ive been using kodi (xbmc was better moniker) since google killed sagetv. i recall attempting plex, but it seemed to lack some open/extensibility (its been awhile).
i have a side project i want to make as a modular plugin generating a cable layout with original air orders and networks/channels… kodi seems most optimal, but ill admit its been a long while since i looked at plex.
so why plex over kodi?
I prefer jellyfin myself
Totally different software solutions aimed at different users, and many people use both.
Plex is a Server software that handles media management, libraries, users, etc etc… and a range of player apps that have a somewhat beginner friendly layout requiring little to no setup
Personally, I run a large Plex server that provides content for my family across dozens of mixed devices in home and out of home, different users have access to different libraries and have different preferences. If needed it will automatically transcode content for remote users out of the home to fit my upload bandwidth and their available speed if they are on mobile. it keeps track of watched content and position for all users so they can move between devices seamlessly.
Kodi is an extensible media player frontend, it can play files from a remote server or NAS but there is no server management, it is just doing basic file access. there are addons for many common services and media sources but there is no user management, no transcoding, no sharing content with other clients etc etc. Having multiple kodi installs on multiple players requires each client to be configured more or less from scratch and no easy way to have multiple setups for different users with their own preferences, libraries and/or content restrictions. It is extremely powerful and configurable and has strong format support.
I have Kodi installed on one of my Nvidia Shield Pros but only use it for playback of surround music files (support for 5.1 flac on plex seems to be limited to audio within video containers for some reason) I find the interface (and all the skins I tried) extremely clunky for use as a music player, the way the remote works within the player itself is unintuitive and makes for an annoying experience restarting the track when you just want to move the playback a few seconds, a bit unfair of course as that isn’t what it was made for but that’s just my experience.
Same here. Plex just makes sharing with family so much simpler. My mom and dad can figure it out just as easily as my kids can and the amount of time I have to do tech support for anyone has been literal zero, which is a huge bonus for me, personally.
Because I paid for a lifetime sub like a decade ago and my parents and a few friends connect to my instance. I can’t be arsed to move myself and everybody else to a new system when this shit just works.
My issue with Kodi is that each client had to scan the library and generate thumbnails etc. That should be the server’s job which is why I chose Jellyfin. Nicer UI too and more responsive with apps in stores so I don’t have to load it manually to fire sticks
I use jellycon plugin with Kodi; best of both worlds.
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For me, Plex or Jellyfin is great if I want to share my library with some friends or family, especially non-technical people. Kodi really needs tinkering and you need debrid subscriptions and requires more local maintenance. It’s great for me but I wouldn’t want to teach my family how to use Kodi and me having to fix it when it breaks.
oh definitely. i use emby for remote access, but the tvs in the house all run a local (to the nas) instance of kodi
For local use it’s handy that those Kodi instances share their database so watched state and crucially how far into the episode/movie you are. You can do a shared database with just Kodi but I don’t think that’s optimal. Jellyfin integrates so well and handles the database stuff much better imo so I just use that.
I can use Plex on my PS5 and share it with my friends without having to do DevOps work.
Surprised there is so much support for Plex…considering what this group is about, and Plex being in bed with the media conglomerates.
Emby or Jellyfin…
My gripe with Jellyfin is that there isn’t a functional app for my shitbox Toshiba Amazon TV. I’m open to alternatives but that’s a must for me. Plex is also fairly user friendly which is important for sharing my library with my relatives.
Can you not sideload to those TVs?
Oh I can download and install apks through the shitty browser on the tv. If there’s a functional app that has an equivalent UX to the Plex TV app I’d be open to trying it.
Why not just attach a non shitty device over HDMI and use that?
Lots of people do that, the Nvidia shield is one I hear a lot about
A new shield is quite expensive… The Onn Google TV device from Walmart is $30 and does substantially the same things for most users. Or a Roku (whatever they call the cheap version) is pretty adequate if you’re not into the Google TV/android thing.
