I didn’t get into self-hosting until recently, and people recommended Jellyfin, so I don’t even know what I’m missing with Plex, if anything. It feels like Jellyfin does everything I need.
You’re missing the early days when plex lifetime pass was ~$50usd and jellyfin wasn’t a thing (that I know of). I believe Kodi was the only real competitor at the time, and it was much less friendly.
Plex has slowly moved in a less user friendly direction, but still meets my needs and I’ve easily gotten over $750 in value from the…almost 20 years, wow…I’ve been using it.
No, not yet. I took forever to manually rip what I have, which was a lot, and I’m still working my way through boxes of music (which I’m also hosting on Jellyfin). I’ll figure out that step next.
If you haven’t already, you may want to look into FileBot. It’s the only reason I was ever able to properly rip and rename all of my files so Plex/Jellyfin can automatically detect them.
I felt the same way with my Kodi installs, I had a pi in every room that used a shared library db so I could pause in one room and resume somewhere else, nfs shares for media, a config file and done.
I bought a lifetime Plex pass a decade or so ago and shifted everything except my music to Jellyfin about a year ago. Now I’m looking into dispatcharr to round everything out.
Nice! I’m giving it a go with some dumb free m3u’s now and so far it’s been pretty great. I haven’t tied it into Jellyfin or Plex yet but one I decide on a decent iptv provider it’ll be happening.
Had some issues with streams not loading in Jellyfin.
I needed to set up a user-agent and streaming-profile like this:
User-Agent: Lavf/61.9.107
Streaming profile:
-> command: ffmpeg
-> parameters: -http_persistent 0 -extension_picky 0 -i {streamUrl} -c:v copy -c:a copy -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt -b:v 4M -maxrate 4M -bufsize 8M -f mpegts pipe:1
This is (still depending on your m3u source) to avoid most of the transcoding or double transcoding of the streams :)
The dispatcharr page is mostly self-explanatory but had some issues with the m3u and epg.
Make sure to properly align your streams with the epg guide you are pulling.
Do all (M3U and EPG XMLTV) through dispatcharr
Provide these to Jellyfin:
M3U: http://dispatcharr:9191/output/m3u/ActiveChannels
XML EPG: http://dispatcharr:9191/output/epg/ActiveChannels?tvg_id_source=tvg_id
(Notice: I am using docker. I also set up a group for channels so I can de-/activate channels however I please without deleting and recreating them constantly.)
Jellyfin is amazing for a lot of things, but it shouldn’t be available externally. There are a few critical security concerns that devs have openly stated will never be patched. And that makes it a non-starter for sharing with people who can’t figure out how to use a personal VPN connection. It may be fine for me and my household… But there’s no way I’m going to be able to walk my tech-illiterate grandmother through it over the phone.
In contrast, Plex makes sharing server access very easy. Since they run a centralized server to handle all of the “which servers do I have access to, and where are they located” automatic discovery traffic, sharing content is as simple as sending an invite link. That centralization flies in the face of what Jennyfin stands for, so they won’t ever implement it. I even have a burner Plex account that already has access to my server, which I can use to sign into TVs when I don’t want to bother with the whole account setup process. Handy for things like parties, because I have a few “just hit play and drunk people will enjoy it” types of playlists ready to go.
Basically, Jellyfin for yourself and your household. Plex for everyone else. Luckily, the two will happily run side-by-side without any issues.
I’m not confident enough in my knowledge to ever open up my server externally, even after reading some methods that are allegedly safe (or relatively safe). I’d just rather not take the risk of me misunderstanding something or failing to keep current with vulnerabilities.
I suppose I see the appeal if Plex handles that without hassle, but man… not for $750. Lol
This is a concern if you just port forward through a router. This isn’t a problem if you simply use a reverse proxy, which is standard and normal and expected and not difficult at all.
It’s a concern even with a reverse proxy. The reverse proxy encrypts your connection from A to B, but does nothing to stop the various security concerns that have been noted. Because those concerns don’t rely on intercepting unencrypted traffic. If you can reach Jellyfin’s main log in page, you can exploit it. Full stop.
The only way a reverse proxy would stop someone from being able to exploit it is to include a separate login on your reverse proxy, meaning attackers wouldn’t even be able to hit Jellyfin’s landing page unless they know your proxy’s password. But notably, this breaks basically everything except for browsers. All of your smart TVs, mobile apps, etc would stop functioning, because they’d bounce off of that reverse proxy login page.
I don’t proxy the port, I proxy the routes needed for auth and interface. This isn’t that hard.
EDIT: ah I see what you’re saying, you’re talking about the app surface rather than the raw admin API. The risk is small enough with the remaining attack surface that I’m not particularly worried, though obviously I’d like it to be better.
my lifetime pass for jellyfin cost me $0, pretty good value
Apparently they are going to DOUBLE that amount every year! Outrageous!
I didn’t get into self-hosting until recently, and people recommended Jellyfin, so I don’t even know what I’m missing with Plex, if anything. It feels like Jellyfin does everything I need.
You’re missing the early days when plex lifetime pass was ~$50usd and jellyfin wasn’t a thing (that I know of). I believe Kodi was the only real competitor at the time, and it was much less friendly.
Plex has slowly moved in a less user friendly direction, but still meets my needs and I’ve easily gotten over $750 in value from the…almost 20 years, wow…I’ve been using it.
You’re missing getting to pay for it. Imagine how good it would feel to see $750 less in your bank account.
I mean Plex definitely has a value add. Around here people will scoff but Plex is far easier to work with for non technical users.
If you shared your library externally Plex was definitely easier it’s just that they have started to extract value from that which does suck.
Plexamp is GREAT; I’ve not found another app like it that works with a home hosted music streaming server.
You got the arr stack up too? Feels like magic when it’s all setup
No, not yet. I took forever to manually rip what I have, which was a lot, and I’m still working my way through boxes of music (which I’m also hosting on Jellyfin). I’ll figure out that step next.
If you haven’t already, you may want to look into FileBot. It’s the only reason I was ever able to properly rip and rename all of my files so Plex/Jellyfin can automatically detect them.
Oh my god, you mean I didn’t have to do all this manually? I’ve spent so much troubleshooting time fixing file names.
Nope.
Trash-guides will be your savior
Wow, this is so much good info. Thank you
Ah fair, just take your time and feel free to ask
I felt the same way with my Kodi installs, I had a pi in every room that used a shared library db so I could pause in one room and resume somewhere else, nfs shares for media, a config file and done.
I bought a lifetime Plex pass a decade or so ago and shifted everything except my music to Jellyfin about a year ago. Now I’m looking into dispatcharr to round everything out.
Dispatcharr is pretty neat for m3u streams.
Working great with jellyfin
Nice! I’m giving it a go with some dumb free m3u’s now and so far it’s been pretty great. I haven’t tied it into Jellyfin or Plex yet but one I decide on a decent iptv provider it’ll be happening.
Had some issues with streams not loading in Jellyfin.
I needed to set up a user-agent and streaming-profile like this:
User-Agent:
Lavf/61.9.107Streaming profile:
-> command:
ffmpeg-> parameters:
-http_persistent 0 -extension_picky 0 -i {streamUrl} -c:v copy -c:a copy -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt -b:v 4M -maxrate 4M -bufsize 8M -f mpegts pipe:1This is (still depending on your m3u source) to avoid most of the transcoding or double transcoding of the streams :)
The dispatcharr page is mostly self-explanatory but had some issues with the m3u and epg.
Make sure to properly align your streams with the epg guide you are pulling.
Do all (M3U and EPG XMLTV) through dispatcharr
Provide these to Jellyfin:
M3U:
http://dispatcharr:9191/output/m3u/ActiveChannelsXML EPG:
http://dispatcharr:9191/output/epg/ActiveChannels?tvg_id_source=tvg_id(Notice: I am using docker. I also set up a group for channels so I can de-/activate channels however I please without deleting and recreating them constantly.)
Jellyfin is amazing for a lot of things, but it shouldn’t be available externally. There are a few critical security concerns that devs have openly stated will never be patched. And that makes it a non-starter for sharing with people who can’t figure out how to use a personal VPN connection. It may be fine for me and my household… But there’s no way I’m going to be able to walk my tech-illiterate grandmother through it over the phone.
In contrast, Plex makes sharing server access very easy. Since they run a centralized server to handle all of the “which servers do I have access to, and where are they located” automatic discovery traffic, sharing content is as simple as sending an invite link. That centralization flies in the face of what Jennyfin stands for, so they won’t ever implement it. I even have a burner Plex account that already has access to my server, which I can use to sign into TVs when I don’t want to bother with the whole account setup process. Handy for things like parties, because I have a few “just hit play and drunk people will enjoy it” types of playlists ready to go.
Basically, Jellyfin for yourself and your household. Plex for everyone else. Luckily, the two will happily run side-by-side without any issues.
I’m not confident enough in my knowledge to ever open up my server externally, even after reading some methods that are allegedly safe (or relatively safe). I’d just rather not take the risk of me misunderstanding something or failing to keep current with vulnerabilities.
I suppose I see the appeal if Plex handles that without hassle, but man… not for $750. Lol
This is a concern if you just port forward through a router. This isn’t a problem if you simply use a reverse proxy, which is standard and normal and expected and not difficult at all.
It’s a concern even with a reverse proxy. The reverse proxy encrypts your connection from A to B, but does nothing to stop the various security concerns that have been noted. Because those concerns don’t rely on intercepting unencrypted traffic. If you can reach Jellyfin’s main log in page, you can exploit it. Full stop.
The only way a reverse proxy would stop someone from being able to exploit it is to include a separate login on your reverse proxy, meaning attackers wouldn’t even be able to hit Jellyfin’s landing page unless they know your proxy’s password. But notably, this breaks basically everything except for browsers. All of your smart TVs, mobile apps, etc would stop functioning, because they’d bounce off of that reverse proxy login page.
I don’t proxy the port, I proxy the routes needed for auth and interface. This isn’t that hard.
EDIT: ah I see what you’re saying, you’re talking about the app surface rather than the raw admin API. The risk is small enough with the remaining attack surface that I’m not particularly worried, though obviously I’d like it to be better.