Meta’s new video editing app, Instagram Edits, is off to a strong start, surpassing early performance metrics set by ByteDance’s CapCut. According to data from Appfigures, Instagram Edits garnered around 702,900 iOS downloads within its first two days, vastly outpacing CapCut’s initial figures by a factor of 37. By Thursday, downloads had grown to 1.2 million on iOS and 5.9 million on Android, totaling 7.1 million installs across both platforms.
The U.S. market saw particularly rapid adoption. Instagram Edits recorded 381,000 U.S. downloads in its first three days, compared to just 3,400 for CapCut during its own launch. This 112-fold difference highlights the advantage of Meta’s extensive ecosystem in boosting new app releases. Instagram Edits quickly topped the U.S. iPhone App Store charts, ranking No. 1 for both overall and non-gaming apps on its debut day, before slipping slightly to No. 2 and No. 3 in the following days. CapCut, in contrast, had only reached No. 14 Overall and No. 10 among non-game apps in the same timeframe.
Despite the promising launch, Instagram Edits faces a significant challenge ahead: CapCut’s current user base exceeds 1.22 billion downloads worldwide, excluding China. Creator feedback on Edits has been mixed. Many appreciate its ad-free environment, 4K video support, and watermark-free exports, but some have criticized its lack of features compared to CapCut, such as templates and transition effects.
Long-term success for Edits may depend on feature expansion and potential monetization strategies, including the possible introduction of a paid tier or advertising.
