Plex is starting to enforce its new rules, which prevent users from remotely accessing a personal media server without a subscription fee.
If anyone needs it: https://jellyfin.org/
To anyone saying they’re happy since they already have a lifetime Plex pass, do you really think they won’t come for you too?
I paid 79€ almost a decade ago. I got more than my moneys worth. Even the current lifetime (on sale) is less than a year of Netflix. More expensive than piracy + Jellyfin ofc if that’s your benchmark 😀
I have a Jellyfin instance running anyway, I’ll switch to that if Plex enshittifies.
(looks up from his floaty chair in his Jellyfin pool while sipping his fruity bittorrent cocktail) C’MON IN FOLKS THE WATER’S FINE!
(sits in his Lamborghini Plex while a beautiful blonde gives him a handy) I’m fine, mate. Maybe later.
Imagine, you software get massively used for piracy, and then you decide to ask for licence for the use of thir software, host on server you do not control. I suspect this will not be result they expected
Welcome to JF
Enshittification intensifies
can’t wait for this to start. then maybe I won’t have to hear about it from the jellyfin shills every week.
But then how will you know how much they love the smell of their own farts?
Don’t worry, they’ll still let you know.
I never shared my server anyway, but a lot of the other design decisions they’ve made over the last couple years drove me to Jellyfin. My issue though is I cannot figure out how to set it up properly like I had Plex setup with genres, sort by added to server, lists, etc. I can’t tell if I’m missing something obvious, or Jellyfin just lacks those features and I need to get a plugin or something. Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just hoping someone has experienced similar and might point me in the right direction.
I display my movies and music in the order they were added by default, but I do recall a lot of historical problems with that functionality. It has not been a problem for me the last year or two, I would say, but I do remember it being a problem.
There’s still lots of room for improvement, to be damn sure. But can’t beat the feeling of freedom, you ask me.
I’m just thankful that the app doesn’t run like garbage due to all the bloat like Plex does. That and I really like the fact it auto checks for subtitle files and plays them. Overall I am glad I moved I just wish there were a couple more features.
Jellyfin users, how is the transcoding situation? I have a mix of AV1 and H265 and I need to get smooth playback to my living room Apple TV for families’ sake.
All dependent on the hardware you run the server on. Give it a good GPU and you’re off to the races
Just as long as you’re fine with your media server absolutely eating power all the time
Stop encoding in av1 and get a low power older intel chip around 10th gen or so with quick sync. Unless you have like 5+ users watching 4k media at the same time this will handle transcoding absolutely fine while using far less power than a dedicated gpu
I don’t encode in AV1, I use HEVC. But while your argument is not unreasonable, it misses the component of file size and amount of disk space required.
HEVC (x265) takes half the space of x264. While it does require a more modern GPU, it can be run on lower powered Intel CPUs with an integrated GPU just fine, so long as the CPU is new enough. Though it can only handle 2-3 streams on a CPU like the Intel chips in a ZimaBoard. So you need to choose wisely.
I guess it’s a platter vs energy cost thing. For me it’s way cheaper to buy more storage for my little puck PC that can handle ~4 streams at 1080p and sips power.
Imagine hosting a software on your own hardware and still choosing the one that makes you dependent on the whims of a corporation lmao
*only for external streaming.
You can cut it off from the internet and stream in your house locally for free still.
End from any external streaming perspective, they are hosting a repository with your connection and port info, so your external friends can connect without you needing to manually configure or update their settings when you make a local change. Plus they are hosting stream relays for those that are unable to make a direct connection. To me, seems fair they’d ask for payment for that service.
When I first set up my server this year it was a VERY easy decision between this and jellyfin. Why would I ever go with the corporate, closed source option?
In my case, I was not able to make jellyfin work: transcoding issues, lagging, client disconnection or unresponsive… Plex worked flawlessly out of the box with the same hardware and the same library.
From time to time I try Jellyfin again, but things never change …
Would you like help/guidance on your next attempt? It definitely works, but possibly not on corporate devices like Roku and such - I never did have a lot of luck with those, other than I think I had Jellyfin casting to a couple of Chromecasts we have kicking around. Not when the internet was out, of course, cause why would they keep working if Google can’t get their data on the spot?
Thank you, but it won’t be necessary. I think my issues are hardware -related, or simply my NAS is under too much load from other applications 😅 Other than that I should try with the Chromecast as you suggested, maybe the problem was the shitty client application…
If I don’t succeed I’m still good with Plex, and I have a raspberry hanging around for an emergency Kodi.
Why would anyone use Plex over jellyfin anyway? The writing was on the wall years ago.
I set up Plex on my mum’s TV and she can just push play. The UI is intuitive (read: familiar) to her.
Jellyfin has a reputation for giving users more control and customizability, but the other side of that coin is that it’s more “fiddly”.
My users don’t want to fiddle.
