Instagram API for Public Data Access

What Is an Instagram API?

An Instagram API gives developers programmatic access to Instagram data — profiles, posts, reels, stories, comments, followers, hashtags, and locations. Instead of manually browsing Instagram or building a scraper, you integrate with an API endpoint that returns structured JSON.

HikerAPI provides 100+ REST endpoints for accessing public Instagram data. No OAuth, no app review, no approval process — sign up, get an API key, and start making requests in minutes.

What You Can Access

Data Type Examples Endpoints
Profiles User info, bio, follower/following counts, business category /v1/user/by/username, /v1/user/by/id
Posts Captions, likes, comments count, media URLs, carousel items /v1/user/medias, /v1/media/by/id
Reels Video metadata, play count, audio info /v1/user/clips, /v1/clip/by/id
Stories Active stories with media URLs and timestamps /v1/user/stories
Comments All comments on any post with pagination /v1/media/comments
Followers Follower and following lists with full profile data /v1/user/followers/chunk
Hashtags Top and recent posts by hashtag /v1/hashtag/medias/top, /v1/hashtag/medias/recent
Locations Posts by location, place details /v1/location/medias
Search Find users, hashtags, and locations by keyword /v1/search

How It Works

  1. Register at hikerapi.com/registration and get your API key
  2. Authenticate by passing x-access-key header with every request
  3. Call endpoints — each returns structured JSON with the data you need
  4. Pay per request — from $0.0006/request, no monthly subscriptions

HikerAPI handles all the complexity behind the scenes: proxy rotation, session management, rate limit handling, and automatic recovery from blocks. You get clean JSON responses without maintaining any Instagram infrastructure.

Code Example

import requests

headers = {"x-access-key": "your_api_key"}

# Get user profile
profile = requests.get(
    "https://api.hikerapi.com/v1/user/by/username",
    params={"username": "instagram"},
    headers=headers,
).json()

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

# Get their recent posts
posts = requests.get(
    "https://api.hikerapi.com/v1/user/medias",
    params={"user_id": profile["pk"], "amount": 10},
    headers=headers,
).json()

for post in posts:
    print(f"  {post['caption']['text'][:80]}...")

Who Uses Instagram APIs

  • Analytics platforms building engagement dashboards and reporting tools
  • Marketing agencies tracking competitor accounts and campaign performance
  • Influencer platforms discovering creators and analyzing audience data
  • Research teams collecting public social media data for analysis
  • SaaS products integrating Instagram data into their workflows
  • Lead generation tools finding prospects through followers and commenters

Why HikerAPI

  • 100+ endpoints covering every public Instagram data type
  • No rate limits — scale as needed without throttling
  • Pay-per-request — from $0.0006, 100 free requests to start
  • Fast integration — API key auth, structured JSON, full Swagger docs
  • Production-ready — 23,000+ registered developers, processing millions of requests daily

Getting Started

Start with 100 free requests — no credit card required.

  1. Create an account
  2. Get your API key from the dashboard
  3. Browse endpoints in the API docs
  4. Check pricing when you're ready to scale

Ready to get started?

100 free API requests. No credit card required.

Sign Up Free