A quick technical update for those interested in the internals:

The main hurdle was IG’s aggressive image/video hotlinking protection. I ended up moving the media resolution to Next.js 14 Server Components. This allows me to strip tracking headers before the data reaches the client.

I've also been experimenting with Edge Runtime to minimize TTFB, as standard serverless functions had too much cold-start latency for a media-heavy feed. The result is a much snappier feel than the official web app.

If anyone's curious about how I'm handling the stream piping or edge caching, I'm happy to chat!

For those curious about the internals: I’m leveraging Next.js 14’s App Router and server-side data fetching to bypass the heavy client-side tracking usually found on IG. The main challenge was architecting a stable media proxy for high-res Reels and Tagged content without triggering rate-limits. Happy to discuss the backend scaling if anyone's interested!