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Jellyfin for me, true open source, no tracking, the app works on my firestick and I use kodi on a rasPi. With the rest of the *arr containers it all chugs along nicely.
I used to be a big Plex fan, still have my lifetime license from many years back but have decided to move to Jellyfin. It’s open source, built by the community, for the community and stands for all things FOSS. There are some areas where it lacks behind but am ultimately very impressed with the project and look forward to all the future development
I tried to move to them but their apps are rarely updated and years behind Plex in polish. Also no apps on a lot of brand name TV’s. Plex is just everywhere.
I use Plex to host my movies and music online. I also use it for live over the air tv with a Hauppauge usb turner. I use Plex also so that I can watch my My movies and listen to my music away from home. Also able to watch my over-the-air live TV away from home. I don't like having to pay $5 per month with Plex. Can I do all of that with Jellyfin without having to pay for a monthly subscription?
unfortunately it's terrible for anime from my experience, plex is also quite bad, but jellyfin manages to be far worse, it gets most of the anime either wrong or not at all
Jellyfin, it's free, it has the support of the community, I can use it with authentik and it sits happily in a lxc container , on my proxmox server , with hardware passtrough enabled. From family member to my own tv where it streams 4k. with dolby vision and dolby sound, all work flawless. My only issue is with the subtitles, sometimes it fails, but it always works after 2-3 attempts.
I have a cheapo TCL Roku 4k hdr tv that runs great and 100% direct plays my media when I extract the subtitles out and have them only as an srt with only the video and audio source(s) present in the movie file container. I've been eyeballing the shield tv pro and other newer android boxes but honestly a few minutes processing a media file is fine for me :) And it can be automated
I don't know why but not many people seem to try Emby. I went from Plex to Jellyfin then finally settled with Emby, I was with both Plex and Jellyfin for a few years. Emby hands down is the best of the three. I recommend people to at least try Emby and see for themselves.
Yes, I use Emby too. It is the best. Jellyfin is a fork of Emby. It is open source but it is not polished like Emby. Emby has a better interface and better app clients on TVs and phones.
The only thing I hate about Emby is its call-home feature. If you are off the internet for a while - it does not run; both server and thick client. Other than that - it runs perfect.
3:37 - Can anyone explain to me why a piece of software needs to phone home like this? If I bought the software, why does it have to talk to its company servers after that?
Some feedback: I think one point where this video is missing the mark after the info dump, Is giving examples or situations where one would be a better choice than the other two. That with the info gives the user all the information and examples to make their own choice for what would work best for them.
Used Plex for awhile, but I went Jellyfin a couple years ago to have fully local auth control and not having to pay for hardware transcoding and intro skipping (plugin)
Plex adding in licensed content to stream from their servers leaves me with big concern that someday they'll take steps to prevent less legal content from being served by their software. The opt-out share my watch history 'feature' they launched a little while back really rubbed me the wrong way too. But it's taken me years to finally get my media stack tuned just right, so I haven't pulled the trigger on a migration yet. Someday though.
Would just like to correct a statement at 3:45 regarding phoning home. While Plex and Emby do this (Emby less so) for licensing, Emby does not require this for login. This one of the big reliability benefits to using Emby or Jellyfin over Plex, there's no cloud reliant authentication. Emby offers both a cloud connected login which functions like Plex called Emby Connect. However, this is optional and local accounts can be setup. Additionally, Emby supports LDAP for those with a local authentication server and OIDC is in discussion.
This is a high-quality guide, very well done. Not only does it briefly explain everything I wanted to know in under 10 minutes, it also gave more context (e.g. with future prospects). All complete with a nice table overview in the summary, linked resources and timestamps in the description. Bravo!
I have fully setup my Jellyfin and *arrs and i couldnt be any happier, it just works on all my devices and people have no hard time using it. Its awesome and completely free!
I'm currently debating how long I want to keep using Plex. We have a lifetime pass - from years ago - and I don't mind paying for features; but when key features (downloading content to mobile devices, for instance) have remained broken for years now, development has appeared to focus on pushing their own Plex-hosted content instead. I've been dabbling with Jellyfin as an alternative, and I like what I've seen so far, but getting my family's watch history migrated over is the largest hurdle for them in making the switch.
