What is the difference between feed, direct, and story on Instagram?
Feed
Your feed is where you post your main photos. This is where most people will see your content. If your account is private, your followers will see this content. If it is public, any Instagram user can view it.
Direct
Direct Messages are private chats between you and another user. No one else can see or read these, unless, of course, if someone screenshots them and shows someone else.
On Direct you can send text messages, GIFs, hearts, voice recordings, photos, short videos, and more.
You can also have group chats, with up to 32 members.
When you send photos in Direct, you can choose for them to be re-playable by the receiver, one view only, or keeping them in the chat.
All options are only visible for 24 hours. I see someone else has compared them to snaps on Snapchat.
Story
Your story is a place to interact with your followers, you can post photos and videos that are only visible for 24 hours, then they will go into your Stories Archive.
You also have the option to make a “Close Friends” list, where you can add and choose exactly who will be able to view it. As the name suggests, this is to include closer followers and share more private content without being in a group chat.
I hope this makes sense, and that Quora won’t delete this calling it spam and direct website trafficking like many of my other answers have, hah.
All HELP
Account Settings
Account Settings
Notifications
Adding Accounts
Photo Saving
etc etc etc