Instagram API for Python

Instagram API for Python Developers

HikerAPI provides a REST API that works with any HTTP library. For Python, you can use the official hikerapi PyPI package or plain requests/httpx.

Installation

pip install hikerapi

Or use any HTTP library:

pip install requests
# or
pip install httpx

Quick Start with requests

import requests

API_KEY = "your_access_key"
BASE = "https://api.hikerapi.com"
headers = {"x-access-key": API_KEY}

# Get user profile
user = requests.get(
    f"{BASE}/v1/user/by/username",
    params={"username": "instagram"},
    headers=headers,
).json()

print(f"Name: {user['full_name']}")
print(f"Followers: {user['follower_count']:,}")
print(f"Posts: {user['media_count']:,}")

Async with httpx

import httpx
import asyncio

API_KEY = "your_access_key"
BASE = "https://api.hikerapi.com"
headers = {"x-access-key": API_KEY}

async def get_profiles(usernames):
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        tasks = [
            client.get(
                f"{BASE}/v1/user/by/username",
                params={"username": u},
                headers=headers,
            )
            for u in usernames
        ]
        responses = await asyncio.gather(*tasks)
        return [r.json() for r in responses]

profiles = asyncio.run(get_profiles(["instagram", "nike", "natgeo"]))
for p in profiles:
    print(f"{p['username']}: {p['follower_count']:,} followers")

Fetch User Posts with Pagination

import requests

headers = {"x-access-key": "your_api_key"}
BASE = "https://api.hikerapi.com"

all_posts = []
max_id = None
user_id = 25025320  # instagram's user ID

while True:
    params = {"user_id": user_id}
    if max_id:
        params["max_id"] = max_id

    resp = requests.get(
        f"{BASE}/v1/user/medias/chunk",
        params=params,
        headers=headers,
    ).json()

    all_posts.extend(resp["items"])
    max_id = resp.get("next_max_id")

    if not max_id:
        break

print(f"Collected {len(all_posts)} posts")

Error Handling

import requests

def api_request(endpoint, params):
    resp = requests.get(
        f"https://api.hikerapi.com{endpoint}",
        params=params,
        headers={"x-access-key": "your_api_key"},
    )
    if resp.status_code == 200:
        return resp.json()
    elif resp.status_code == 404:
        print(f"Not found: {params}")
        return None
    else:
        print(f"Error {resp.status_code}: {resp.text}")
        return None

user = api_request("/v1/user/by/username", {"username": "instagram"})

FAQ

Do you have an official Python SDK?
Yes — pip install hikerapi. It wraps all endpoints with type hints. You can also use plain requests or httpx.

Does it support async?
Yes. Use httpx.AsyncClient for concurrent requests or the async methods in the SDK.

What Python version is required?
Python 3.7+ for requests, Python 3.8+ for httpx async.

Getting Started

pip install requests
Register for an API key
API docs — all 147+ endpoints

Instagram API for Python