Honest question, because I know multiple people who are not looking to jump ship since they already have the Plex Pass.
I just have no reason to migrate to Jellyfin (or indeed anything else). I already have a lifetime PlexPass. Plex does everything I need, and it does it very well. As a music server in particular, it’s superb and the Plexamp client is a joy.
Ease of use for my users across multiple platforms with minimal tech knowledge on their end. I’m sharing my library with ranges from 12yo to 70. I need it to “just work” and it does that perfectly.
Same here. Plex just works for my folks with 0 tech literacy. I may try Jellyfin in the future, but I have a few friends that primarily access Plex via Playstation 4/5, and I know there’s no support there yet.
Couldn’t upvote this harder. Tried Jellyfin for 5 mins and was super confused why I couldn’t find sharing options. After googling and reading about reverse proxies and buying domains and shit I said fuck it and uninstalled
Totally understandable, however basic tailscale version is free and you can just have that installed on all of the connected devices as a “reverse proxy”. You then use the ip adress from the server or main computer with the files and connect to its tailscale provided ip adress after turning it on and as long as you have port 8096 open on the server computer (http:/with your adress here:8096) you can connect to the server through the jellyfin app on the device you’ve installed it on.
Yeah, I think you lost them after the first paragraph. 😉
I am tinkering constantly with my home setup, but I am lacking the time to set up everything to my liking.
So I am using neither Plex or Jellyfin, I am using Kodi and have a Webdav share available for when I am away on holiday. 😬😁
But then I am only sharing with my closest family in my home network. Somehow it seems everyone is providing a streaming service for half the neighborhood and the remote family (or possibly a polycule with the drama associated, IIRC).
As said in literally every thread here that ever mentions anything about Plex or jellyfin, biggest is remote library sharing.
No, I will not walk my in-laws through setting up a vpn gateway so their TV will connect to me
No, despite my extensive homelab setup, I am not going to set up a reverse proxy and go through the SSL/TLS cert bullshit and expose especially considering the security limitations the devs say likely will not be fixed
There’s others, but those are the main ones for a bunch of us
Have lifetime already. No reason to jump. Generally it just works.
No need to have another project while Plex still works fine.
Same. Got it cheap. Untill they break lifetime. Why bail? I’m not compromising my own experience because someone else was too cheap, lazy or slow.
Is it messed up what they are doing? Yeah. But that’s not my fault. Nor is someone missing out on the very clear signposts about what was going to happen. I’m not sacrificing my user experience and investment to justify someone else’s missed opportunity or vendetta.
I say the following as a current Jellyfin user who stopped using Plex for privacy reasons: Plex making it easy to share your library outside of your LAN is an absolutely gigantic point in its favour. I don’t understand why so many Jellyfin people seem unable or unwilling to understand or acknowledge this.
I already paid when it was cheap. I’ll stay and get my full dollars worth and then some. I paid for it, I’ll use it. When it is unusable I’ll bail. Anything else is stupid.
I paid for it, I’ll use it. When it is unusable I’ll bail. Anything else is stupid.
What you are saying is called sunk cost fallacy. A notoriously common stupid way of thinking.
The logical way to think of this is: You already paid for Plex so both are free for you. Since both are free, just pick the better one.
That’s not a sunk cost fallacy at all. I’m not playing catch up, I’m already ahead.
I am thinking about it logically. Plex is the superior experience, and considering I’ve already gotten my money’s worth out of it, they are both free. So why would I use the service that works less well for my use case?
If the user experience continues to degrade, when it finally gets to jellyfin level, I’ll switch.
Perfectly logical, no fallacies here.
The part I quoted is the fallacy. You wrote you will stop using it when it is unusable, not when it is inferior to Jellyfin. Maybe you were thinking something different, but we can’t read your mind. We can only read what you wrote and what you wrote is a sunk cost fallacy.
It’s ok bud. You misattributed the sunk cost fallacy. It happens. I’ve done it before too… No worries.
A sunk cost fallacy requires a continued investment in a lost cause. I financially have contributed no extra to Plex after my initial investment. I’ve nothing to lose now. No sunk cost. Is time or effort a sunk cost? Possibly? But I already invested that time and effort. My maintenance is also zero, same as my future financial investment. Switching to jellyfin increases my cost in time and effort that I already invested in Plex. Why bail unless necessary? It’s illogical.
