Been on jellyfin since day one. Works fine, UI is great and gets the job done. TV UI maybe not top notch, buy usable. Mobile UI just fine and usable.
Also, exposed on the internet (reverse proxy, OIDC, https the works) for years now with zero issues whatsoever as well .
There are a few users always throwing thrash on jellyfin, maybe pissed off users that paid for Plex, or Plex shills that like to denigrate jellyfin, I don’t know.
Just ignore them.
Jellyfin is perfectly usable, yes you need to setup port forward, VPN or whatever, but it’s exactly our target audience so move along and stop bitching, Plex shills.
Stay with Plex, use jellyfin, whatever fit your bill.
Anyway plex does not fit my concept of self hosting to be free from cloud lock ins.
I don’t see anyone “throwing trash” on Jellyfin, only pointing out that there are some downsides. Just as it also has some advantages over Plex.
Plex is undoubtedly on a downward trajectory, and I’m glad Jellyfin exists. But it does not yet have feature parity with Plex, and if you use it for music there’s simply nothing better than Plexamp. You waive away the requirements to remotely stream on Jellyfin, but the fact that you suggest simply opening up ports highlights that one of Plex’s strengths is it’s ability to remotely stream without jeopardizing your network security.
I run both concurrently, Plex for the remote streaming, OTA DVR, better living room apps, and (by far the biggest feature for me) for Plexamp. Jellyfin for proof of concept.
I’m not a Plex shill, and am preparing for a day that Jellyfin is the better answer. But for me and my users, that day hasn’t yet arrived.
That’s not been my experience, except for my MIL who somehow keeps resetting her client quality settings to 720 making my server transcode. My ISP is also really shitty so I’m honestly not sure the bandwidth numbers leaving my server.
I believe you. I’m just saying that quality of streaming remotely hasn’t been an issue for me (other than my MIL being a boomer and messing up her settings.)
It’s like saying Immich is bad because you don’t need to own storage or hardware for Google Photos. I know that. But it’s not a valid point of discussion when talking about open source self hosted software.
Also, you don’t need to open any ports. Just use tailscale. If you’re a bit more technically savvy, set up a reverse proxy. It’s honestly not that hard. Tailscale is just an app that you install. Why is everyone acting like it’s complicated? Am I missing something?
But it’s not a valid point of discussion when talking about open source self hosted software.
But we’re not talking about open source self hosted software. We’re in a piracy community. And I’m certainly not saying that Jellyfin is “bad” (as you suggest), only trying to paint a picture why Plex still has a place in my stack.
Yes, exposing Jellyfin safely isn’t too difficult, but it isn’t trivial either. Plex’s strength has traditionally been (and still is, if decreasingly) its relay making remote streaming trivial. And if you intend to share with non-technical users, it has to be.
I fully respect your comment, and I don’t doubt there are good reasons behind Plex. I choose to use jellyfin because I was put off by the corporate product resell approach of Plex that goes against my self host idea, so I never used Plex and cannot say anything bad about it.
But I find annoying and even suspicious that every time there is a Plex or jellyfin discussion a few voices always denigrate jellyfin like it’s a no good choice for lack of features or dubious security and such.
Yes guys (not talking to you in specific) I understand that jellyfin lacks those features, many people don’t care, and who do care they already know.
If you’re on Android TV (I guess Fire TV works as well), try out Wholphin. It’s miles ahead of the official TV app. Also, Findroid works great on mobile.
How am I just learning about wholfin now? They need to add that to the third party clients list on the main site because at a glance that’s easily top 3 best looking jellyfin clients
I happened to setup jellyfin when i had first heard about it while I was already hosting plex, so when plex decided to charge for remote streaming years later I was already halfway there.
Been on jellyfin since day one. Works fine, UI is great and gets the job done. TV UI maybe not top notch, buy usable. Mobile UI just fine and usable.
Also, exposed on the internet (reverse proxy, OIDC, https the works) for years now with zero issues whatsoever as well .
