Honest question, because I know multiple people who are not looking to jump ship since they already have the Plex Pass.
I say the following as a current Jellyfin user who stopped using Plex for privacy reasons: Plex making it easy to share your library outside of your LAN is an absolutely gigantic point in its favour. I don’t understand why so many Jellyfin people seem unable or unwilling to understand or acknowledge this.
Problem is access outside your home for family and friends.
There are serious security gaps that make it a non starter to expose to the internet.
I’ve been using Jellyfin ever since they forked out of Emby, and honestly, it’s the biggest complaint that I have. It is incredibly difficult to make it available to friends and family who are on various devices, networks, so on and so forth.
Whereas Plex “just works.”
Ease of use for my users across multiple platforms with minimal tech knowledge on their end. I’m sharing my library with ranges from 12yo to 70. I need it to “just work” and it does that perfectly.
Same here. Plex just works for my folks with 0 tech literacy. I may try Jellyfin in the future, but I have a few friends that primarily access Plex via Playstation 4/5, and I know there’s no support there yet.
Yeah, lacking the client is not good. https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/2751/playstation-5-support
Couldn’t upvote this harder. Tried Jellyfin for 5 mins and was super confused why I couldn’t find sharing options. After googling and reading about reverse proxies and buying domains and shit I said fuck it and uninstalled
Yes. Same.
This.
I’ve never understood this stance. You do you, but if I’m offering to host stuff for friends or family for free, they can at least learn to operate that thing on their end.
What do they need to even learn? How to login using the username you gave them?
Surely you haven’t exposed your Jellyfin to the open net, since even the devs admit that that is a terrible idea
Got a link for the dev recommendation? I hadn’t heard about that
My Jellyfin is exposed to the open net and it’s completely fine, but users don’t need to know any technical details about that. They just need to know how to login.
Theres a reason everyone uses a VPN to allow remote streaming for their Jellyfin. The things as open as a barns door, so you should not just open it to the public. Like I said, even the devs say not to do that, its just not secure enough
You’re just spreading fud. Jellyfin devs actually have documentation on how to expose it to the net. Why would they do that if it were unsafe?https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/post-install/networking/
I’ve been using it this way for a couple years now and we are good. Never used Plex. I’m using only Jellyfin. So, I’ll pass on your advice. Thanks.
It seems to depend on how you are granting access and have configured the server… if they have to setup VPN access in order to access Jellyfin, as opposed to logging into plex website.
No, that doesn’t change anything about what I said really.
To me, if I’m hosting something for my friends and family, they can put in the effort to learn how to use it. Period. Whether that’s as simple as logging in through a browser, installing an app, or using a VPN. They can learn, or they can pay for Netflix (as an example, since we’re discussing a media server originally).
In my experience getting dozens of people on to my server, plenty will happily choose to pay for Netflix. I want people to choose my server over paid streaming, so I offer both Plex and Jellyfin, and to date not a single person has stuck with Jellyfin, and several have gotten my invite email, took a look at the FAQ on how to request media, and continued using paid streaming.
Did you try Jellyfin? I’ve had success with Jellyfin once I’ve been the one setting up the TV app, etc. It did just work, because users found it very simple in comparison to Plex. If anything, they like how Plex shows more things beyond the collection.
I’ve been the one setting up the TV app, etc.
That is exactly the issue. I can’t personally set up the app for all my users. Most of them are not in my household.
Me either, but I don’t expect them to setup any sort of app themself (including Plex).
That’s his point though, he does expect them to be able to set up themselves, and apparently Plex is good for that.
Yes, in my case I personally had to setup both clients (Plex and Jellyfin) for the family members myself.
And right back to https://lemmy.cafe/comment/17371392
Ah, the answer to that… I configured the server beforehand and installed it at their house as a gift, so I have persistent SSH access over VPN and can administer it remotely at will within tmux. Has worked for several years.
The extent of the setup for Plex is to log in with your email and password, pick which shared libraries you want to be pinned to your home screen, and then browse. My parents in their 70s were able to figure it out and all I had to do from my end was grant them access to the libraries I wanted to share with a simple check box.
Had to find it, but there is a new tvOS app that looks very nice: Moonfin
Thanks do letting me kno about this. I tried it and it does look good. Sadly for me at least it does perform well. Moves slow between options and libraries. And the Live TV Guide isn’t working at all. That could be a me issue, but the slowness is unacceptable. Once I have more time I will play it more and probably reach out to the Dev.
I use both at home, mostly plex though and I have about a dozen people who watch remotely and keeping the remote access private and secure I’m not putting jellyfin behind a public reverse proxy. Not feasible to setup wire guard for a dozen people across 4 states and troubleshooting those tunnels when Plex does all that for me. Plus Plex allows them to manage and reset their password without my intervention
Lifetime subscriber when it was like $75 bux
Setup and runs on my NAS (unRAID) Uses a small GPU to transcode as needed Shared only with non technical family members
Has worked as is for YEARS.
