLI tool that uses headless browser automation to extract public Instagram profile data for OSINT purposes, fitting the category of an Instagram scraper with likely support for posts, comments, followers, and session handling.
snscrape is a Python-based social media web scraper and crawler designed to extract public posts, profiles, and hashtags from social networks without the use of official APIs. It functions as an archival tool and a utility for open-source intelligence data collection, allowing for the gathering of publicly available information to investigate trends and people. The tool facilitates social media data extraction for research and archival purposes, enabling the creation of historical records of conversations and user activity. It supports workflows for academic social analysis and the export of
snscrape is a Python-based social media scraper that can extract posts, media, comments, and profile data from Instagram without using the official API, supports cursor-based pagination, exports to JSON/CSV, and runs as a self-hostable command-line tool—matching the requested Instagram scraping features.
This Python library is a private API wrapper that provides programmatic access to Instagram features by communicating with internal mobile endpoints. It functions as a social media automation toolkit for managing profiles, publishing media, and interacting with the social graph. The library uses a reverse-engineered API to mimic the communication patterns and request headers of mobile applications. It incorporates a session manager that persists authentication cookies and client metadata to maintain active logins and reduce the frequency of authentication handshakes. Its capabilities cover m
This Python library wraps Instagram's private API to programmatically access posts, comments, and profile data, making it a solid fit for scraping publicly available Instagram content, though it is a general automation toolkit rather than a dedicated scraper with built-in CLI and export utilities.
Instagrapi is a Python library that provides a complete interface to Instagram's private API for scraping posts, comments, followers, and stories, with login support and pagination handling, making it a solid fit for building an Instagram data extraction tool.
th3unkn0n/osi.ig is an open-source Python Instagram scraper built for OSINT, directly addressing the need to extract posts, comments, and follower data from public pages, though you should verify handling of pagination and export formats from its code or docs.
This project is a web scraping and automation tool designed to collect public data from Instagram and perform automated social media interactions. It functions by gathering profile details, captions, media files, and engagement metrics directly from web pages, bypassing the need for official developer interfaces or platform-specific credentials. The tool distinguishes itself by combining data extraction with automated engagement capabilities. It allows users to programmatically interact with content by liking posts that match specific search criteria or hashtags, aiming to increase account vi
This Python-based Instagram scraper extracts posts, profile data, and hashtag results without using the official API, making it a self-hostable command-line tool that fits the core scraping purpose, though explicit comment and follower data extraction is not confirmed.
This project is a RESTful media extraction service that provides a programmatic interface for downloading video and image content from social media platforms. It functions as a scraper that parses shared URLs and user profile identifiers to isolate direct media streams and associated metadata from platform-specific data structures. The service distinguishes itself through its ability to emulate cryptographic signatures and security tokens required to authenticate requests against protected backend services. By simulating headless browser behavior and managing cookies and headers, the system b
This repository is a media extraction service for Douyin and TikTok, not Instagram, so it scrapes the wrong platform for the visitor's stated need.
Twint is an open-source intelligence and data extraction framework designed to gather public social media information. It functions as a command-line utility that retrieves posts, user profiles, and follower lists directly from web interfaces, bypassing the need for official platform developer credentials or authentication keys. The tool distinguishes itself by enabling automated, large-scale data collection through terminal-based orchestration. It supports granular filtering by keywords, geographic locations, time ranges, and account status, allowing researchers to build targeted datasets fo
Twint is a Twitter-specific scraping tool, not an Instagram scraper—it extracts tweets and Twitter profiles but lacks any Instagram features like extracting posts, comments, or follower data from Instagram pages.
Social-analyzer is an open-source intelligence framework designed for the automated discovery, correlation, and verification of digital identities across online platforms. It functions as a comprehensive engine for gathering social media intelligence, utilizing distributed browser automation to extract metadata and profile information from hundreds of websites simultaneously. The platform distinguishes itself through its ability to perform cross-platform identity correlation using heuristic-based pattern matching and name permutation generation. It processes these findings through a confidenc
Social Analyzer is an OSINT framework for cross-platform identity discovery and verification, not a dedicated Instagram scraper for extracting posts, comments, and follower data from specific pages.
MediaCrawler is an automated web scraping framework designed to extract public posts, comments, and creator metadata from various social media platforms. It functions as a headless browser automator, utilizing real browser instances to render dynamic content and execute the client-side scripts necessary for interacting with modern web interfaces. The system distinguishes itself through a focus on session persistence and network flexibility. It supports remote debugging to reuse active browser sessions and cookies, which helps minimize the risk of triggering platform security challenges. To ma
MediaCrawler is a general automated framework for extracting public data from multiple social media platforms, but it is not specifically built for Instagram and does not mention Instagram in its description or tags, so it is a broader tool rather than a dedicated Instagram scraper.
Go Spider is a modular framework designed for building concurrent web scrapers and data extraction workflows. It provides a structured engine for orchestrating automated crawling tasks, managing request scheduling, and processing web content through a unified pipeline. The framework distinguishes itself through a highly configurable architecture that allows developers to inject custom logic for downloaders, schedulers, and storage components via interface-driven contracts. It manages network interactions using middleware-based request throttling and URL deduplication, ensuring that crawling o
Go Spider is a general-purpose concurrent web scraping framework, not a dedicated Instagram scraper — it provides the building blocks for custom crawlers but does not directly extract Instagram posts, followers, or comments.
| Repository | Stars | Language | License | Last push |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| instaloader/instaloader | 11.6K | Python | mit | |
| datalux/osintgram | 13.2K | Python | GPL-3.0 | |
| justanotherarchivist/snscrape | 5.4K | Python | GPL-3.0 | |
| ping/instagram_private_api | 3.2K | Python | mit | |
| subzeroid/instagrapi | 6.4K | Python | NOASSERTION | |
| th3unkn0n/osi.ig | 1.5K | Python | — | |
| huaying/instagram-crawler | 1.3K | Python | MIT | |
| evil0ctal/douyin_tiktok_download_api | 16.3K | Python | apache-2.0 | |
| twintproject/twint | 16.3K | Python | mit | |
| qeeqbox/social-analyzer | 21.1K | JavaScript | agpl-3.0 |