There are a few users always throwing thrash on jellyfin, maybe pissed off users that paid for Plex, or Plex shills that like to denigrate jellyfin, I don’t know.
Just ignore them.
Jellyfin is perfectly usable, yes you need to setup port forward, VPN or whatever, but it’s exactly our target audience so move along and stop bitching, Plex shills.
Stay with Plex, use jellyfin, whatever fit your bill.
Anyway plex does not fit my concept of self hosting to be free from cloud lock ins.
I don’t see anyone “throwing trash” on Jellyfin, only pointing out that there are some downsides. Just as it also has some advantages over Plex.
Plex is undoubtedly on a downward trajectory, and I’m glad Jellyfin exists. But it does not yet have feature parity with Plex, and if you use it for music there’s simply nothing better than Plexamp. You waive away the requirements to remotely stream on Jellyfin, but the fact that you suggest simply opening up ports highlights that one of Plex’s strengths is it’s ability to remotely stream without jeopardizing your network security.
I run both concurrently, Plex for the remote streaming, OTA DVR, better living room apps, and (by far the biggest feature for me) for Plexamp. Jellyfin for proof of concept.
I’m not a Plex shill, and am preparing for a day that Jellyfin is the better answer. But for me and my users, that day hasn’t yet arrived.
Doesn’t the Plex proxy stream cap at 2 MB/s ?
So unless you are fine with such a low bitrate, opening a port with Plex is also required, be it done manually or with UPNP. (Disregarding VPNs here)
Or am I missing some other way to stream content with Plex?
That’s not been my experience, except for my MIL who somehow keeps resetting her client quality settings to 720 making my server transcode. My ISP is also really shitty so I’m honestly not sure the bandwidth numbers leaving my server.
From Plex’s site on the relay service:
I believe you. I’m just saying that quality of streaming remotely hasn’t been an issue for me (other than my MIL being a boomer and messing up her settings.)
Gotcha!
It’s like saying Immich is bad because you don’t need to own storage or hardware for Google Photos. I know that. But it’s not a valid point of discussion when talking about open source self hosted software.
Also, you don’t need to open any ports. Just use tailscale. If you’re a bit more technically savvy, set up a reverse proxy. It’s honestly not that hard. Tailscale is just an app that you install. Why is everyone acting like it’s complicated? Am I missing something?
But we’re not talking about open source self hosted software. We’re in a piracy community. And I’m certainly not saying that Jellyfin is “bad” (as you suggest), only trying to paint a picture why Plex still has a place in my stack.
Yes, exposing Jellyfin safely isn’t too difficult, but it isn’t trivial either. Plex’s strength has traditionally been (and still is, if decreasingly) its relay making remote streaming trivial. And if you intend to share with non-technical users, it has to be.
I fully respect your comment, and I don’t doubt there are good reasons behind Plex. I choose to use jellyfin because I was put off by the corporate product resell approach of Plex that goes against my self host idea, so I never used Plex and cannot say anything bad about it.
But I find annoying and even suspicious that every time there is a Plex or jellyfin discussion a few voices always denigrate jellyfin like it’s a no good choice for lack of features or dubious security and such.
Yes guys (not talking to you in specific) I understand that jellyfin lacks those features, many people don’t care, and who do care they already know.
If you’re on Android TV (I guess Fire TV works as well), try out Wholphin. It’s miles ahead of the official TV app. Also, Findroid works great on mobile.
How am I just learning about wholfin now? They need to add that to the third party clients list on the main site because at a glance that’s easily top 3 best looking jellyfin clients
Yeah, easily the best one I’ve used on TV; that’s for sure. I found it randomly on some forum a few months ago.
thank you for the suggestion, will try it out! I am using a Fire Stick
Moonfin is also pretty great on Android TV too imo
This is a new one for me. Looks pretty sleek.
Yeah I changed to Wholphin recently, and it’s pretty cool — though you may need to tweak a couple of things depending on your TV
I happened to setup jellyfin when i had first heard about it while I was already hosting plex, so when plex decided to charge for remote streaming years later I was already halfway there.