From “Hello. Meet Instagram”
to “Log into Instagram”

Our August 2010 capture renders without its stylesheet, as a narrow column of plain serif text near the top of a white page. Above the text is the logo: a cream camera with a rainbow stripe, drawn like an instant camera, over a red lowercase instagram. The browser tab says instagr.am. The paragraph promises photo filters that transform regular ol’ photos into works of art you’ll want to keep around forever, then admits We're currently in a limited preview, but we'll be launching soon.

Instagram dates its own birthday to October 6, 2010, six weeks after this capture.^[1] TechCrunch reported in September 2010 that Instagram grew out of Burbn, an earlier location-based app, and that Mike Krieger described the idea as taking what they had learned from the more complex Burbn and focusing on social photo sharing (reported).^[2]

Our next capture, from New Year’s Day 2011, is a real homepage. A brown header carries a bold Instagram beside the camera and the line Fast beautiful photo sharing for your iPhone. An iPhone fills the left side, with a green starburst on its corner whose alt text reads Free Download. The pitch sits in a white box with an orange App Store button: Snap a photo with your iPhone, choose a filter to transform the look and feel, send to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. Then comes the line that appears in each of our captures from 2011 to 2014: Oh yeah, did we mention it’s free?

The small print still belongs to the old company. The footer of this January 1, 2011 page reads Copyright 2010, Burbn, Inc. A capture from January 1, 2012 has changed the year and kept the name: Copyright 2011, Burbn, Inc.

The launch had been rough. TechCrunch’s February 2011 report on the launch says people started downloading the app immediately from the other side of the world, and then the server crumbled (reported).^[3]

By June 2012 the homepage is at instagram.com and the header is blue. The wordmark is now a flowing script Instagram beside a brown camera icon with a rainbow stripe, and the tagline under it has lost three words: Fast beautiful photo sharing. Two phones stand on the left. Under the text are two black badges, App Store and Google Play, and the share list has changed to Share to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr too. Flickr is gone from it.

The code had not caught up with the picture. The Google Play badge carries the alt text Coming soon to Android, and the header image is still described as Instagram - Fast, beautiful photo sharing for your iPhone. The footer now names Instagram, Inc.: © 2012 Instagram, Inc.

On April 9, 2012, Facebook announced it would buy Instagram for approximately $1 billion in a combination of cash and shares of Facebook, and said it was committed to building and growing Instagram independently.^[4] In September Facebook welcomed Instagram into the company.^[5]

The June 2013 homepage keeps the 2012 layout and adds one thing in the top right corner: a Log in button with a small house icon. The phone screens are labeled in the code, from Instagram for iPhone - Photo Feed through Camera and Explore to Instagram for iPhone - Following Feed. The Google Play badge still says Coming soon to Android in its alt text, and the footer has shortened to © 2013 Instagram.

There was now something to log in to. According to TechCrunch, Instagram began rolling out profiles that opened in a web browser in November 2012, over two years after the app launched, and people could like, comment and browse photos there (reported). Kevin Systrom ruled one thing out: We’re not going to add web uploading, we’re still primarily mobile focused. (reported)^[6]

A month later Instagram backed down over its new terms of service. After an outcry, the advertising section went back to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010.^[7] By Instagram’s own account, 2013 was also the year the app added video.^[1]

Our June 2014 capture has a new headline: Capture and Share the World's Moments. Two phones overlap, and the front one shows a photo of flowers in a vase. The text now mentions video: Take a picture or video, choose a filter to transform its look and feel. It still ends the way the 2011 page did, with Oh yeah, did we mention it’s free? This is the last of our captures with that line.

One small change in the footer: a Press link joins About us, Support, Blog, API and Jobs.

Two months earlier, on April 7, 2014, NASA astronaut Steve Swanson posted what Guinness World Records lists as the first Instagram from space.^[8] Our June capture still shows the flowers.

In June 2015 the header turns dark blue and the wordmark goes flat and white, with no camera beside it. The phone shows the camera screen pointed at sunlight in a forest. The pitch is rewritten from the top: Instagram is a free and simple way to share your life and keep up with other people. The question about the price is gone, because the price is in the first sentence now. A new option closes the list of things to do with a photo: send it directly as a private message.

The page’s code still calls the header Instagram - Fast, beautiful photo sharing for your iPhone, three years after our first capture with a Google Play badge.

