I recently tested Jellyfin again and still miss a lot of features I like with Plex. I am a former Emby user and I don’t see why Jellyfin got so popular. I really want it to succeed, though
Jellyfin is 100% free and open-source, it may miss some features but nothing behind a paywall. We made the choice of open-source over features (I can understand people going with plex, but I’m happy with jf)
All good and if you are one of the contributors, you earn all the respect. By now, Emby will have a hard time to keep up with the development speed of Jellyfin. I just miss a few very important QoL features. I truly believe it is only a matter of time until they are added.
You have a login screen with all users showing with their profile picture. For a while now.
You can even make it look Netflix-like with Skin Manager plugin.
And there’s Quick Connect but it’s for people already connected on another device.
Right. I understand now, I’ve not used Netflix in 7 years. Yeah you have the user login screen before entering the password.
I guess there’s a workaround by autodeleting cookies but you’d have to re-enter the password (and it’s not doable easily by grandma)
And not secure.
I do have a reverse proxy strapped before my Jellyfin but if that is circumvented due to bad regex design, your only line of defense is a 4 digit password on a jellyfin user.
Sharing and remote streaming, plain and simple. I have no problem setting up accounts for friends, but choosing your server is a pain for some. But the bigger problem is that the first thing anyone will say is: Don’t expose Jellyfin to the Internet. That’s a bit of a problem.
And they’ll then say, “Oh it’s not so bad just set up wireguard and…” This is the ramblings of a lunatic. I’ve been working with tech a long time. Tech is my job. It is my hobby. I do all of it from repairing my own hardware to administering servers to running my own home lab to doing open source development. Wireguard is not friendly. It is not something I’m going to set up at every friend and family member’s house so I can share my library.
I’ve got a more secure but imperfect setup in sticking Jellyfin on the Internet behind a proxy that requires login. But this is not something most people are going to want to deal with. They want to stand up their server and then share it with people.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Very Give a Mouse a Cookie vibes when talking to someone explaining how Jellyfin is a drop in replacement for Plex when they’re on step 6 of setting up remote access
One thing is prioritizing security. There’s a number of known flaws, of varying severity, which is why most people would recommend not exposing Jellyfin to the Internet.
Perhaps they could set up a second project, a Jellyfin meta-library, whose whole goal is to be exposed to the Internet. You stand that up, give it access to other Jellyfin servers, and it handles the work similar to STUN of connecting you to media on those servers. This would make it so people could share easier.
I would have done this, but set up ‘meshnet’ to make the remote computers look like they’re all on the same network, but nordvpn just pulled the plug on meshnet and are decommissioning it in December.
Goodbye
The apps don’t work well at all. If you’re just desktop based, its fine. But Nvidia Shield app, firestick app, mobile app, all have issues with hardware transcoding, and also somehow doesn’t handle subtitles properly. I have had both Plex and Jfin set up side by side multiple times, trying to test if I can make the swap. But JF just has too many bugs on their apps, which is what I use primarily, as do my users.
Sounds more like you had transcoding issues.
Using the Jellyfin Android app and the Android TV app on my Chromecast.
Besides .ssa subtitles I usually never need to transcode. And usually the transcoding reason is me using an incomptaible audio/video source (TrueHD audio and HDR)
How so? I have way less issues with jellyfin than I did with Plex. I think with jellyfin you just need to RTFM and find some plugins to expand the functionality if you need it
I spent hours trying to set up jellyfin to watch somewhere else in my home and despite doing all the guides I just couldn’t get it to work. Plex is just so much easier. It has hiccups and the new update is horrible (still holding out on updating) but it still works 9/10 times for me
I feel you on that. The first time I set it up, it me forever. I finally figured out the issue was it was not picking up the right IP address for my server. Once I fixed that, and knew to look for that in the future, no issues. I tore my whole server down last weekend, and transferred all the drives to a different setup, rebuilt the server and have everything working, logged back in on all my devices in an hour tops. Everyones milage will very though
Lol that’s pretty much how it went for me. One day it pissed me off for the last time. Switched to Jellyfin and never looked back. Should have done it so much sooner.
