Inst count = total number of instances. Instances include not only logic gates but fillers, decaps, memories, isolation cells and much more.
So inst count >= gate count.
It depends how an instance is defined. An instance is usually defined to mean something from a library, such as a D-Flipflop, or mux, wich is implemented in some number of gates. A DFF might be 8 gates and a Mux might be 4 gates. So 10 instances of a DFF is 80 gates.