It's always good to explore alternatives and find what works best for you. Your family's watch history is definitely a big factor in making the switch.
@@MrZer000 Mobile streaming tends to be fine in Plex. Downloading for offline viewing, however, tends to fail more often than not. I've had slightly better luck downloading when on the same network as the server, but even that's not super reliable.
I used Emby for a long while, but ditched it to try Jellyfin. The only problem I've really had is getting an automated TV guide, I just can't figure it out
I’ve tried to switch to jellyfin a few times over the years but the media scrapper was way behind Emby and plex. Atleast a quarter of my media required manual matching vs a handful on plex or Emby.
Could you please do a comparison of the UI between the three for 2024. Mainly the home screen and when you're in Movies and TV Shows. For some reason, Emby website lacks screenshots. I want to choose one, but this is coming from a long time Kodi user, as KODI imo has the best UI with Aeon MQ9 skin. But I do want to be able to continue videos from multiple devices, so Kodi may no longer suit me anyone with a new family / kids etc. Right now, without looking, I'm leaning towards Plex on a Synology NAS and be done with it, but I'll see how hard the other two are to setup I guess.
After using all three for many years ive come to rely mainly on Emby for my shares. I RARELY have my servers disconnect or not play content. Its simple to use and my people love it .
2 things keep me on Plex 1) The UI of Emby/Jellyfin is just abysmal. 2) The Emby/Jellyfin elitists that pop up anytime someone prefers plex or complains about them. Plex has a lot of issues, a lot I haven't experienced personally over the years, but others experience them so they are valid. Havent liked the direction Plex has been going for some time. Ultimately as someone who has been in this space since XBMC on the OG Xbox nearly 20 years ago, Plex has been my easiest and prettiest experience. The others are great on the backend, need polish on the front end.
Yeah I've tried Plex, then I tried Jellyfin for a few days, then moved to Emby. Night and day difference, even with having to pay for Emby. It's worth it.
Been using Plex for years, and my media setup is built around that. But I've tried Jellyfin as well, which just works, and gives me full control of everything, while Plex doesn't. atm. I'm using Plex, but I'm the only user either way, so it's not a problem for me in any way.
Your videos have been a blessing! I followed the tutorials for cloudflared tunneling exposing services using a CNAME. Could you possibly do a video on Unraid as a wiregaurd client to connect to a VPS (Digital Ocean) with port forwarding using Iptables? The goal is to run game servers behind CGNAT.
I looked at all three. Plex looked far too complicated and seemed to require a paid account to be used. I hit a wall with Jellyfin. No matter what I did , it refused to recognize the path to my media as legitimate. My NAS is a Linux OS running Casaos with two HDDs. The media is on the second drive. Emby found that drive with the media and is working for me. I am using the free version. My needs are simple and at this time Emby has satisfied them. If someone has figured out the path issue with Jellyfin, I am curious to know. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
I use Plex heavily with a huge collection and 2 remote family homes as clients. I'll be able to switch to Jellyfin (which I want to do) when there's some near turnkey solution for remote family. I'm 65 and stuck with the "it just works" solution. Figuring out the DIY remote accessibility for jellyfin has seemed too steep a curve the first several times I've looked at it. If someone came up with a remote connection plug=in for jejllyfin I'd be all over it.
Plex, so fully featured for my family and friends. I like the idea of Jellyfin but its way behind and not as stable if you have a good amount of users connecting at once.
I ended up going Plex with the pass hosting on a Windows server for ease of use, mostly. I may try Jellyfin again once I get a Google TV device where I can install the Jellifin client.
The user account thing is not true for emby. You can perfectly make localized users if self hosted, no need to connect it to an emby account, nor does it even need a connection to the internet at all to function technically.
i like both jellyfin and emby and well i ended up going with emby for my home server dont know why but i just enjoy embys server a lot plex i dont enjoy it seems too much like a streaming service imo if i had to choose itd be jellyfin or emby
I like jellyfin, but I am having a difficult time finding a tutorial on how to setup remote access that doesn't require a significant amount of previously known networking knowledge....
I changed to Jellyfin a few months ago from Plex, running it in a docker container and it was really simple to set it up and I’m really happy with Jellyfin so far! The biggest downside tho is that I primarily use Apple TV and the app (3rd party Swiftfin) is really bad. My main TV is an LG C1 so I can use the native app on the TV instead and it’s great, hope the will release a native app on Apple TV soon!
