Don’t use either, what’s the usecase of these apps?
Sharing your home media with extended family and friends and they share theirs with you in a Netflix like TV application
Streaming your Linux ISO’s to any device, from anywhere.
Easy streaming of media that you own to (mostly) any device. That’s for jellyfin anyways.
If I could get Jellyfin to work remotely I would never use Plex again quite happily. I pay £4 a month and my in laws have to pay £2 a month for remote access, it’s starting to add up for content I download and host on my storage.
Buy a Lifetime Plex pass.
You were right to switch whether the price increased or not.
Imo anyone who stayed with Plex after they required you to create an account is insane, especially considering there have always been good alternatives.
This exactly.
I looked into setting Plex up a few years ago. It installed, and then starts talking about making a cloud account. I don’t want to talk to a cloud I just want to organize my own shit on my own network. Why does that need a cloud?
I uninstalled it. Everything I’ve seen since, and I mean EVERYthing, tells me I dodged a bullet. Not once have I read an article that makes me wish I’d continued the install.
ITT
Projects like Plex, they started out from the open source community, had free contributions, and then monetized. People are bastardizing open source.
The reason Plex is as popular as it is is because of their infrastructure and software that lets users stream video and music remotely on any device at the press of a button. That costs money to build and maintain.
Really? Cuz Jellyfin literally does the same thing and doesn’t cost money.
JellyFin does not do the same thing. JellyFin doesn’t securely allow users anywhere in the world on any network to stream your media.
Jellyfin does not handle NAT punching automatically to point that a non technical user can install an app on their TV, see one or more libraries, and connect to my server across the Internet. This is the biggest problem that Plex solves compared to Jellyfin. I can’t expect my parents to install Tailscale or make any changes to their network.
That being said I use Jellyfin. I just don’t share it with my friends.
Really? Because folders on a hard drive and the OS’s networking does all that… what am I missing?
Remote streaming securely and easily is what you’re missing.
It certainly doesn’t cost what they’re charging. They have a cache, a relay and an auth service. I’ll grant them some more allowance for an active security team. They’ve wasted manyears on features nobody wants and have eliminated any feature that costs them any amount of money to maintain if they can’t make money off it. (sync, client serve, yada yada)
It certainly doesn’t cost what they’re charging.
That’s how services and products work. If they sold their product at cost, they’d go bankrupt. They’re actually charging peanuts for the service they provide.
Their entire infrastructure required to do that proxy and caching is at most 10k a month. Thats a couple thousand users.
What you’re actually paying for is their research and development of all that add ridden content they’re trying to shove down your throat. Then selling your data, and selling you and your watchers ads.
That’s some really expensive peanuts you’re suggesting
It’s been a year or two since I gave up on Jellyfin, so maybe it’s better now… But the Android TV client was rough, rough, rough when I tried using it.
If you watched Live TV, the transcode buffer would just keep going and fill your entire disk over the course of a few days after you shut down the client and stopped watching.
It was a coin toss whether you’d actually be able to stream any given movie. If you had media with more than 6 audio channels, and also needed to transcode (because you live in the U.S. and don’t have unlimited upload bandwidth)… playback would just die right around the 5-10Mbps range. I spent a weekend on the forums chasing down the exact scenarios that caused this one, someone had a Pull Request that fixed it in a matter of hours (by mimicking the transcode logicr of the official desktop client)… and the dev told them to kick rocks
Try with Wholphin. It’s a great Android TV app for Jellyfin. Way better than the “real” one.
I’ve had so many instances of free to use, lifetime licenses, and purchased software that have turned into subscription services that I refuse to install anything that requires an account unless it can’t be avoided. The fact that Plex required an account be created to view my own local content years before they started charging for use made it obvious subscription fees were coming.
Jellyfin works great. Combined with Wireguard it works anywhere.
My only hitch making the switch to Jellyfin is that a couple of my TVs just don’t have a jellyfin app whatsoever. I wish they did, I can’t stand all the changes Plex has made over the last few years specifically.
A cheap device like an Onn (~$20) would solve that, probably without requiring the device have Internet access once set up.
Researching now. I figured there were things out there like that but didn’t know they were so inexpensive. Thanks for the suggestion!
couldn’t you also do a little raspberry pi setup? little more work but a lot more control.
I’d love to! Those things are expensive now though. My old Pi is running my Pi-Hole now. If they were affordable, I’d buy a whole ass pallet of them for all the projects I want to do.
