# Building Instagram OSINT Projects with HikerAPI

I recently experimented with building an Instagram OSINT project on Linux using Python and HikerAPI. Originally I tried older scraping libraries and unofficial Instagram API wrappers, but many of them were unreliable because Instagram now aggressively blocks automation attempts.

After some testing, I found that using an external API service like HikerAPI was much more stable for learning and development purposes.

Why I Switched

At first I used tools based on:

instagram-private-api
old scraping scripts
login-based automation

The problem was:

constant login checkpoints
“bad_password” errors even with correct credentials
temporary account locks
broken endpoints

Modern Instagram protection systems make direct scraping much harder than before.

My Setup

I used:

Arch Linux
Hyprland
Python virtual environment
HikerAPI

Creating the virtual environment:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate.fish

Installing dependencies:

pip install requests httpx

Basic HikerAPI Example

Here’s a simple request example:

import requests

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

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.hikerapi.com/v2/user/by/username?username=instagram",
    headers=headers
)

print(r.json())

What I Learned

A few things became obvious during testing:

Old Instagram scraping methods are becoming unreliable.
API-based approaches are much easier to maintain.
Using a Python virtual environment on Linux avoids dependency issues.
Sherlock and other username OSINT tools are still useful alongside APIs.

Tradeoffs

HikerAPI is convenient, but it’s not fully free. You need credits for larger usage. For hobby projects and learning, that may still be easier than constantly fixing broken scrapers.

Meanwhile, tools like: