By Megan Brandrup

The popular photo publishing app, Instagram, has recently released a new feature for its users. This feature allows users to create “stories” that can be viewed by a user’s followers. There have been a lot of mixed views on this new feature and some have said that Instagram is trying to rip-off the app, Snapchat’s whole format.

Snapchat Stories

Instagram Stories

Here’s how the two are similar:

1. Both have a section to display recent stories that have been made.
2. Both allow users to make, type on and draw on their stories.
3. You can see who viewed your story.
4. Both apps only allow stories to stay for 24 hours.

Here’s how the two are different:

1. Snapchat allows users to have many funny and creative filters over their pictures.
2. Instagram only has basic photo filters. (The filters you can use on Instagram.)
3. You can only send pictures to other users on Snapchat. Instagram allows people to send pictures through private messages. However, these photos do not delete after 10 seconds, like they do in Snapchat.

At the end of the day, both of these apps still serve a different purpose. Snapchat allows users to send messages and pictures to other users, and these pictures only last a few seconds. Instagram is for publishing photos and showing your creative photography skills to the world. One is private, and the other is extremely public. That is something that is fundamentally different between the two apps. As for which app has the “story” feature down, well obviously, that title belongs to Snapchat. The stories feature is what has set Snapchat apart from all other apps. The builders of Snapchat know what trends are popular and how to make users enjoy their experience even more. Instagram has a lot more work to do before they can stand their ground against Snapchat.

Which app do you think is better? Tell us which one and why in the comments below!