Six days before this capture, Engadget described a redesign of Instagram’s web profiles: they dropped the rotating image header and showed larger images in rows of three instead of five (reported).^[9] The square was loosening too. In 2015 Instagram let people share vertical and horizontal photos and videos alongside square ones.^[1]

The June 2016 homepage is white, and for the first time a form is the main thing on it. Under a black script wordmark a box says Sign up to see photos and videos from your friends. A blue Log in with Facebook button comes first, then fields for Email, Full Name, Username and Password, then Sign up. Beside it two phones overlap, and the front one shows a Cat Lovers group chat with shared photos and a row of yellow emoji. The page shows no app icon at all.

The icon had just changed. On May 11, 2016, Instagram replaced its camera icon with a simpler one and carried the old rainbow into a gradient. Layout, Boomerang and Hyperlapse got new icons at the same time.^[10]

Our August 2017 capture keeps the layout, but the first field now reads Mobile Number or Email, and the phone’s editing screen, with tools such as Brightness and Contrast, shows an orange succulent in a pot. Its code carries a description for search engines that repeats in the HTML of every capture we read from 2018 to 2023: Create an account or log in to Instagram - A simple, fun & creative way to capture, edit & share photos, videos & messages with friends & family.

Just over three months earlier, on April 26, 2017, Instagram had announced more than 700 million monthly active users, 100 million of them added in four months.^[11]

The June 2018 and June 2019 homepages keep the phones and the sign-up form of 2016, with small changes to the field labels and the terms line. The phone screen rotates: our 2016 and 2018 captures caught the Cat Lovers chat, 2017 and 2019 the succulent in the editing screen. The footer is where the page grows. By 2018 it lists Directory, Profiles, Hashtags and Language after the old About us, Support and Jobs links, and the copyright line reads © 2018 INSTAGRAM.

In June 2018 TechCrunch reported that Instagram had reached 1 billion monthly active users (reported).^[12] Seven months later, the most-liked picture on it was an egg. The account that posted it on January 4, 2019 asked people to beat Kylie Jenner’s record of 18 million likes. Guinness World Records says the egg reached 30.5 million on the afternoon of January 14.^[13]

In June 2020 the form turns around. It now opens with log-in fields, Phone number, username, or email and Password, then a Log In button. Log in with Facebook moves below an OR, and new visitors get one line in a box of their own: Don't have an account? Sign up. The footer reads © 2020 INSTAGRAM FROM FACEBOOK, the first of our captures whose copyright line names Facebook.

Two months after this capture, on August 5, 2020, Instagram introduced Reels, to record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects and new creative tools.^[14] In November, Reels and Shop got their own tabs on the app’s home screen.^[15]

Our February 2021 capture keeps the log-in form and the phone. Its footer adds a row of topics, Beauty, Dance & Performance, Fitness, Food & Drink, Home & Garden, Music and Visual Arts, above © 2021 Instagram from Facebook. We used February because the June 2021 capture sits under a cookie dialog.

Our June 2022 capture has new phone mockups. The front one shows a direct-message thread with an account called lil_lapislazuli: My friend Sarah will love this, When are we hanging out? Going to be hot on Saturday, I’m super down for Saturday? and, last, Reels just keep getting better. The footer now reads © 2022 Instagram from Meta.

The code of this capture carries a country setting, "country_code":"SE", Sweden. The HTML of our 2018 to 2021 captures says US.

Inside the app, the feed was in trouble. In July 2022 Instagram was testing a full-screen feed with more recommended posts. Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian shared a petition that said Stop trying to be tiktok i just want to see cute photos of my friends. On July 28 Instagram said it would walk back the full-screen feed and temporarily reduce recommended posts.^[16]

The June 2023 page keeps the message phone and swaps the badges. Under Get the app. are Google Play and Get it from Microsoft; this capture has no App Store badge. The footer reads © 2023 Instagram from Meta, and the search-engine description is still the one from 2017.

We have no usable captures for 2024 and 2025: every archived copy we tried shows only a blank page, and so do the archived 2026 ones. The last frame comes from the live site on October 10, 2026. Unlike every capture from 2011 to 2023, it shows no phone. A fan of photos sits under See everyday moments from your close friends., with the last two words in an orange-to-pink gradient. The box on the right is titled Log into Instagram, and signing up is a button at the bottom, Create new account, above the Meta logo.

The logo in the top left corner is the gradient camera outline alone, with no wordmark next to it. The footer lists Meta AI, Threads and Meta Verified among its links, and ends © 2026 Instagram from Meta.

In August 2010 the homepage said Hello., introduced an iPhone app and asked visitors to wait: Want to be the first to know when we go live? The capture has no log-in box and no download link.

In October 2026 the first words in the box on the right are Log into Instagram. The phone that sold the app in our captures from 2011 to 2023 is gone, and the page speaks to people who already have an account. The camera from 2010 is still there, in the corner, flattened into a gradient outline.