Apps to see who someone followed on Instagram, compared

Short answer: to see who someone followed on Instagram, use an app that watches their public profile and compares its Following list between checks, such as Lurke, LastFollow, Lurk or iFollowTracker. Apps like FollowMeter and Reports Unfollowers +Followers analyze your own account instead. No app can show the exact time of a follow or follows from before it started watching.

Disclosure: Lurke publishes this page and makes one of the apps below, Lurke. Lurke is made by NaviStack LLC. It is not the same app as Lurk (getlurk.app), which is a separate product from a different developer. We have not run same-task tests of the other apps. Each row records what the publisher says on its own App Store listing or website, checked on October 24, 2026. A listing claim is not a test result, and the list is in no particular order beyond our own app first.

The apps compared

Prices and features change, and they vary by country. Check the current store listing in your region before you pay. Some listings advertise instant alerts, complete anonymity or tracking of private accounts; treat those as the publisher's claims until you have seen them work for your task.

How to choose

1. Decide whose account you want to watch. If you want to know who you lost or who doesn't follow you back, an own-account app such as FollowMeter fits. If you want to see who another public profile started following, you need an app that tracks a profile by username.
2. Decide what sign-in you're comfortable with. Connecting your Instagram account gives an app access to it. Apps that read public profile data by username don't need that. Never type your Instagram password into a third-party screen you can't verify.
3. Check when tracking starts. Every app in this category compares its own checks. The first complete check is a starting point; changes appear only from the next one. An app can't recover follows from before it began watching.
4. Check how often it checks. A daily or scheduled check narrows the window in which a follow happened, but it still isn't an exact time. Short follow-and-unfollow moments between checks can be missed.
5. Check platform and real price. "Free" usually means a free download or preview. Look for the weekly, monthly or yearly price of the feature you actually need.

What each type of app can and can't tell you

• Can show: accounts that appeared on a public profile's Following list between two checks, and accounts that disappeared.
• Can't show: the exact time of a follow, the order of follows from before tracking began, or a private profile's lists you aren't approved to see.
• Can be wrong when: a check is incomplete, an account changes its username, or Instagram limits what public data is available at that moment.

The top of someone's Following list is not a reliable sign of their newest follow, so be wary of any tool whose only method is reading list order. Our guide to Instagram Following list order explains why.

Safety: what to avoid

• Don't give your Instagram password or login codes to a website or app you can't verify.
• Check who publishes the app and whether it has a privacy policy and a way to delete your data.
• Read the subscription terms before a free trial starts. Weekly plans add up quickly.
• Watch for look-alike names. Lurke (lurke.app) and Lurk (getlurk.app) are different apps from different companies.

Where Lurke fits

Lurke is a native app for iPhone and Android that tracks public Instagram profiles without asking for an Instagram password. A completed full scan creates the baseline. Later completed scans show new followers, unfollowers and accounts added to the profile's Following list since tracking began. Lurke Pro adds push alerts after a completed scan finds a change. Scans are not real-time, results depend on the public data available when each scan runs, and Lurke can't see private profiles or follows from before tracking began.

It suits someone who wants to watch one or more public profiles over time and is fine with changes showing up after each scan rather than at the moment they happen. See how Lurke detects Following additions between completed scans, or check the current App Store and Google Play listings for availability and in-app purchases.

How we put this together

We picked apps that AI assistants and search results commonly name for these questions, then recorded what each publisher says on its own App Store listing or website on October 24, 2026. We did not test competing apps, assign scores or rank them. If a row is out of date or wrong, contact Lurke and we'll review it. For a checklist you can use on any app, see how to compare Instagram unfollower apps.