HomelessCanadianplex or Jellyfin?
What are the main advantages to plex?
AFAIK they offer more apps resp. apps for more platforms. Apart from that, nothing really. Maybe a little more idiot-proof.
WxFischThis is pretty much it, Plex offers far more client apps that are full featured and they make it super easy to setup and use both as an admin and a user. Especially for things like OTA TV where they provide the guide data once it’s setup (which is why it’s a paid option). I’d move to JellyFin in a heartbeat if they’d support OTA and DVR playback on AppleTV.
If Jellyfin had a good Xbox app I would switch immediately.
In theory it’d be possible to make a Jellyfin UWP app, of course nobody’s made one yet. Maybe it could be you ;)
.......they do but, you have to supply the schedule. I was using a Home run to pipe OTA tv in but, have since moved to a IPtv provider. Works very very well
The problem I have is there is no way to playback live tv on AppleTV which is what we use throughout our home. Plex just works and has wife approved first party apps for pretty much everything.
chiisanaThe FOSS crowd will eventually pop in and try sway you strongly the other way, but at the end of the day, it really boils down to bigger platform, more app choices and more supported platforms. If you expect anyone other than yourself to be using it, on anywhere else other than your own equipments, but just don’t quite know who or where yet, then Plex might give you a better running chance in supporting that use case. Otherwise, choose whichever one floats your boat more.
u_tamtamThe FOSS crowd will eventually pop in and try sway you strongly the other way
That’s pretty clear from the comments/upvotes, but I don’t think it’s undeserved either. Jellyfin is the underdog that came to take the slack left by Plex growing discontent, does a decent job overall, and gets measurably better over time.
What’s interesting to me is to think about what Plex could do that an active community around jellyfin couldn’t, and the answer is not technical, but commercial, and along the lines of more partnership and integrations with hardware or streaming platforms, for which I (and most people here, apparently) have no use. YMMV of course.
My experience with Jellyfin have not been great. The mobile app is just not working well enough
Plex has lots of customisation available (which I prefer) but is a little harder to get running in my experience. I’d say, install them both and see what you like most. Do start with Jellyfin as it’s easy to install.
I’ve found my media I play over the network looks grainy on some devices using Jellyfin. But it’s probably settings I have wrong
Been quite a while! Thanks for telling me though, I will test it out when I get to it!
OptimisticPrimeNot sure how long ago you tested it, but there is now an alternative Android app called Findroid which I like much more than the official app.
LachlanUnchainedPlex for sharing with others. Jellyfin for personal use only.
KururinJellyfin is better. Plex has features behind paywall
JoeKroganI personally use jellyfin and it works well enough for me to watch my movies and shows. I don’t use the app but just use the browser but there are plugins for kodi and various apps too.
Ive not used Plex myself and from what I have read it does the job too. A few friends use it and are happy. I read recently they let go of 20% of their staff.
For me it comes down to it like this: do I want a company to have control over my viewing experience with closed source software or do I want a community FOSS experience under my control. That is very important to me but it depends on your own needs.
A good middle ground is emby. I’ve been using it for a couple years now and it’s been solid.
the_thunder_godSame for me.
-It works well
-my dad (who has dementia) can use it
-It runs even when the net goes down (means my dad is happy)
-Can Transcode for our TV's with premiere (would rather not have to pay for that)
Have been thinking about Jellyfin...as I like the FOSS angle...and seems like it is gaining a lot of traction in the selfhost community. I host Emby Server on my Unraid server and our nVidia Shields play content great using the Emby app. Going to be investigating Jellyfin when I start to move the rest of my serivces off of Unraid.
sudo_teeI was a happy Emby camper a couple of years ago. But Emby started to add features behind paywall . Jellyfin is a fork of Emby so it was easy for me to switch.
Server wise they are practically identical, but the AndroidTV app of jellyfin lags behind quite a bit, the media player is bad, it doesn’t handle well changing subtitles, moving the clip forward and backward… Some of these are fixed by using an external video player, but weirdly enough there have been some movie formats that jellyfin couldn’t handle (the TV app) and emby did.
I just wish that the TV app were identical to the android app with remote functionality, but I’m no android dev so I’ll stay put and wait.
