I am so sorry for all the confusion caused by this situation!
I’d like to assure you that we didn’t have an intention to anyhow mislead you. We have a dedicated page for the apps for the unreleased apps, where it’s mentioned that we are just gathering feedback on this app.
“Now you’ve got a convenient way to pull out your latest Instagram Stories on your website. With our new widget, you’ll get a chance to manually select some particular stories you want to appear on your homepage.” Embed Instagram Stories on your website for free
At the moment, it’s hard to give any specific timeline for this app. However, this year, we have plans to actively develop new widgets, and we’ll prioritize them based on the number of votes they receive.
We promise to keep you informed about any progress
A huge thank you for pointing us in this direction!
I do understand your concerns, and really sorry for all the frustration caused by this situation
We definitely didn’t mean to give you false hopes or mislead anyhow. However, I agree that the info in our New App requests pages needs some improvement, and currently our team is working on it.
Regarding the Instagram Stories app, you see, we prioritize requests based on the complexity of implementation and their popularity. At the moment, we have many requests with higher priority and our devs are actively working on them. You can check them here.
I am afraid, the Instagram Stories won’t be out in the near future, but we promise to keep you informed about any changes here.
Thanks a lot for your feedback, it helps us navigate big time.
You’re right, the initial request was made 5 years ago. We understand it’s been a long wait and sincerely apologize for this!
The thing is that, we have a huge number of requests on the Wishlist, and we prioritize requests based on 2 main criteria: complexity and number of votes.
Right now, we have a bunch of requests with the higher priority level and our devs are focused on them. This is why, it’s hard to share the ETA now.
We are actively working on developing new apps, and the Instagram Stories app might be considered this year, but we still can’t make any guarantees.
If receive any news from the dev team, we’ll update you here right away
This needs to be said plainly, because this has gone on long enough.
Elfsight has been knowingly marketing an “Instagram Stories Widget” for years while fully aware that no such widget exists.
This thread proves it.
The first request was made in 2019. It is now 2026. Over six years, staff have repeatedly acknowledged:
There is no native Instagram Stories widget
There is no ETA
There are no guarantees it will ever exist
And yet, during that same time, Elfsight has:
Published blog articles titled “How to Embed Instagram Stories on Website”
Maintained pages referring to an Instagram Stories Widget
Paid for sponsored search results that pair “Elfsight” with “Instagram Stories”
That is not an accident. That is deliberate.
Yes, buried in the blog article is a disclaimer saying there is “no direct method” to embed Stories — after the click, after the SEO hook, and after users are already being funneled toward subscription. Meanwhile, what is actually offered is an Instagram Feed widget that simulates a Stories-style layout using regular posts. That is not Instagram Stories, and Elfsight has known that distinction matters since at least 2019.
People—including myself—have subscribed specifically because of this representation, only to discover later (often in this very thread) that the feature does not exist and never has.
Let’s be honest about what’s happening:
Marketing continues to promise what support has admitted for years is unavailable
Users waste time and money chasing a feature Elfsight knows it cannot deliver
The burden is pushed onto community threads instead of being fixed at the source
If Elfsight wants to operate in good faith, this is not complicated:
Stop advertising “Instagram Stories” as a capability
Remove or rename pages that imply native Stories embedding
Clearly state—up front—that this is a Stories-style feed, not real Stories
Stop paying for ads that imply functionality you don’t have
Until then, calling this anything other than deceptive marketing is dishonest.
Thank you so much for your detailed feedback! We completely understand your concerns and want to sincerely apologize for any frustration this has caused.
We never meant to mislead you, but we acknowledge that there’s been some confusion between the functionality of our widgets and the content in the blog post. Thank you so much for flagging this up!
We’ve passed your comment to the team, and they’ve set a task to update the blog post to better reflect the current capabilities of our widgets.
Regarding the Instagram Stories feature, we totally get that the wait has been long, and it’s easy to lose hope for its release.
To give you more context, with large number of ideas on our Wishlist, we prioritize them based on their comlexity and number of votes they received. Instagram Stories request got a lot of votes, but there are other requests with a higher priority that our devs are focusing on right now. That’s why we can’t give you an exact ETA — we just don’t want to set any false expectations.
However, we see that the community is really interested in this app, and it’s still on our radar. We’ve shared your comment with the dev team and really hope they’ll consider it in the future updates. As soon as we have more information, we’ll immediately inform you in this thread.
We understand how disappointing this situation has been, and we’ll do our best to keep full transparency moving forward.
If you feel the Instagram Stories widget is essential and don’t want to keep your subscription without it, please feel free to reach out to our Support Team at support@elfsight.com for a refund. They’ll be more than happy to assist you!
Again, we’re genuinely sorry for any inconvenience and truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work on improvements
Sponsored search results using “Instagram Stories” terminology
And a long-standing internal awareness (since 2019) that no native Stories solution currently exists
Updating the blog article is a positive step, but unless the broader marketing language and positioning are addressed, users will continue to reach the same incorrect conclusion before they ever get to the disclaimer.
I’m continuing to use other Elfsight widgets, and I’d really like to see the Stories-related content aligned more clearly with what’s actually available. Addressing the full scope of this ~ not just one article ~ would go a long way toward the transparency you mentioned.
We already have a request for the Instagram Stories app on the Wishlist. I’ve merged your comment with the existing request, where we’ll keep you in the loop