The difference between unusable and inferior was never the cusp of this argument to begin with. The distinction of “unusable” vs “inferior” can clearly be acertained by the context of my first full reply. Interestingly enough, your reubuttle is a textbook use of the informal fallacy known as “moving the goalposts”
One again, it’s all good. Don’t worry. My point that Plex is still superior for my use case and I have the incentive to continue using it, still stands. Your use of the sunk cost falacy is disproven on the merit of, that’s not a real example of sunk cost, and also using additional fallacies to defend your position render your point invalid.
I rest my case.
notoriously common stupid way of thinking
Why are you being rude to somebody you’re trying to convince to put in extra effort to switch services?
You’re right, but I don’t care if they switch honestly. I used that wording because of the “anything else is stupid” statement, which just irked me when paired with the obvious fallacy.
I wouldn’t call it “stupid way of thinking”. That sounds almost offensive, while it’s just a common fallacy that affects most humans.
.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web HTTPS HTTP over SSL IP Internet Protocol ISP Internet Service Provider LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage NAT Network Address Translation NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers Plex Brand of media server package SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption TLS Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
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WhatI’ve noticed is that people who prioritize privacy and just want to watch their downloads on their tv usually use jellyfin and people who prioritize ux slickness and want to run an IPTV service for their friends and family usually use plex.
It’s not a matter of privacy vs UX. I actually think Plex has ruined their UX. But if you have friends and family, some are tech-illiterate, some have their own media servers, and you all want to share with each other quickly and easily, Plex is the only viable option. Same if it’s just you, but you travel a lot, and want to watch something from your home server without lugging around a device that has access to your VPN and a screen/hdmi-out.
Jellyfin is really only viable if it’s just you on your own network.
I’m not switching at this time because I already bought a lifetime pass about 7 years ago. If ANY of my functionality gets changed by Plex then I’ll be switching
They already changed the authentication system a few years ago. Everything goes through their server now. You can’t self-host it.
After 22 hours and 291 comments, I can see that 80% is sunk cost, 15% never bothered to look at their Jellyfin client’s settings, and the rest use a device that doesn’t have a client for Jellyfin yet.
If your device doesn’t have a client it probably has a kodi port. Jellyfin libraries can be imported in kodi with plugins (and plex and emby for that matter). Then you get the benefits of kodi (better skin support, more robust plugins, better subtitle rendering, etc) with the centralized metadata administration of Jellyfin and retain the option to use Jellyfin clients on devices with locked ecosystems (eg ios) or where you don’t feel like setting up kodi
Problem is access outside your home for family and friends.
There are serious security gaps that make it a non starter to expose to the internet.
I’ve been using Jellyfin ever since they forked out of Emby, and honestly, it’s the biggest complaint that I have. It is incredibly difficult to make it available to friends and family who are on various devices, networks, so on and so forth.
Whereas Plex “just works.”
Wait what? I have been sharing my jellyfin using a cloudflare tunnel to the endpoint.
Could you elaborate on the security gaps? How can I pen-test myself to see if I’m vulnerable
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415 nothing too serious, but here you go
What security gaps in particular? I did have to reverse proxy to get it to https, are there additional security issues?
Exposed endpoints that have no authentication and various other things like that.
It’s application level security issues.
If there is an older collation here https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Why not use a zero trust VPN like netbird? It is fully open source.
You can create a reverse proxy that requires a password to get through to jellyfin. I think there is a limit of like 5 for this though (unless you pay or self host).
Because clients would probably fail if there’s an authentication layer on front that they’re not expecting.
if you install it and do not add plugins or mods or download them manually or with another tool, there is no way to pull subtitles.
You also need to sideload the app because it’s not available in app stores.
That’s the blockers for me… though the plugin for subtitles that now exists I have yet to try, and it may make it doable.
Jellyfin has a builtin subtitle search and download tool I’m pretty sure. I know I’ve done it right from jellyfin, and I don’t think I’ve installed any plugin for that…
I don’t have time.
Jellyfin was one of the easiest things to set up though.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. I set up Jellyfin like a month ago and it took about two minutes.
Great; now stream remotely. And setup an app on an AppleTV.
Streaming remotely via tailscale is fairly easy. Cloudflare tunnel apparently works too, although it is against their ToS.
Can’t speak for Apple TV though. Setting up clients on Android based systems is as easy as entering the server address and then logging in.
The jellyfin service was super easy to set up. I just set up the container in Unraid and was done with that. Took me a minute or two.
Plex has clients for every single device there is. I arrive to some 2018 smart tv in a holiday cottage and the absolutely dreadful, measly App Store, now long abandoned, has a plex client.
Also I have a very old life time pass so current pricing means nothing to me.