I’m fine with that personally, it takes a lot of hours to develop features. They have to make money somehow if they want to make it more than just a side project. Jellyfin last I played (1-2 years ago) with wasn’t where Emby much less Plex is. Missing a lot of features I grew dependant on. Been itching to try it again since Jellyfin January on the Self Hosted podcast tho.
jmondiJellyfin if you do not like being spied on by your self hosted media library. Plex if you do like being spied on by your self hosted media library.
Also - Plex if you want Audiobooks, because the app Prologue is 🔥
linearchaosJellyfin:
- Free
- Gets the job done
- Not in financial trouble
- No layoffs
- Not trying to sell you stuff
- Not selling your watch habbits
- Mainly develops features people want
Plex (paid):
- Decade of development with pretty solid pay features
- Easy sharing with friends and remote watching
- Decent clients for almost every device and more solid transcoding
- Fairly quick fixes for problems
- Great intro/credit/commercial skipping
- Only develops features that might make money
- In the middle of layoffs
- Centralized authentication makes is impossible to watch if offline or they’re offline unless you removed local authentication before it went offline.
- They sell your viewing habbits
Plex is super convenient and slimy
Jellyfin is pure and behind on features, clients and comforts.
FischYou can get intro skipping for Jellyfin too with a plugin. It even works with Findroid, which is a native Android app for Jellyfin. I’ve been using it for a while now (maybe a month or so) and it’s always worked perfectly.
Brendan McKenzieWhat’s the name of that plugin?
You know, its not that hard to just try and google “intro skipper jellyfin” since its actually the name of it, but here you go github.com/ConfusedPolarBear/intro-skipper
Seems like I’ll continue to stick with Jellyfin because of the offline access. My internet is very spotty where I live so it seems to be the best option.
Guilty TangentSame here.
My internet connection isn’t too spotty, but having gone through it I found it really annoying not being able to watch my own shows off my own systems just because I can’t auth to Plex’s login servers.
Great list of comparison!
Worth noting that Jellyfin is not only free as in beer (if you selfhost), but also free as in Freedom i.e. open source.
?! I can watch stuff locally from my Plex server even if my internet is down.
You have to disable authentication for certain ip’s / local networks. It’s not easy or straight forward, but it works.
Last time I had an outage, I was still watching from my roku and in the browser.
I really have only ever used either of them as a DLNA server, but I was recently forced into Jellyfin and find that I like it much better than Plex. It’s faster and more reliable on my system, and for my stripped-down needs, it’s a perfect fit. I’d say that if Jellyfin is doing the job you need, you’ve got absolutely no reason to switch.
Plex is great if you want to pay for features and need a media server/streaming platform hybrid
And don’t care about privacy / believes that Plex will not be hacked one more time.
It depends what you use it for.
If you're watching your own content within your home then Jellyfin is better. It's free, open source and private. Your Jellyfin instance is yours and secure, and entirely under your control.
Plex's differences are mostly behind it's plex pass pay wall, and you sacrifice privacy using their platform. The key difference is really offline and remote viewing of content which is easier and slicker with plex (but doable with jellyfin), and the plex App maybe available a few more devices. There are also some credits and ad skipping features. That's about it - I struggle to see the benefit in plex. The only other thing I can think of is some people prefer the interface?
I used to use Plex and got annoyed when I couldn't view my content, which I host locally, because their login servers were down. Made me realise why did I need them so I researched a bit and switched to Jellyfin.
I already commented this on another another comment here but there’s a plugin for Jellyfin to get intro skipping
I had that plug-in installed and it never skipped a single intro for me
You need to install a modified web interface (just replace some files on your server) so you get the skip button
Meow.tar.gzMy vote will always side with the open source community so please take that with a grain of sand. I much prefer Jellyfin because of its status as an open source project.
I like Jellyfin quite a bit better. The UI is less cluttered and the controls make more sense. It also doesn’t phone home like plex. I do keep plex running beside it for my dad and sister. Plex has way better device support.
armeckI use Plex for (1) home library, (2) Live TV (HDHomerun), and (3) music (PlexAmp).
(1) Jellyfin is just as capable for home streaming of my home library.
(2) It would take approximately 15 seconds to show my live TV when I switch stations. Plex is almost instant and Plex has ad supported channels similar to a PlutoTV, et. al. I watch Scripps News and NBC Now along side my locals.
(3) There simply is no app as good as PlexAmp.
Finally, setting up Plex for outside access was dead simple, Jellyfin takes some effort.