Are they Samsung TVs?
They are, at least the one that’s given me the most trouble is.
I think Jellyfin already released to Tizen OS, although not all model supports it https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen/issues/222#issuecomment-3831638580
If you want to try, it should be possible to install it yourself instead of waiting it to be available in Tizen app store
Spin up pihole and just look at the data coming to your “smart” TV’s even when you are not using them. Then consider the data they must be sending home, the only thing “smart” TVs are good at is watching you watch them (or not watching them). I would highly recommend getting a pi or media computer for your TV’s.
I do not think I can stress this enough smart TV’s are not smart for you they are smart for whoever made the TV. Manufactures sell TV’s at a loss now because they get more by selling you.
highly recommend getting a pi or media computer
Been looking at this for years, Fam is absolutely refusing to use a keyboard in the living room. They’ll watch on their phones first. I can’t find a clear, easy solution to run a quality remote on a SFF pc. It’s like the decades old mediacenter hole that never gets filled.
I had a pi 5 that I was going to use as my set top box and install the media centre OS on it, Jeff Geerling shows how you can do it with a pi 5, but it got damaged when my place flooded and insurance does its thing to screw you over and I never got around to testing it.
Thanks for that, flirc might be worth my time to look.
I need some of those codecs to perform better, but I can probably stand up a more agile box than a Pi.
I have an Nvidia Shield stick that’s android based and one day Google started pushing live Taco Bell ads to it on the ambient Home Screen. That was the last day pi-hole ever let it phone home.
They do not sell TVs at a loss lol.
Look at an major TV manufactures books and the TV part is a loss, the income they get from the TV is selling you to advertisers.
Look at an major TV manufactures books and the TV part is a loss, the income they get from the TV is selling you to advertisers.
I’d love to see your source for this. I won’t hold my breathe because it’s simply not true.
I am waiting on your apology or rebuttal!
https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/01/16/people-think-roku-makes-money-selling-streaming-st/
https://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/tech-smart-tv-screenshots-acr-tracking-privacy-lg-samsung
https://jamestown.org/connected-smart-tv-security-risks/
https://taurusx.com/resource/480275.html
For a peer-reviewed (means scientific) article here is https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13548565251327885
I guess Sony does not, but they allow Amazon and/or Google onto the TV and if you think they are not getting money from you that way I have some nice ocean side property to sell you here in Saskatchewan.
Retailers don’t, but those $300 60" TVs cost manufacturers more than that in parts and shipping. They are 100% making up for it in LTV from your data, that’s why some are trying to make it impossible not to use them when not connected to the internet.
but those $300 60" TVs cost manufacturers more than that in parts and shipping.
They don’t.
nice argument you place there. meet my blocklist
Wait, you’re that same guy just shilling for plex aren’t you?
Oh my, go check that post history people, they’re either a PR plant or just trolling
lol someone saw my profile bio and got upset XD
Agreed. Watching the queries on the pi-hole dashboard has been eye-opening.
I run both side by side and I’m very thankful that Plex exists. Jellyfin is my backup app and would be very painful to get setup in my families houses.
Seems 80% of readers don’t care …
jellyfin just runs and looks better, too
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I paid a lifetime thing for a medication app, to help me keep on track of my meds. It was free for x number of drugs but then they wanted me to pay for more. A few months ago I got notified that my “life time” access was going to become a subscription so I said nope, no thanks, nada and uninstalled the app and set up HA alerts that remind me. Finding out I could do that was such a freeing feeling, I set up reminders to do a whole bunch of things and they remind me on my watch.
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I never understood why you would pay to do things that you can do for free
Because paid versions are often better and for many people those improvements are worth it.
Because the free version usually isn’t as good.
Jelly fin, as of a year ago, was still using a mouse cursor for remote use. It was a dumpster fire compared to Plex. And that’s before you have to include hosting a reverse fucking proxy to share.
You want me to go through the full list of shit that’s been broken on my steam deck? A device that should be polished and ready to the consumer? Do you think shit like steak decks are as polished and easy to use as a switch?
It’s not hard to figure out if you drop the biases that come with most foss community members.
hosting a proxy server is part of self hosting, so I would to that anyway. asking me to pay for that is not going to fly
Two reasons:
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because “free” often means there is an ulterior motive for providing the service (see: search)
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because developers need to eat, and servers cost money. Paying for goods and services helps keep them from collapsing under their own weight.
