Instagram Login or Facebook Login for a Reels publishing app?

Both Instagram Login and Facebook Login can publish Reels, so choose by what else your app needs: Instagram Login skips the Facebook Page connection but cannot reach ads or tagging, while Facebook Login adds resumable upload and the cross-surface totals. If you only publish a finished MP4 from a URL, Instagram Login is enough.

Facts come from Meta's Instagram API with Instagram Login pages, the publishing guide and the insights reference, all read 2026-10-02. Sume does not log in to Instagram on your behalf; you bring the token and Sume supplies the video.

How do the two logins differ?

Meta's Reels publishing page says both support publishing but use different host URLs (graph.instagram.com versus graph.facebook.com), different tokens (an Instagram User token versus a Facebook Page token) and different permission sets.

Which scopes does Instagram Login use?

Meta lists four: instagram_business_basic, instagram_business_content_publish, instagram_business_manage_messages and instagram_business_manage_comments. The page says the older scope values were to be deprecated on January 27, 2025, so any tutorial that still uses old scope names is out of date.

Request only what you use. A pure Reels publisher needs basic and content publish. Add comments or messages scopes only when you build moderation or inbox features, because broader scopes widen what App Review has to approve; the pages we read do not describe review details, so check that part yourself.

• Publishing only: basic plus content_publish.
• Moderation: add manage_comments.
• Inbox: add manage_messages.

When does the choice bite?

Three moments. When you want resumable upload for files that are not on a public URL. When a client asks for aggregated cross-surface totals. And when a parameter returns a 400 on the Instagram host, covered in the Facebook-Login-only parameter post.

Meta's pages we read do not give video specs for either login, so the same preflight applies to both. Probe the file with Sume's video inspect (probe and stills are unbilled) before you create a container.

Can I switch later?

You can, but tokens, hosts and permissions all change, so plan it as a migration, not a flag. Keep the publishing call behind one small function that takes the host and token as arguments, so a switch is a configuration change.

Honest limit: nothing on the pages we read says how long tokens live, so do not promise a refresh cadence to anyone until you have read the token reference.

What is the quickest way to decide?

Ask three questions. Do you need resumable upload? Do you need cross-surface totals? Do you need ads or tagging? If any answer is yes you will want Facebook Login; if all three are no, Instagram Login is the lighter setup because it needs no linked Facebook Page.

Write the answer into your repository README together with the date you checked Meta's pages, since the permission lists have changed before. A line like checked 2026-10-02 saves the next engineer a morning.