https://jellyfin.org/ Great alternative to Plex!
I paid for a lifetime Plex Pass years and years ago now, I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth.
That being said, I fully expect more bullshit like this, up to and including ending my “lifetime” pass.
When that comes to pass, I’m so glad Jellyfin will be available for me to use.
I also paid for a lifetime pass and still switched to Jellyfin last year. I find it’s quite a bit better than Plex. The UI leaves a bit to be desired, but the performance for me is way better.
I’d suggest giving it a try
Lifetime pass for Plex too. A few months ago, it bubbled up an ad-filled version of a show I was watching in front of the show on my server. That is, it showed up in Continue Watching. I was briefly baffled when I started watching an ad on a show that I thought was streaming locally.
Anyway, I switched to Jellyfin. There’s some imperfections, but so far it hasn’t tried to trick me into watching ads.
Same here, the Plex app was super heavy on a lot of my devices and would slow them to a crawl. Jellyfin is lean and runs well even on my slow smart projector. It does everything I need it to and more. I also got sick of Plex trying to shove their content and rentals and streaming services down my throat. Couldn’t be happier with Jellyfin.
Jellyfin is so much better anyway. I used plex for years and it has steadily enshitified.
Honestly I’ve tried jellyfin and I have a hard time agreeing with this for a few reasons:
- UI generally more unresponsive than Plex;
- changes to correct a show/movie being assigned the wrong show/movie metadata very slow to propagate if at all, same for changing other library options like title language preference;
- generally slower to buffer and get into videos;
- very rough android lollipop UI;
- not as easy to set up tech illiterate friends for play together.
I’ll give you that morally jellyfin is less customer-adverse than Plex management is at the moment and it is more open in some ways so you can have more plugins and add-ons that Plex lacks, and sure it’s a free product so it should be given some leeway.
… but if I just listened to all of the people saying jellyfin is just so much better I’d think it was an objectively better offering, but it’s not. When it comes to what I care about, it fell short, so just giving my 2 cents. Still worth trying, considering you can just point it to the same media folders, and maybe there’s a good proposition if you don’t already have a Plex pass, but if you do and you’re looking to migrate it’s a tougher sell.
Thats fair. I haven’t really noticed any of those issues. For my use case of just organizing and streaming my desktop’s media library to my TV, its fantastic.
Oh don’t get me wrong it does the job and if I didn’t already have a lifetime Plex pass I’d highly consider it over Plex for being free, I just don’t think it does it better than Plex (with a Plex pass)
Could you explain why you feel that Jellyfin is a lot better? I’ve seen lots of folks saying it lately, but as someone with an unraid server running plex to back up and view my music and movie collections for years, I don’t get it. I’ve tried Jellyfin twice now. The most recent time was a couple of months ago. While it is good, I honestly have a hard time seeing what makes it much better than Plex. While I disagree with a number of things Plex has done, I still recommend it to friends who want a personal media server or place to rip and backup their CDs to. It’s still the easiest to setup and most intuitive imo. Am I just missing something?
The most infuriating thing about Plex for me was when they shifted to force you to start with their BS streaming service at open. I only used Plex for my personal media collection. So having to jump through a bunch of menus to get to the only thing I want to use in their app was the biggest reason to switch for me. Maybe there is a way to fix that, but I could never find one.
Jellyfin just does your personal media library and opens right up into it when the app starts. Its simpler, faster, and FOSS.
You can disable the streaming completely if you really want to. It’s in your preferences, under the “Online Media Sources” section. You can disable it for only managed users, or disable it completely if you don’t even want access to it via the admin profile. Or just move it farther down the list, or hide it completely by unpinning it as a source.
Agreed. Started out in Plex when j knew nothing about self hosting, very quickly made the switch to Jellyfin and haven’t looked back. If I’m hosting my media, storing it locally, and running my own server, I’m much better off not integrating the software of some company that feels entitled to bleed some extra revenue from me.
I have a lifetime Plex pass.
I tried out Jellyfin last month.
Now Plex is uninstalled.
Even if we ignore the differences when it comes to matters of FOSS, cost, corporate control, privacy, etc, Jellyfin’s performance is just so much better.
Setting it up to run over https while fully self-hosted was a learning process for somebody who isn’t a web dev, but holy crap was it worth it.
I tried Jelly Fin last month based on a thread here and it was a damned dumpster fire. As bad a Plex is for remote streaming, JF is far worse for the average person.
In what way? I share my server with 8 friends/family and it does everything I need it to.
Unable to set up a working server for outside of the home network. Also, the UI is terrible and didn’t organize things well.
Setting up remote access is the same for Plex and Jellyfin so I’m confused. All you need to do is to forward port 8096 or use a reverse proxy like nginx if you want a domain.
I have plex.domain.com and jellyfin.domain.com and it was the exact same process for both.
None of that is needed if the server app for plex works as intended.
You have to port forward Plex in some fashion for it to work properly. If you don’t you are limited to 1 Mbps streams on their relay. That is lower bitrate than YouTube at 480p.
If your router has UPnP then the port fowarding is automatic on both Jellyfin and Plex. It’s the exact same setup for both.