Fair, have never looked at the price, I just have a Linux mini PC running Jellyfin lol
I hate the shield, I mean I still use it but the shit with no ads and then getting riddled with ads pissed me off. Sure the CCWGTV whatever its cheap but the price I paid for my shields, it was not ok.
It’s easy to install a different launcher. I’ve literally never seen an ad on my Shield…And the ads are the fault of Google TV, not the Shield.
My issues with the Shield are mostly the cost and then killing software features.
Jellyfin app is bad on android TV and being in bed with media conglomerates doesn’t get in the way on plex imo. Open up my plex and there are no ads and the only two categories are TV and movies which I put there. I WILL switch to jelly, when their TV app gets more features.
I’ll cast my vote: Kodi is far superior to Plex. People are just too lazy to learn something. I have a library larger than Netflix and Kodi makes browsing it very simple.
For multi device jellyfin or Plex(which is terrible now compared to before) is way better, sure you can make Kodi do it but it’s never been good at that
I have a multimedia server with jellyfin and even the dumbest clients can play off it some way.
To each their own. I run a NAS as the main source of data in my network and the files are encoded as h.265 2160p 10bit. I don’t need another transcode step because my systems are all capable of decoding h.265 10bit in real time. To force my NAS to do another transcode would be stupid, IMO.
Kodi is horrible on touch devices. I also don’t want to have terabytes of files on every device I want to watch something on. Sure, there are workarounds, but I could also just use Jellyfin. Yeah I don’t use Plex, I use Jellyfin.
But it’s really just mainly because I dislike the UX of Kodi.
You don’t need to have local copies of all your media with kodi. A NAS works just fine.
Streaming a full 4k movie rip takes more bandwidth than most people would have available on the go. Plex/Jellyfin can offer transcoding on the server for such usecases.
Are you talking about on mobile? I don’t think people are hosting kodi and their content on their phones.
Because streaming on mobile is a huge usecase for many people
Isn’t Kodi a streaming host? Why terabytes of files?
It isn’t. It’s a media center originally developed for the Xbox
I believe that Kodi, Emby, and Plex are all forks of XBMC… Not sure about Jellyfin but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that it also was.
Plex originally was a fork of XBMC for MacOSX and had the name OSXBMC, but I doubt they nowadays use a lot of code from XBMC
Kodi is the new name of XBMC
Jellyfin is a fork of Emby, but Emby isn’t a fork of Kodi/XBMC. It’s even written in a completely different language. People were mad that Emby went closed source, so they forked the latest open source code and called it Jellyfin.
Interesting… I was confident that Emby was an XMBC fork but it looks like you’re right.
No it’s just a streaming host. Even as xbmc you could mount a network share library, you didn’t need it all stored on-device.
By default it isn’t
What do you mean? You can connect it to network shares “by default”.
To be honest it’s entirely because Plex was what I first discovered and setup, and I liked it enough to pay for a pass
Same. Back when most of us adopted it, Plex was really the only game in town of you wanted a wife and kids friendly setup.
Laughs in stremio
Fr fr.
I wanted subtitles on Chromecast and Plex was the only thing that could do it without burning them in (at the time, maybe jellyfish can do this now)
Why is the hype for kodi? Its just a (not good) media player
I mean… emby or jellyfin would be a better replacement for Plex.
But why not those? I bought a lifetime Plex Pass for $30 or something ages ago when the competition was garbage, so I already have a smoothly working setup for Plex. No reason to force my kids, their grandparents, etc, to a new interface for very little upside. Plex just works. I have tried the others and they’re okay, but nothing compelling enough to force the change.
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I use Plex and have the ‘lifetime’ licence.
There have been bugs that don’t get fixed for years, while a bunch of new features I dont use keep getting released.These are incredibly infuriating; downloads, server not connecting until app reset, library browsing glitches that only get worse each year…
I have not switched to Jellyfin yet due to my specific setup, but it will happen, or I’ll go mad, whichever comes first.
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Plex has a lot of issues but that criticism I do not get: they have one payment tier. If you pay, no features are held back.
The only exception I can remember is when they had that stupid arcade game feature, which was a separate monthly fee. It’s long dead now.