So, the question is, am I looking for something to replace a working free (prepaid) solution I have? That answer is nope.
Having non-technical family on board is priceless tbh.
Yeah, my mom uses it. My mom. I have to remove search bars from her chrome like it’s 2005.
This is my POV. It already works perfectly, is prepaid, and is accessible to my nontechnical users. Switching would be a major pain for a worse experience.
Also, Plexamp.
Someday in the future no doubt Plex will enshittify for lifetime users such that it will justify a change, but that hasn’t happened.
+1 to all of this. I paid for it when it was $90 lifetime, before either Jellyfin was popular before I heard of it, who knows. It works fine. No reason to put extra effort into replacing something that I have no problems or qualms with.
I tried Jellyfin once about a year ago and it was… OK I guess? Certainly nowhere near as polished as the rabid fan base would have me believe, and there was something in my library that it flat out refused to play.
If I didn’t already have a lifetime Plex Pass, and it was just me hosting my own media for a user count of one, then sure, I’d use it. But none of those things are true. I need something that “just works” and Plex fits that bill.
Like most people here, I bought a lifetime pass when it was $75 and it’s paid for itself over and over again in the time since. I honestly think I’ve had more than $750 worth of value from my purchase. Sure they’ve made some odd decisions recently, but until they start actively taking away functionality or rescind existing lifetime subs then I will continue to use it.
Meanwhile, not to belittle you personally, but the fact that every thread that mentions Plex in any way, good or bad, is guaranteed to be dominated by people circle-jerking over their beloved Jellyfin has put me completely off the project, to the point that I’ve had to add the word to my blocklist. Obviously that’s not working too well or I wouldn’t have seen this post!
Yea, Jellyfin might be good tech but the fans are insufferable
Have lifetime already. No reason to jump. Generally it just works.
No need to have another project while Plex still works fine.
Lifetime Pass holder here. Used to run Jellyfin alongside Plex. Had crashing issues and had to shut Jellyfin down for quite a bit. Came back after a while and started Jellyfin from scratch. None of my users ever chose Jellyfin over Plex.
- The UI is slower (at least on Windows), clunkier, and uglier. Hopefully this gets fixed in the upcoming big update they have planned for the desktop client. Their Roku app is actually on par with Plex’s though.
- The admin dashboard is confusing and in my opinion awful.
- Downloaded content is not viewable within the app on Android. This is the complaint I’ve heard the most from my user who made a significant effort to switch. Ironically, after the New Experience update this became less of an issue since Plex ruined downloads.
- Plexamp’s UI, radios, and sonic similarity feature were, last I checked, unmatched by a long-shot. I use my music library heavily. If I make the switch fully away from Plex, I’ll probably opt for something more specialized like Navidrome.
- Manually setting the edition of a movie is so much easier on Plex, and for someone who likes to have multiple editions, it’s less confusing for the user to see each edition individually labelled in the library than selecting the movie and being expected to know which file name they should pick. Not every file is named to Jellyfin’s standards because that would make them harder to add to my torrent client, and some don’t have their editions in the file name at all and I just have them hand-labelled in Plex based on run time.
- I’m still trying to setup my DVR in Jellyfin and can’t get it to work. Plex works fine, Jellyfin just won’t. It’s a moot point at the moment, but once I do get it to work, unless things have changed over the years, the channel guide is a whole other set of challenges.
I’m willing to deal with this personally simply because Plex creates just as much, if not more of a headache for me as an administrator and the bloat is ridiculous, but not a single one of my users has switched, and I don’t blame them. They don’t have to deal with the administrative difficulties, so there’s no benefit to them except being able to download files to their system instead of just in the app, which none of them care about. If nobody is going to use it, my focus ends up being on Plex anyway. I have been pushing Jellyfin for a year and a half. None of my friends or family want to use it unless Plex borks something, and even then they want Plex back.
Jellyfin just isn’t on par with Plex, no matter how much I wish it was. It’s death by a thousand cuts on both the user and administrative ends. It would be one thing if I were a free user or actively paying for Plex, but as a Lifetime Pass holder, I just can’t justify it yet.
For music enthusiasts plexamp is also basically unbeatable. I welcome the day open source catches up.
Nothing in the self hosted space is taken seriously on windows. There’s a reason for that. Jellyfin on Linux is fine. I’m a fucking smooth brain and if I can do it, a crack enhanced autistic monkey can do it.
Plexamp is better. I will give you that. There’s nothing outright bad about jellyfins take on music. Apps like Discrete make it quite nice, but plexamp just satisfies that out-of-box itch.
Their Roku app is actually on par with Plex’s though.
I can’t tell if that’s a complement or a dig 🤣
I meant it as a compliment. Lol. Both of the Roku apps are fairly functional as far as I’ve been able to observe.
It’s a small piece in your observation but I’ve been on the hunt for an android client for jellyfin with downloads that are… usable. Fladder has been so far the only one where this seemed to work okay-ish (it’s still slow, and I noticed it doesn’t detect if the device supports Dolby vision to force transcoding). But still, if your one user is still trying… maybe it helps them a lil.
