Instagram vs Photos
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Connect with friends and discover new content through photos, videos, and short-form entertainment. Share your daily moments and life's highlights, or dive into personalized feeds based on your interests.
- Short-form video creation and discovery (Reels)
- Ephemeral content sharing (Stories & Notes)
- Private group chats (Close Friends)
- Personalized content feeds (Explore)
- Customizable posts with templates and filters
- Discover brands and shop products
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Little moments lead to big friendships. Share yours on Instagram. — From Meta Connect with friends, find other fans, and see what people around you are up to and into. Explore your interests and post what's going on, from your daily moments to life's highlights. Share what you’re up to and into: - Turn your life into a movie and discover short, entertaining videos on Instagram with Reels. - Keep up with friends on the fly with Stories and Notes that disappear after 24 hours. - Start group chats and share unfiltered moments with your Close Friends. - Share memories from recent events or trips in Feed. - Customize your posts with exclusive templates, music, stickers and filters. Dive into your interests. - Watch videos from your favorite creators and discover new content that’s personalized to your interests. - Get inspired by photos and videos from new accounts in Explore. - Discover brands and small businesses, and shop products that are relevant to your personal style. Some Instagram features may not be available in your country or region. Terms and Policies: https://help.instagram.com/581066165581870 Consumer Health Privacy Policy: https://privacycenter.instagram.com/policies/health Learn how we're working to help keep our communities safe across Meta technologies at the Instagram Safety Center: https://about.instagram.com/safety
Photos
Organize, enhance, and share your cherished memories. This app provides intelligent tools to browse, edit, and manage your photos and videos. Discover new ways to relive your experiences and keep your library secure.
- Interactive photo and video grid
- Organize by collections and media types
- Powerful on-device search
- Create custom albums
- Relive memories with spatial scenes
- Photo and video editing tools
- Seamless sharing options
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Browse, edit, and share your picture-perfect moments. Photos is the home for all of your amazing photos and videos, and it's smart and personal, with intelligent features that help you find, enjoy, and share your best shots.* Browse your library • The Library tab displays your photos and videos in an interactive, zoomable grid, with options to view by Months and Years • Quickly filter down to specific content types, like photos that have been edited, or choose to remove screenshots from the view Browse by Collections • The Collections tab organizes your library by topics, like Recent Days, People & Pets, Trips, Memories, your custom albums, Wallpaper Suggestions, and more • Media Types organizes your photos by type like Selfies, Videos, Portraits, and Screenshots • Utilities gathers photos by useful topics like Duplicates, Documents, Receipts, and Handwriting • Pinned Collections lets you put your most frequently accessed content right at your fingertips Customize the Photos app just for you • Reorder Collections sections and choose a size to enjoy just the way you like them • Choose to add items to Pinned Collections to keep your most-used items close at hand Find just what you're looking for with powerful Search • On-device machine learning analyzes your photos so you can search for people, places, dates, events, and even objects and scenes like basketball, birthday cake, or beach Organize your photos into albums • Create albums of your favorite topics Relive your memories • Spatial scenes let you view your photos with a delightful 3D effect • Memories uses on-device intelligence to find trips, holidays, people, pets, and more in your collection, and presents them as movies paced to music, or create your the memory you want to see using Apple Intelligence Perfect your photos in Edit • Fine‑tune your photos and videos with powerful tools like auto enhance, highlights, shadows, vibrance, and definition, and apply edits to another image or to a batch • Remove distractions with a tap using Clean Up • Slow down high frame rate videos for slow motion effects Share with friends and family • Share to Messages, Mail, and third party apps • Share photos seamlessly with up to five other family members with iCloud Shared Photo Library • Use Shared Albums to share photos and videos with just the people you choose • iCloud Links let you send a set of photos and videos that can be viewed on any platform, in any browser Keep your library safe and up to date with iCloud Photos • Store your photos and videos safely in iCloud and access them from any device, any time, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Apple Vision Pro, on iCloud.com, or even on a PC Keep your photos private • Photos protects your privacy by using on-device intelligence to analyze your photos and videos • Face recognition, scene detection, object detection and more are all done completely on your device • The Hidden and Recently Deleted albums are locked by default Use the Photos app on Apple Watch to access your favorite photos right on your wrist Relive your favorite moments with highlights from Memories Create a Photos or Portrait watch face *Not all features are available on all iPhone or iPad models. Refer to your device’s user guide for information on feature support.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Instagram at 4.7 against Photos's 3.1. Instagram also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 10 months) and ratings volume (30M vs 16K). Photos's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 12) and ads (none vs shown). On price there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Instagram sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per month. Photos asks for nothing beyond the download.
Instagram holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Instagram has 30M ratings behind it against 16K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 31% of Instagram's written reviews are positive against 22% of Photos's.
Instagram ships an update weekly, Photos every 10 months. Both last shipped on November 1, 2026.
| Parameter | Photos | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (30M ratings) — better | 3.1 (16K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 31.5% of reviews — better | 21.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 30M — better | 16K |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 10 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #2 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.3 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 641 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Instagram, Inc. | Apple |
Customer experience
Photos
User reviews
What we love
- 💕 Excellent way to connect with friends and family
- 🌍 Ability to discover new content and accounts
- 🎨 Great platform for artists and creators to showcase their work
- 🤝 Helps small businesses promote their products
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent bugs and glitches
- 🤖 Overly aggressive AI moderation leading to unfair account suspensions
- 🔒 Poor customer support and lack of transparency around account issues
- 📊 Declining organic reach and push towards paid advertising
- 🔀 Confusing layout changes that make the app less user-friendly
Photos
From 16K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Innovative features
- 💡 Customization options
- 👍 Intuitive user interface
- 👍 Seamless photo/video management
- 🚀 Efficient photo organization
Room to improve
- 🐛 Buggy and glitchy
- 🤔 Confusing UI changes
- 🤯 Unintuitive navigation
- 🤔 Lack of basic organization features
- 🤦♂️ Forced iCloud integration
Bugs and requests
Reported bugs
4 issues- Unable to post or view videos due to app crashing
- Saved posts and drafts randomly disappearing
- Notifications not working or showing outdated information
- Inability to log in or switch between multiple accounts
Requested features
4 requests- Ability to edit/delete individual photos from a multi-photo post
- Option to view posts in chronological order instead of algorithmic feed
- Better tools for small businesses to manage and grow their presence
- Improved accessibility features for users with disabilities
Photos
Reported bugs
5 issues- Photos not syncing properly across devices
- Editing tools and markup functionality unreliable
- Frequent crashes and performance issues
- Inconsistent behavior when managing albums
- Shared library causing unexpected photo deletions
Requested features
5 requests- Allow manual people tagging
- Add option to hide/remove photos from 'All Photos'
- Improve search and filtering capabilities
- Provide more customization options for albums/folders
- Implement password protection for sensitive photos
In-app purchases
- Meta Verified Standard9 variants$14.991 Month
- Instagram Badge$0.99
- Instagram Badge$4.99
Photos
No in-app purchases








