Selfhosted

Start by asking yourself honestly if you need an Instagram replacement or if you really just need a substitute to replace the dopamine you get from a behavior - meaning basically, you probably just want a new infinite scroll for when you feel bored, restless or awkward and need a diversion.

If that's the case, look at some of the stumbleupon clones or maybe the wiktok kind of tik tok style wrapper for wikipedia type apps. But if you truly need Instagram specifically, the good news is that pixelfed is mostly there, hard part is that you now need to convince many to come use it for it to "feel" full and fun

Going outside

The limitation of smaller platforms like Pixelfed is that basically no one uses them. If you are using Instagram to keep track of people in your local community you are unlikely to find anything else.

Some how this slipped through the cracks among all the other suggestions, but PixelFed is sort of the only fedi photo blog alternative.

Loops. It’s basically Instagram videos without ads. Currently kinda weird. But there’s some people there.

Just downloaded pixelfed. Youse guys are either corrupting me or leading me to my inevitable evolution

You’d probably like Pixelfed, it’s part of the Fediverse.

Since nobody mentioned it yet, Pixelfed.

Yay more people to join Pixelfed!

Just in case no one has said it, Pixelfed

Pixelfed.

I personally like Pixelfed

Pixelfed

Pixelfed.

Not the standard answer, but here's another opinion: I think Signal is a good alternative.

Depends on how you use Instagram. If you're just sharing with closed groups of friends and family then just make some groups in Signal and share pictures with each other there.

If you want to post to everyone or look at everyone else's posts then this obviously isnt going to work. But if your use case is as I describe above then just try using your private chat app.

There are various technical alternatives (ActivityPub-based stuff like PixelFed/Loops/Mastodon/GotoSocial/Sharkey/Akkoma/something else on the Fediverse)

But would you take the plunge of self-discovering different content, which might as well be none of your topics of interests? Would you be acquainted of vastly different UI/UX such as the lack of recommendations, a million client frontends, and the technicality of federation? And lastly, will you find it a place with communities to socialize and content to enjoy from in the long run?

I think trying out on a public instance would be a good way to answer those questions. PixelFed most closely resembles Insta, but the other ones can do too. Then you can consider selfhosting your own

Thanks everyone!

If nobody’s said it yet, Pixelfed

Vernissage

Also want to mention that GoToSocial has an option to change the layout to a instagram like gallery: https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/v0.22.0/user_guide/settings/#select-layout

I know this is hardly an replacement for what instagram is like nowadays. But for those who just want to share their photos thats a great way thats often overlooked.

PixelFed?

Vernissage.photos

If you like reels, check out loops

https://fediverse.info/