That’s the opposite of my experience. Jellyfin just works and immediately exposes the content we’re looking for, plex tries overloading you with bullshit and burying your actual content
That’s been my experience too.
Plex came with my nas, and we never used it because it it was really fiddly and wanted to show everything except my content.
By contrast, my jellyfin is linked up with the jellyfin for android tv app on the big screen tv, and if nobody told you it wasn’t a regular streaming service you’d probably never know because it’s so straightforward. My wife is not techy at all – she still daily drives her Android phone from 7 years ago because she doesn’t want to change to her new one from 2 years ago – but she can pick up the remote and play a movie at any time.
I use it every night on my phone to play videos that help me get to sleep, and the app works well.
For remote streaming to, say, your mum’s house? (Or a friend, etc)?
Yes, after I set up the server properly (reverse proxy). With this change the same setup on the server side is necessary for remote streaming with free Plex.
My mum puts in the domain, username and password and starts streaming.
…reverse proxy…
Guess what I didn’t have to setup with Plex or Emby.
That’s because you had somone elses servers doing that part for you.
Good.
Come on, I love libre software as much as the next Lemming, but the Plex TV and mobile app is leagues ahead in terms of usability over jellyfin.
I still prefer jellyfin for many other reasons, but in terms of UX and UI for the average person it’s an easy win for Plex
You must be having a wildly different experience than me then, because I don’t even understand how you can make that claim
Using jellyfin on Chromecast. For the past 3 weeks I’m stuck not being able to use it because some update broke subtitles support for external players. App became useless, I can’t downgrade it, and the bug is still not fixed.
Not going to use Plex, just my 2 cents.
I haven’t had any problems with subtitles. You mind linking the issue report you’re referring to?
Because I don’t have to learn about things like proxies to try and open the service up outside my network in a secure manner or try to explain to family they need to run tailscale at the same time and then inevitably have to provide tech support for another aspect of “why is this not working?”
I just check allow remote access and it just works and I can go about my day doing things I enjoy more because fucking about with Linux and providing tech support are pretty low on that list for me :)
Sounds like a skill issue.
Jellyfin is notoriously full of security holes. It’s recommended to not expose it to the Internet. It’s also easy easier on Plex, at least until this bullshit, to have a random non-techie family member sign in to your Plex server from anywhere. I never liked Plex and never got into it, but I see why people used to prefer it.
I think Emby is a good middle ground for people looking to jump ship from Plex. But I switched to jellyfin from my lifetime Emby sub because the plug-in community there feels dead and Emby development felt dead in the water.
Please do explain or link sources to what you think are “security holes”.
It has several unsecured endpoints.
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
If you read the comments the devs know it’s a serious issue but don’t want to break backwards compatibility fixing them. Their solution for now is to warn people of the risks of exposing their instance to the Web. Which I don’t think they’re doing a great job of.
Aside from most of those being “potential issues”, which weren’t proven, the rest are GETs of things that do not need to be secret, things like album art and list of installed plugins. Besides the one plugin issue, which was an actual security issue, which was fixed over a year and a half ago. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/11436
Contrast that with Plex which has numerous high severity CVEs that include things like remote code execution, directory traversal, and more.
list of installed plugins.
Yeah, as you said, that’s a pretty serious security issue. That’s a data leak that explicitly lays out the shape of your attack surface. It tells the attacker exactly what additional software your server is running and if any of it includes known vulnerabilities, the attacker now knows how to gain access.
That only works if the plugins are somehow accessible through an api controller, which as far as I’m aware, is not how jellyfin plugins work. So no, it wouldn’t increase your attack surface at all.
And you think if Jellyfin were a comparable size, there wouldn’t be just as many or more?
No… because more people would be working on it.
You’re aware those CVEs are only relevant for ancient versions of Plex and were fixed long ago?
They are not marked as resolved.
Skip intro on Apple TV not working on Jellyfin is probably the #1 reason I do not use it.
When tvOS 26.2 comes out I will tentatively test Jellyfin + Infuse, but until then, Jellyfin is a non-starter for me.
But I use Emby over Plex so still not using Plex.
Good luck setting up remote streaming with Jellyfin.
Sir, this is a /c/selfhosted.
Imagine being so addicted to having every nanosecond of your waking life filled with noise and colors that this announcement means anything.
What does that even mean
Seems pretty simple to parse, what is causing you an issue? What is not clear?
I don’t understand what your reasoning is for making that statement.
Said the needle to the arm. You’re all addicts.
You ok man?
Sorry, I didn’t read your reply, I was streaming every movie, album, book, and magazine in existence to every location in the universe at all times. Even when I blink I have 16K screens inside my eyelids.
This is normal behavior in 2025. If you cut off my terabit stream, I will writhe on the ground and scream.
I am not in any way addicted to digital hoarding or continuously upgrading systems that have already exceeded the capacity of any normal person to watch a movie since 20 years.
Did you just make up an imaginary person to hate?
