Jellyfin never worked great for me on my older tablet and chromecast. Always struggled with either unsupported codecs or just buffering to hell. My plex server is also on somewhat limited hardware and jellyfin could never transcode fast enough, where plex has no issue.
The Jellyfin app is much faster for me on TVs too. Plex was always chugging like it was trying to load too many thumbnails at once. Jellyfin doesn’t seem to have this problem.
Do you mean hardware encoding, because that’s what’s paywalled in Plex.
I personally migrated from a Jellyfin ecosystem to a Plex with Lifetime Pass one when building my current server - while both are highly capable media servers, Plex has, by far, the better clients.
Jellyfin requires a reverse proxy or similar to be reachable from outside the network, once that’s set up, the usability gap between the two becomes a lot smaller. And Jellyfin does, still, have some benefits over Plex - first and foremost: it doesn’t require an active Internet connection and an “ok” from a central server to fully function - it also has fewer restrictions when it comes to sharing content and a better plugin ecosystem.
Again, I think both are highly capable servers and I’m running both in parallel, even after migrating most of my personal use to Plex.
It’s the clients where it all falls down, sadly. Jellyfin’s are, even after all these years, clunky, ugly and unpleasant. The choice of supported devices and systems is also quite limited. This is where Plex shines: they have a, generally excellent, client for pretty much everything you would ever want to play your media on.
To be fair there are workarounds to getting Plex to play locally without Internet (I had to look this up because I didn’t believe you lol) but you have to set it up on the server with internet… I originally started with jellyfin but it was too clunky for me overall, Plex was way more elegant. Also I’m pretty sure Plex deprecated plugins entirely.
Plex killed their official plugin repository, but plugins are, technically, still supported. There just isn’t much life left in that ecosystem after Plex strangled it.
Ironically, it’s probably Jellyfin’s thriving plugin-ecosystem that’s holding back its clients - since anything with a native UI can’t really be used with any plugin that extends the UI feature set and vice versa.
Oh, and all “workarounds” that I know of for “offline” Plex involve essentially disabling user auth for certain IPs - which is insane. Plex simply doesn’t support local auth, it’s not an offline-capable solution. That (and some other restrictions) is why I’m still running and maintaining Jellyfin as a fallback.
Yes, it’s been a while since I made the jump, I misremembered. I also found the Jellyfin apps to work better than Plex on my LG TV. Plex was so slow in comparison. Things might have changed since then, though.
You are aware that this isn’t a lifelong commitment, right? A Plex license doesn’t make using it mandatory. In fact, had you read a bit further, you’d have seen that it’s no commitment at all, and I’m still running and maintaining a Jellyfin server simultaneously, reverse proxy and all. Not just as a fallback, but also for the things it still does better.
I migrated my household use to Plex, though, because this evil “closed source for profit app” offers an on-device user experience that is as good, if not better, than that of a commercial streaming services. This makes the rest of the household use it happily, instead of seeing it as an inferior alternative.
Jellyfin’s user experience is simply not there yet, not even close. Its clients, if available at all for the system in question, are (mostly) functional, but certainly not fun.
I had the money to spend on the evil “closed source for profit app” and it made my family’s life a little better for it - are you sure that trying to shame me for that was the right reaction?
I’m very glad to have been using Plex/Jellyfin for years, since before HBO Max and Disney+ etc were even a thing. It really is a much better experience.
I swear I’ve seen every single company from Netflix to Disney to Spotify to Youtube to Apple doing the same sort of thing in like the past 3 months. This is GROSS.
I can’t wait for their suprised pikachu faces when they put so much friction into using their products that piracy starts eating into their profits. Us nerds are already fed up, and when that happens piracy alternatives grow. That makes it that much easier for the general public to also sail the high seas. I give it 3 years or so before they’re all shocked and crying to congress about the problem they created
I don’t think that piracy will get to a point that it will eat into their profits. Most people want whatever is easiest, and doing the basics of torrenting in a way that doesn’t cause drama with the internet provider and then either using some kind of Jellyfin or continuous streaming setup is far beyond “easy” for the general populace. In order for piracy to get to the public, it would need to be just as simple as streaming through a TV.
Folks predicted that Netflix would see a mass exodus when they cracked down on account sharing and they actually increased accounts instead.
Piracy will definitely continue its upswing, but it is more likely that the majority of people will just watch whatever is available on maybe one or two streaming options or just slowly return to just broadcast TV or even cable. Piracy didn’t kill television when the VCR was invented, and it didn’t kill music when the first iterations of Napster and such first became known. Piracy will always be present, but it has a lot of hurdles before it really makes a dent in corporate bottom lines.
Already is as easy as streaming. There’s a site that I won’t link directly called movie web. Takes 15 seconds to search for what you want to watch and cast to your tv
Nah they’ll put out a bunch of news articles talking about how much money pirates are costing them. If they get enough public support or line the right pockets we might also see Congress crack down on this ‘scourge’ that’s probably totally linked to terrorism somehow and “must be dealt with swiftly.”
Sopa/pipa was the one and only time the American people beat the corporations+Congress. Don’t mess with our circuses is the one thing everyone agrees on.
A lot of these streaming companies are just cable companies who needed to change their business to keep up, but don’t want to change their predatory practices
My understanding is that it is built into the price of the tier. I wonder if it could be argued that they are in breach of contract since it is included in the agreement when signing up.
It’s more like “thanks and goodbye“ and maybe a little bit of “don’t you dare show your face around these parts if you know what’s good for you” sprinkled in for good measure.
Ohhhh I had xbmc like a decade ago, before I gave up on the aye matey lifestyle, so I’ll probably choose that over plex as well. Thanks for the info. I’m looking up libreelec now, but I was just assuming it was some other hardware solution in my last comment.
Just curious is a raspberry pi powerful enough for streaming on multiple devices in 4k? Thinking of doing a setup and sharing with my family and friends. I anyway have a pi available
I host anywhere from 1-6 streams at a time on a custom built server.. I'd doubt you're going to get what you're asking without a much bigger build. It doesn't take a crazy build for plex but if you ever need transcoding the pi can't do it. My most recent iteration was ~$1300 but the price was mostly storage.
It’ll only work if you can direct play everything and depending on your ISP upload speed, you may need to transcode any remote streams in which case a Pi will probably burst into flames. A comparable option would be a micro form factor office PC like an Optiplex with a recent gen Intel processor. The iGPU in these works great for transcoding.
If you want something more serious you can do a custom built PC with a Fractal Design case (Define 5, 6, 7 or Node series) which are made to hold a ton of 3.5" drives. Again here all you really need is a newer Intel CPU and SATA ports (and/or an LSI SAS card).
I canceled my subscription right after I got that email. I don’t use it enough anyway. I’ll just sail the high seas if a new show that I want to watch ends up there.
Add comment