Do you know how PlexAmp compares to airsonic-advanced/navidrome/subsonic? That’s definitely an area where jellyfin is weak but great alternatives are out there.
I haven't used those apps in a long time, so my experience is pretty dated. PlexAmp is very very good though.
I have both (they both can coexist peacefully on the same library). I use jellyfin for any watching on my phone or computer.
However, where jellyfin still really kind of falls apart is when casting to my Chromecast. Controls don’t work, subtitles are unpredictable or missing, and it’s just generally a mess.
So I use Plex for casting, and jellyfin for everything else. I bought a Plex lifetime pass ages ago, so it’s an easy call to just have them both running.
Is the Plex pass really worth the 160$ CAD? Seems like a lot of money on one application
RetroThe $160 is a lifetime pass… I pay $20/mo for Netflix. That’s $240/year. So, if you think it’s worth it for even one year, compared to something like Netflix, then it’s a pretty solid value proposition.
I bought the lifetime pass in 2014 when it was $75. Been more than happy with that decision.
Same. I don’t recall the pricing but I signed up roughly around that time. I haven’t regretted it.
I found what really helps Jellyfin on my Chromecast is setting the player manually. There’s a setting to make it ask which player to use when starting a show and if one doesn’t work, 99% of the time the other one works fine.
Sometimes switching players doesn’t fix subtitles for me, in those situations I usually have to toggle subs a few times or restart the stream and they actually work.
In my opinion it’s a minor enough inconvenience given Jellyfin is 100% free and open source, whereas Plex is tracking you and charging you. But of course maybe your media is in some more difficult format than mine.
I have run both Plex and Jellyfin and I much prefer Jellyfin. I got sick of Plex content being interjected into my menus and feed. Plex also had issues seeing my server which was inconvenient. I now run Jellyfin with Infuse as my client. Love it so far.
Jellyfin is only getting better while Plex is primarily getting worse. You also need to pay for Plex to get many features Jellyfin provides for free.
Something I don’t see talked about enough with Jellyfin is that the UI is much nicer than Plex. It’s so clean and uncluttered, where Plex is this bizarre mess of unclear controls and advertised content.
I couldn’t disagree more and I think you’re in the minority here.
Plex UI is just leagues ahead. Also last I checked the desktop app UI and Android TV ui is pretty bad also. Its just the Web UI in a wrapper.
To each their own and all that, but for my time, I agree with you Plex still has the edge in UI by a wide margin. The advertised content is super annoying but it is possible to trim it.
I’m new to both, and both are terrible if you ask me, but for different reasons. Where I see plex having a clear UI advantage is where it comes with a native app for that platform, which is less often the case of jellyfin (although it’s slowly catching up). Being open source, jellyfin has a clear advantage IMO because with enough traction, the community will be able to do wonderful things (think of winamp skins meets android custom ROM scene, or something to that effect).
And as a new comer having only seen the freemium side of plex, it has really weirded me out in some places (sponsored stuff, stuff of no use to me that I can’t disable, locked out stuff, including petty stuff like HDR encoding…) , so much so that I don’t see myself trusting them my credit card, and so I might never get to experience the “real thing”. That’s just how my perception of it is: Plex probably needs me to pay for it to become good, but it won’t be that much better (and still have many quirks) to justify it.
also, after implementing my pi-hole, I’m not crazy about the fact plex keeps trying to send out analytics.
one main question should also be, do you want to selfhost or not.
because plex is not selfhosted imo due to their login servers.
I mean it is self-hosted… Everything but the Authentication component. That doesn’t make it not self-hosted
I have both. I never touch Jellyfin. Plex is just better experience in every way. If Jellyfin was as good as plex I would use that because I agree more with the philosophy.
iNeedScissors67I decided to go with Plex because I can use it from my roku TVs and my game consoles. I let a few friends and family members log in as well to stream and they're primarily doing it from game consoles. Most of those people don't even have a desktop PC. Granted, I don't know what features in that ballpark that Jellyfin may have now, I set this up a long time ago and just haven't really given it much thought since then.
Emby is a nice middle ground
Jellyfin forked off of Emby.
Emby is supported by more smart TVs than Jellyfin.
exuIf you’re happy with Jellyfin I don’t see a reason to switch. But if you’re missing something, do checkout Plex.