Big for profit businesses are generally bad, but small dev teams transparent about their costs just trying to live comfortably? They can have my money.
- because “free” often means there is an ulterior motive for providing the service (see: search)
Maybe this is true for some cases, but it’s not for jellyfin. It’s simply open source and free like tons of other utilities people work on for the fun of it. If it were closed source maybe you’d be right.
Agree on number 2 though.
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I give money to LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Armbian, the Wikipedia, and so on. I don’t have to, but it shows my appreciation, and maybe helps them do more in some small way.
I dont have a problem with donations, thats different from “you must pay me to use my thing”. As donations is an opt in, I would do that. Paying to host my own content on my own server is taking the piss
Purchasing is an opt in too. I use both but paid for a Plex lifetime pass almost 10 years ago. It was easier to set up remote access. Setting up a server was new to me at the time so anything I could find that made it easier was worth it. I also bought an unRAID lifetime pass for the same reason (among other reasons).
I’ve been on a lifetime Plex subscription for the last 15 years. The only nothing preventing me from switching to Jellyfin (I have it running in parallel) is giving elderly family members, who live in 3 other countries than me, access.
If I were to start today though, I would not even consider Plex though, but momentum is a bitch.
I used plex for over a year before spending 80€ on a lifetime supscription. So it was a okay proposition for me, espacially as jellyfin still misses features plex had back then.
I switched to jellyfin after plex broke my setup with some verification change. Still missing some features, but atleast i dont have to deal with entshitification.
I pay for a lot of things that I don’t have to, for many reasons. Paying for piracy tho, that’s something I’m sort of unwilling to do.
You don’t pay for a VPN, HDDs, Usenet, etc?
Some people will pay for a vpn, for exactly that purpose. And it’s worth it because you don’t have to use 30 different streaming services and 30 different apps to find what you want to watch. And it’s all hosted in the same format.
And that’s not even mentioning usenet… Paying for piracy in many cases can just be overall better
Do people still use Usenet?
Yes, quite a lot do. It is just a faster, more secure, and more reliable experience compared to torrenting
Is there like a quick guide for this?
How is the headline ragebait? Ragebait is the cynical production of content to increase clicks and engagement. The author clearly actually is that passionate about FOSS self-hosting over paid gatekeepers like Plex, and the tone of the article is adequately reflected in the headline.
An opinion author stating a strong opinion in the headline isn’t automatically “ragebait” just because you personally aren’t as passionate. And I say that as someone who isn’t as passionate as the author.
I have a Jellyfin server as backup, but its clients are shit for anything that uses subtitles. I bought plex pass years back for $80 on sale, can’t complain, but I’m never going to wholly rely on something closed source that requires online credentials.
Never had any subtitle trouble on Roku or shield
That’s great if you have a Roku or Shield. I don’t. I’ve owned both in the past and don’t want either because they’re both an absolute mess of advertising. I currently have an Apple TV and an Android tablet. Jellyfin is okay on Android (and I emphasize okay and not amazing or great), but the Apple TV is may main viewing device and Swiftfin is the best option and still miles behind Plex.
Particularly because on Apple TV with Plex you can override built in subs with the closed caption styles, meaning literally all subs that aren’t explicitly burned into the image can be made consistent and easy to read. Haven’t seen that feature anywhere else, including on the Shield TV/Pro (I used to own one, got rid of it when Android TV updated to the ad-riddled version it is today). It’s a really amazing feature IMO to be able to have full control of subtitle font, size, style, color, outline, and spacing, no matter what you’re watching.
You just can’t securely watch anything from your jellyfin server remotely, or let others stream from your server.
The 20+ people who stream from my Plex server have never paid a cent because I have a Plex lifetime pass. In terms of value it’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
You absolutely can watch from Jellyfin remotely and securly, but it does take a little setup of infrastructure. I will say Plex did a very good job at making that piece super easy and pretty much just a ‘flip a switch’ action to setup.
but it does take a little setup of infrastructure.
Understatement of the century lol.
Even if you do all of what @[email protected] wrote below, getting your friends and family access is another big hurdle because most likely their devices they use won’t have JellyFin support.
had disagree, getting friends and family on your jellyfin isn’t that hard. There are jellyfin clients out there for most devices
You just can’t securely watch anything from your jellyfin server remotely
Lol, what?
Try get your grandparents to stream your jellyfin server on their TV. Try explaining tailscale or a vpn to them.
Don’t have to. My parents (who are grandparents) use my Jellyfin server just fine.
