A new social media app has been slowly taking over the world of taking pictures. VSCO has been around for a couple years now, but it really began blowing up recently. VSCO is a photo editing app, but you can also post pictures to build your own feed. Instagram is very similar in the sense that you post pictures and can also edit them, but the main difference between the two apps is the vibe.

The idea behind VSCO is to post pictures of your daily life. The founders made it so that users can not see likes or comments on pictures posted. They didn’t want the whole app to be defined by how many likes someone gets. The pictures you post on VSCO are a snapshot of your life. Ladies, this is the app you can actually post all those artsy pictures you took of food you’ve gotten at cool restaurants. The pictures you post on VSCO are not necessarily ones that are not Instagram “worthy,” but they are pictures that paint of picture of who you are as a person.

VSCO appeals to the best mobile photographers, along with girls and young women. The edits they provide for picture make them look professionally edited. People who don’t post on VSCO use it to edit their photos for Instagram. The biggest issue with VSCO is that you have to pay for certain filters, but a good amount of them are free to use. Plus, any regular VSCO user knows all the hacks to the app and can get all the filters for free. The other main difference between VSCO and Instagram is that Instagram is absolutely terrible for editing photos. In the end, your pictures look totally edited and not in a good way.

Instagram is an app where people are obsessed with the number of likes someone gets or how many people commented. The pictures you post on Instagram are the ones you want other people to see. Those pictures paint a false image of yourself because it is how you want others to see you. You want people to see your feed on Instagram and instantly get that FOMO feeling. Instagram is the account that you want colleges to see because it makes you look like a wholesome person who spends time with family and friends and does adventurous things.

Now the distinction between the two apps has been explained. They are a little hard to compare since they are meant for two different things. Personally, I like VSCO a lot more (sorry Insta, still love you). VSCO is filled with various pictures of peoples lives. On Instagram, I can scroll through my feed and see the same picture of girls laughing and not looking at the camera or guys mean-mugging and applying so much saturation on their photos it hurts. But, scrolling through my VSCO feed I can see the personality of my friends shine through. I see pictures of restaurants, landscapes, and even quotes.

VSCO is much more of an aesthetic app, and if you don’t have it yet then I recommend downloading it and trying it out.