How to See Who Commented the Most on an Instagram Post

Why you can’t see this in Instagram

The Instagram app shows comments in its own order — often with the ones it considers most relevant first — and loads them in batches. There is no count per person, no sort by commenter, and no search. Even the account owner’s insights don’t include a list of the most active commenters on a single post. To know who commented most, you need every comment in one place and a count by username.

That is a common need: giveaway hosts checking whether someone flooded a post with entries, creators who want to thank their most engaged followers, brands spotting a customer who keeps raising the same complaint, or moderators noticing an account that is spamming.

The quick way: the most active commenters list

Copy the post or Reel link (Share → Copy link).
Paste it into IGComments and press Get comments. No Instagram login is needed; the post must be public.
Open the stats panel. The Most active commenters list shows the ten usernames with the most comments and how many each left.

The same panel shows the totals that put the list in context: total comments, unique commenters and how many people commented more than once. It is free and doesn’t use AI — it’s a straight count. More on what else it shows on the comment analyzer page.

On posts with more than 200 comments, the stats you see before unlocking cover the free 200-comment preview, so treat the ranking as provisional until the full post is fetched with an Export Pass ($4.99 for up to 10,000 comments).

Check a specific person’s comments

Click a name in the top-10 list and IGComments switches to the search view showing only that account’s comments; clicking any username in the comment list does the same. Typing @username into the search box also works, but it matches comments that mention the account too — handy in its own right. Seeing one person’s comments together tells you what they were saying, which matters as much as how often:

Ten different friends tagged across ten comments usually means a giveaway entrant following the rules.
The same text pasted ten times is usually spam or someone trying to improve their odds.
A long back-and-forth of replies is often a conversation with you or another commenter — check whether many of their comments are replies.

Combine the search with the replies only or top-level only filter to separate their original comments from their replies, and export just that person’s rows if you need to keep a record.

The spreadsheet way: a full ranking with COUNTIF

If you need more than the top ten — say everyone with three or more comments — download the comments as Excel or CSV. The username is column C. Add a new column next to the data headed comment_count and enter:

=COUNTIF($C$2:$C$5000, C2)

Fill it down (or turn the data into a table with Ctrl+T and use =COUNTIF([username],[@username])). Every row now shows how many comments that person left in total. Sort the column largest to smallest. Because each person appears once per comment, you’ll see repeats — remove them by copying the username and comment_count columns to a new sheet and using Data → Remove Duplicates on username.

In Excel 365 or Google Sheets, one formula builds the whole ranking without helper columns:

=SORT(UNIQUE(HSTACK(C2:C5000, COUNTIF(C2:C5000, C2:C5000))), 2, -1)

In Google Sheets, a QUERY does the same job:

=QUERY(A1:L, "select C, count(B) where C is not null group by C order by count(B) desc label count(B) 'comments'", 1)

Adjust the ranges to your sheet. For a step-by-step on getting the file into Sheets, see exporting to Google Sheets.

Or use a pivot table

Select the data and choose Insert → PivotTable (Excel) or Insert → Pivot table (Sheets).
Add username to Rows.
Add comment_id to Values, summarised by COUNT (Excel may default to Sum — change it under Value Field Settings; in Sheets choose COUNTA).
Sort the rows by that count, descending.

Two useful extras: add is_reply to Columns to split each person’s count into top-level comments and replies, and add likes to Values as a SUM to see whose comments the audience liked most — a different, often more interesting, kind of “top commenter”.

What the most active list can tell you

A ranking of commenters is more than a leaderboard. Read with the comments behind it, it answers different questions depending on the post:

On a giveaway: whether a few accounts made dozens of entries, whether those entries followed the rules (tagging different friends each time, for example), and whether any look automated. If your rules allow one entry per person, a top commenter with 40 comments is not a problem — they only count once — but it is worth knowing before you announce the result.
On a product or brand post: who your most engaged customers are, and whether one person is repeatedly raising the same issue that deserves a direct reply.
On a creator’s post: the regulars who show up every time. Export the top commenters from several posts and you have a list of your core community worth thanking or featuring.
For moderation: an account that appears at the top on a post where it has no obvious reason to — often with links or repeated text — is a candidate for restricting or reporting.

Comparing the share of comments from your top ten commenters across posts is also telling: a post where ten people wrote half the comments had a very different conversation from one where hundreds of people each wrote one.

Reading the ranking fairly

Exclude yourself. On many posts the account owner is the top commenter because they reply to everyone. Filter is_reply to no, or just skip your own username.
Decide whether replies count. For “who engaged most” replies count; for giveaway entries, rules usually mean top-level comments only.
Usernames, not people. One person can have several accounts, and a username can change. The export includes user_id, which stays the same if someone renames their account, so count on user_id (column D) if accuracy matters.
Hidden comments aren’t counted. Comments Instagram filtered as spam or hid aren’t visible, so they can’t be included — see why counts differ.

For giveaways where multiple comments mean multiple entries, a ranking helps you check the rules were followed. If each person should only get one chance, use the one comment per person filter — and for the draw, Pickfetti can pick a winner with or without counting repeat comments.

FAQ

Can I see who commented the most on an Instagram post in the app?

No. Instagram doesn’t show comment counts per person. You need to collect the comments and count them, which IGComments does in its free stats panel.

How many top commenters does IGComments show?

The stats panel lists the 10 most active commenters with their comment counts. For a full ranking, download the comments and use COUNTIF or a pivot table.

Does the count include replies?

Yes, the most active commenters list counts all comments including replies. In a spreadsheet you can filter is_reply to no to count top-level comments only.

Does this work on someone else’s post?

Yes, on any public post or Reel. You don’t need to own the post or log in to Instagram.

Can I see who comments most across all my posts?

IGComments works one post at a time. Export several posts, paste the rows into one sheet and run the same COUNTIF or pivot table across all of them.