I’ll take a look at it and let them know. At the moment they’re back on Plex, but if this app works the way they want, they may be open to switching. Thanks!
As an observer in these comments, this is a great answer. Thanks for typing it out.
It does seem like some “cuts” could be ironed out reasonably quickly, like the file naming issue or UI lag.
The client apps on Apple TV are just not good. I have tried swiftfin which is slow and I find it not very visually appealing. There there is infuse which does look better, but is missing features and requires a subscription for full functionality. If there is a app I’m missing I would be happy to try it.
I keep Jellyfin up to date and check in or it from time to time. Even have watchstate so my watched history stays updated. Hoping one day there will be a good Apple TV app and I could fully switch.
Same boat on Swiftfin and Infuse.
There’s one I recently found called Moonfin that does many things well. It’s my current go-to until official apps catch up.
I hadn’t heard of Moonfin before, it looks promising as an Apple TV client. Any pitfalls with it?
I use it on my tablet and it direct plays all of my (limited) media, and also handles and organizes downloads to the device with reencoding options. Playback is more reliable and efficient compared to Swiftfin. UI seems modeled after existing streaming services.
They also have a plugin that “updates” your existing Jellyfin install so the features show up on the official client, but uses code injection which I didn’t like and so did not partake. The sense I get is that they push for features and implementation while official Jellyfin development takes a much more conservative approach. I hope they can work together some day.
I’m in the same boat. Considering swapping out for a Linux based media box instead of the AppleTV.
Kodi works well as a frontend to Jellyfin and Plex
I hate this answer so much. I get that it works, but it feels like a kludge
Great; how do I load that in my AppleTV?
Absolutely, my other friends are doing the same. They keep their state synced between services and keep checking in on the AppleTV client improvements for Swiftfin.
Infuse is fine. Subscription has a lifetime option, or it’s $1/month.
I use Jellyfin on my phone and just do the screen share to my AppleTV.
Lifetime pass, it still works well so why would I switch?
This is all a fascinating thread because everyone says Plex “just works”
I started using jellyfin about 6 months ago. I don’t really know anything about plex use. However, jellyfin worked out of the box for me. Set up with a docker container and have never had any problems with it.
Its never failed to load media, or loaded duplicates or any of the other random things others have mentioned here.
For the most part it feels like people in the thread have just used Plex for a long time and had their first impression of jellyfin years ago and probably haven’t checked it out since.
Which, fair play to them, life gets busy and setting up and migrating a media library is something that takes at least a couple hours which could be spent doing anything else.
If people are new, I’m sure they won’t even bother with Plex and their ridiculously high fees. I cannot see Plex maintaining their userbase at this rate.
With them unable to maintain their userbase, I give it a year before they cancel lifetime passes and 2 years or so before it’s completely enshitified and unusable.
I use Plex to save money on plumbers because I cannot solder. Plex gives me the ability to exact repairs myself.
Oops! I meant PEX. Kindly disregard.
WhatI’ve noticed is that people who prioritize privacy and just want to watch their downloads on their tv usually use jellyfin and people who prioritize ux slickness and want to run an IPTV service for their friends and family usually use plex.
Reading this thread, it seems like two different groups of people are having two different conversations.
For me, self-hosting is just that, running my own stuff at home for myself (and my immediate family). My motivation is privacy and freedom. I want to use services that are free of commercial incentives against my interests whenever possible. That usually means self-hosting my services.
I’ve been a system and network engineer for most of my career and I like configuring and managing stuff. I like knowing how everything on my home network runs, where and what data is shared, etc.
As soon as people start talking about “my users need …” I’m out. That sounds too much like what I do at work. I want to relax when I’m at home. Jellyfin is perfect for me to do that with my content without needing any of my data to go to any companies.
For everyone who wants to be an IPTV operator, Plex is the best choice right now. Jellyfin isn’t really focused on that use case.
I’m not switching at this time because I already bought a lifetime pass about 7 years ago. If ANY of my functionality gets changed by Plex then I’ll be switching
They already changed the authentication system a few years ago. Everything goes through their server now. You can’t self-host it.
Running Plex locally is still perfectly viable without going through their servers
Can you explain what you mean by not being able to self-host?
They can’t because they’re just plain wrong. I’ve been self-hosting Plex (lifetime pass) for years so idk what they’re on about
You can, and whitelist your local network so you don’t have to log in.
I don’t know what this means and maybe I’m just not techy enough, but all my shit is on my PC, and if my PC is turned off it doesn’t work. Are you saying it goes through their servers? I’m just curious why it matters.
Jellyfin is great and I run both. However, sharing access with family is a PITA compared to Plex. I paid for Plex Pass lifetime at the $75 and have no reason to fully move. Keeping Jellyfin around in case Plex tries to rug pull lifetime passes, though.