Try Infuse from Firecore, I use it mainly as a replacement for the AppleTV Plex app, because it is sometimes stupid with some HDR formats and DoVi. It seems to support Jellyfin and Emby as well but haven't tried that yet.
Hate to tell you this, but Swiftfin is their (Jellyfin's) official app for Apple TV. It has been a bit difficult, but it's getting better and better. Give it a bit of time.
I used to be jellyfin but moved to plex due to software support to other devices like Samsung tv and has free movie and TV shows included. Setup is less hassle than jellyfin
Now i using Emby for local access, and Plex for remote access, i never successfull setting the remote access from Jellyfin and Emby throught my modem router (Cellular/Mobile Network Operator, dont have ISP router), on the other hand Plex server very handy to connect remote access, at least Plex still free when using web interface.
I personally prefer using Jellyfin, but its remote access functionality could be improved. It offers two apps-one for direct play and one for transcoding-making it confusing for users to choose the appropriate one. (iOS)
Good video, I've personally been using Plex and am enjoying it but I could see trying Jellyfin again down the road. Would love to see you do a video on setting up cross-seed in unraid
Curious to know, do you prefer Kodi locally for some reason or is it an old habit dying hard 😄. Why I ask: I’ve yet to dabble with any of these but used to use XBMC and then Kodi years ago. It was really simple to setup and it had the basics done right. Now I’m in the process of turning old dvd’s and blurays into digital files and wondering what I should try. For now I think Jellyfin might be my first choice just because I like to prefer open source when possible.
@@laurikvo Still using Kodi, never understood the appeal of apps like Plex, Jellyfin or Emby. So basically it is only useful for remote access to your source library from multiple devices which is pretty much like a Cloud storage on your own server ...pointless and unsafe in my opinion !
There is a lot of information out there about resolving database corruption issues. SpaceInvador One has a video that is quite good. I've had to go through and rebuild it a few times before I got sick of it. I ended up starting it all over and haven't had to touch it in years. I think a bad time restarting or one specific media item caused the problem.
I'm sorry to hear that you've been experiencing database corruption issues with Plex. It can be frustrating when things that used to work well start acting up.
I'd recommend trying both Jellyfin and Emby, in the end I settled on Emby, well worth the price and the devs are quite active on the forums if you run into any issues from what I've seen. Only real complaint about Emby I have at the moment is Emby Theater Desktop's window management, it doesn't support Windows Snap, which is kind of annoying with two or more monitors. But that should be getting an update soon.
Plex is fantastic when it dosnt do that annoying buffering thing it does sometimes. “Your network isn’t powerful enough” yet im on a 2Gigabit network. Or plex just wont work sometimes and have to restart the entire pc.
I went with emby. Because Emby doesnt read your library and their hardware transcoding is a bit better. I will try plex later on because plex got more addons like overseerr, plex meta manager etc..
Jellyfin is really Amazing, but as a power user having access to plex meta manager, tauttili and apps like them to control how my library looks and really good watch together features plex offers is holding me back from completely moving to Jellyfin.
The only reason to use plex is plex meta manager that gives you great overlays and collections. Other than that, plex seems to be out of money and there are no improvements except for streaming tv. The client is buggy and cannot handle all standards. As soon as metamanager is available for Emby or jellyfin I will leave plex. Right now infuse is a good alternative client for the plex client on atv. Unfortunately not available on android
Yo, I hear you loud and clear about Plex and its issues. Infuse seems to be your go-to for now, but let's hope Emby or Jellyfin step up their game for you!
This may be a ME issue but the only problem I seem to have with Jellyfin is not being able to play on my mobile devices. All of the desktops and tvs work great.
The video could've been more relevant to what was being spoken. Was throwing me off a bit. Eg. Talking about jellyfin, but showing screen recording of emby.
I have lifetime passes for emby and plex, i prefer emby, but run both. Plex has gotten too bloated IMO. I've played with jellyfin and have no issues with it.
Emby doesn’t call back home. For login. You can use the Emby connect to login in but you don’t have to use that. I wish people start telling the truth about Jellyfin. Great server but the client side is dog shit.