Vero down: New app taking on Instagram not working amid huge amounts of interest

The company has spent much of the last few days thanking its early users for their 'understanding and support'

(Vero)

Vero wants to take on Instagram, and is luring many of the site's big users away.

But the app has also spent much of the time not working or broking, apparently because of the surging interest.

For now, the app is still small and is yet to get to a million users. But it seems to be growing quickly, with a number of high-profile Instagram users posting over the last week that they are trying it out.

The site hopes to beat Instagram by getting rid of many of the issues that upset its users: it has a chronological feed, allows people to share with who they want, and won't give up information to advertisers.

But it is quickly running into problems of its own. It has spent much of the weekend having technical issues, leaving people unable to sign up, post or even use the app at all.

The company has blamed the issues on the very high traffic it is suddenly getting amid surging interest in its app.

"We're experiencing an outage due to heavy load," its latest post reads. "Apologies again for the issues we're having. We're working to restore things. We really appreciate your patience."

That is just one of a range of similar posts that have gone up over the weekend. "Thank you for the incredible outpouring of support and understanding! We’re still here working to get things back to running normally. We will keep you updated," reads another.

The issues appear to have started on 21 February. That was the same day the account started to welcome new users, telling them that since they're part of the first million people to sign up they won't have to pay the subscription fees that will be introduced to the app.

Since that day it has posted 10 times, all but one of which deal with problems users are having with the site. They include people unable to receive the verification codes that are required to sign up, people who are finding themselves unable to post, general updates about "technical issues", and one post about the site's controversial terms of service.

The only other post is the company sharing its manifesto. That page lays out its beliefs about why the company is better than the competition – and the various ways that it hopes to beat other apps like Instagram.