the idea of signing up at plex is somewhat antithetical to a lot of selfhosters… theres nothing plex is doing that cant be done for free with better software.
To be fair that’s a pretty recent development. Jellyfin apps for smart tvs are only just becoming stable enough for real use. Plex was the only option for a long time.
There’s always the software Jellyfin was forked from: Emby.
It does have a paid model to support development, but with single-purchase lifetime options instead of requiring a monthly subscription.
I’ve been quite happy with it for the last 7 years. Their apps are pretty stable, hardware accelerated transcoding works great, it does a great job identifying content then managing/fetching metadata, and the developers and their community are responsive and helpful.
Depending on your server, and how you install you might have a bad experience. I’ve had issues where it wasn’t finding the film/series metadata, having plugin issues, and being incredibly slow (slow UI when anything is being done, slow scanning folders, slow loading saved metadata, etc). Jellyfin, like a lot of open source software, feels like jank. The devs know about a lot of issues, but they’re swamped with so much, with this big of a project.
People criticise Plex, rightfully so with some of their bad decisions, but it still works better. For me, Plex runs so much better, and without issues. I won’t be moving away to Jellyfin in the foreseeable future, but I’ll be glad when I am able to.
The biggest problem with Plex (I’m a user) is that you need a network connection just to use it with your local media unless you do a little research to figure out how to bypass this.
Why is this a problem? You don’t notice it until there’s a network outage and you want to watch something. Or if the Plex servers are glitching. It’s needlessly complicating the process of watching your media.
Not really sure what you’re getting at here. I’ve had a network outage for the past 2 days and was able to watch stuff on my local NAS just fine. I haven’t done anything special to make it do that.
I believe what they’re getting at is an issue if they’re not already authenticated prior to the outage. Then they’d have no access to their media unless they look into the workaround for that beforehand. It has been an issue in the past, especially when Plex’s auth servers go down. I remember plenty of Reddit threads complaining about it.
Ehhhhhh. I don’t think anyone expects to be setting up their Plex server with an Internet outage. As long as you have been setup prior and you lose Internet you can still log in with the last local profile you used. It’s not perfect but you’re not locked out. No workaround (at this point in time) is necessary, assuming you’ve already authed and added your server to your “whatever” device.
And ultimately you just keep Kodi for the apocalypse. This complaint about “not being able to access your media” if the internet is out is misleading. Of course you can access your media if the internet is out, it just might not necessarily be with Plex which is ultimately an online service. Sure we can call it a limitation but that’s just nit-picking since most everyone has their Internet up almost all the time, offline does work, and there’s plenty of other ways to access your media.
Jellyfin is great and open source. I’ve never tried Plex, but I’ve heard that Plex has apps on more platforms.
Also, I’d recommend checking out Findroid if your on Android. Its UI is native instead of the usual web interface in the official apps. Iirc iOS has a similar project.
Plex is definitely more user friendly. I would like to try Jellyfin again but I host Plex for my parents back home and I don’t want to troubleshoot Jellyfin internationally when I know they can just install Plex and log in on their devices and I don’t have to deal with it.
Definitely different strokes for different folks but I understand Lemmy is very big on FOSS so it’s no surprise Jellyfin has such a positive following here.
Ah, thanks. I’ve been considering installing it on my Plex server so I can evaluate it but I have no issues with Plex whatsoever. But yes them getting bigger means more chances for things to get bad.
Can’t you just hide the paid movies/tv tab? Or is it a principle thing
Is jellyfin better? I’d never heard of it 'til now
the idea of signing up at plex is somewhat antithetical to a lot of selfhosters… theres nothing plex is doing that cant be done for free with better software.
To be fair that’s a pretty recent development. Jellyfin apps for smart tvs are only just becoming stable enough for real use. Plex was the only option for a long time.
There’s always the software Jellyfin was forked from: Emby.
It does have a paid model to support development, but with single-purchase lifetime options instead of requiring a monthly subscription.
I’ve been quite happy with it for the last 7 years. Their apps are pretty stable, hardware accelerated transcoding works great, it does a great job identifying content then managing/fetching metadata, and the developers and their community are responsive and helpful.
I never messed with Plex but Jellyfin is pretty easy to muss with so it’s definitely worth giving it go.
Jellyfin is FOSS as well, I assume Plex isn’t since it’s doing…all this. lol
Depending on your server, and how you install you might have a bad experience. I’ve had issues where it wasn’t finding the film/series metadata, having plugin issues, and being incredibly slow (slow UI when anything is being done, slow scanning folders, slow loading saved metadata, etc). Jellyfin, like a lot of open source software, feels like jank. The devs know about a lot of issues, but they’re swamped with so much, with this big of a project.
People criticise Plex, rightfully so with some of their bad decisions, but it still works better. For me, Plex runs so much better, and without issues. I won’t be moving away to Jellyfin in the foreseeable future, but I’ll be glad when I am able to.
The biggest problem with Plex (I’m a user) is that you need a network connection just to use it with your local media unless you do a little research to figure out how to bypass this. Why is this a problem? You don’t notice it until there’s a network outage and you want to watch something. Or if the Plex servers are glitching. It’s needlessly complicating the process of watching your media.
Not really sure what you’re getting at here. I’ve had a network outage for the past 2 days and was able to watch stuff on my local NAS just fine. I haven’t done anything special to make it do that.
I believe what they’re getting at is an issue if they’re not already authenticated prior to the outage. Then they’d have no access to their media unless they look into the workaround for that beforehand. It has been an issue in the past, especially when Plex’s auth servers go down. I remember plenty of Reddit threads complaining about it.
Ehhhhhh. I don’t think anyone expects to be setting up their Plex server with an Internet outage. As long as you have been setup prior and you lose Internet you can still log in with the last local profile you used. It’s not perfect but you’re not locked out. No workaround (at this point in time) is necessary, assuming you’ve already authed and added your server to your “whatever” device.
And ultimately you just keep Kodi for the apocalypse. This complaint about “not being able to access your media” if the internet is out is misleading. Of course you can access your media if the internet is out, it just might not necessarily be with Plex which is ultimately an online service. Sure we can call it a limitation but that’s just nit-picking since most everyone has their Internet up almost all the time, offline does work, and there’s plenty of other ways to access your media.
Jellyfin is great and open source. I’ve never tried Plex, but I’ve heard that Plex has apps on more platforms.
Also, I’d recommend checking out Findroid if your on Android. Its UI is native instead of the usual web interface in the official apps. Iirc iOS has a similar project.
Plex is definitely more user friendly. I would like to try Jellyfin again but I host Plex for my parents back home and I don’t want to troubleshoot Jellyfin internationally when I know they can just install Plex and log in on their devices and I don’t have to deal with it.
Definitely different strokes for different folks but I understand Lemmy is very big on FOSS so it’s no surprise Jellyfin has such a positive following here.
Ultimately I’m glad to have options regardless.
Why can’t your parents just login to JellyFin and browse from their profile? I don’t really see what extra work would be required on their end?
Does Jellyfin have you open the app, type in a 4 character code, and then just work? I’m assuming it doesn’t. So that is why.
If Jellyfin requires any more effort than that - EVEN if it’s simply entering a username and password with a TV remote, that is extra work.
It’s a 6 digit code.
https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/quick-connect/
But I’ve never used it so it may be more complicated to setup? Worth looking into for sure.
Ah, thanks. I’ve been considering installing it on my Plex server so I can evaluate it but I have no issues with Plex whatsoever. But yes them getting bigger means more chances for things to get bad.