Welcome to Jellyfin friend
I recently tested Jellyfin again and still miss a lot of features I like with Plex. I am a former Emby user and I don’t see why Jellyfin got so popular. I really want it to succeed, though
Jellyfin is 100% free and open-source, it may miss some features but nothing behind a paywall. We made the choice of open-source over features (I can understand people going with plex, but I’m happy with jf)
All good and if you are one of the contributors, you earn all the respect. By now, Emby will have a hard time to keep up with the development speed of Jellyfin. I just miss a few very important QoL features. I truly believe it is only a matter of time until they are added.
Like?
A Netflix-like login screen, where you can see all the users and they are just protected by a simple PIN.
You have a login screen with all users showing with their profile picture. For a while now. You can even make it look Netflix-like with Skin Manager plugin. And there’s Quick Connect but it’s for people already connected on another device.
But tbf it’s not on every login.
So it’s not really multi-user friendly.
Right. I understand now, I’ve not used Netflix in 7 years. Yeah you have the user login screen before entering the password. I guess there’s a workaround by autodeleting cookies but you’d have to re-enter the password (and it’s not doable easily by grandma)
And not secure.
I do have a reverse proxy strapped before my Jellyfin but if that is circumvented due to bad regex design, your only line of defense is a 4 digit password on a jellyfin user.
Jellyfin simply doesn’t work as well as Plex unfortunately.
In what way?
Sharing and remote streaming, plain and simple. I have no problem setting up accounts for friends, but choosing your server is a pain for some. But the bigger problem is that the first thing anyone will say is: Don’t expose Jellyfin to the Internet. That’s a bit of a problem.
And they’ll then say, “Oh it’s not so bad just set up wireguard and…” This is the ramblings of a lunatic. I’ve been working with tech a long time. Tech is my job. It is my hobby. I do all of it from repairing my own hardware to administering servers to running my own home lab to doing open source development. Wireguard is not friendly. It is not something I’m going to set up at every friend and family member’s house so I can share my library.
I’ve got a more secure but imperfect setup in sticking Jellyfin on the Internet behind a proxy that requires login. But this is not something most people are going to want to deal with. They want to stand up their server and then share it with people.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Very Give a Mouse a Cookie vibes when talking to someone explaining how Jellyfin is a drop in replacement for Plex when they’re on step 6 of setting up remote access
Realistically what could the jellyfin devs do to make this easier?
One thing is prioritizing security. There’s a number of known flaws, of varying severity, which is why most people would recommend not exposing Jellyfin to the Internet.
Perhaps they could set up a second project, a Jellyfin meta-library, whose whole goal is to be exposed to the Internet. You stand that up, give it access to other Jellyfin servers, and it handles the work similar to STUN of connecting you to media on those servers. This would make it so people could share easier.
Interesting. It would still be complex I guess but mean that it’s less risky to expose.
I’m still a bit out of my depth on networking I just use jellyfin locally. Ive set up websites and stuff but never had to play with reverse proxies.
I would have done this, but set up ‘meshnet’ to make the remote computers look like they’re all on the same network, but nordvpn just pulled the plug on meshnet and are decommissioning it in December. Goodbye
The apps don’t work well at all. If you’re just desktop based, its fine. But Nvidia Shield app, firestick app, mobile app, all have issues with hardware transcoding, and also somehow doesn’t handle subtitles properly. I have had both Plex and Jfin set up side by side multiple times, trying to test if I can make the swap. But JF just has too many bugs on their apps, which is what I use primarily, as do my users.
Sounds more like you had transcoding issues.
Using the Jellyfin Android app and the Android TV app on my Chromecast.
Besides .ssa subtitles I usually never need to transcode. And usually the transcoding reason is me using an incomptaible audio/video source (TrueHD audio and HDR)
How so? I have way less issues with jellyfin than I did with Plex. I think with jellyfin you just need to RTFM and find some plugins to expand the functionality if you need it
I spent hours trying to set up jellyfin to watch somewhere else in my home and despite doing all the guides I just couldn’t get it to work. Plex is just so much easier. It has hiccups and the new update is horrible (still holding out on updating) but it still works 9/10 times for me
I feel you on that. The first time I set it up, it me forever. I finally figured out the issue was it was not picking up the right IP address for my server. Once I fixed that, and knew to look for that in the future, no issues. I tore my whole server down last weekend, and transferred all the drives to a different setup, rebuilt the server and have everything working, logged back in on all my devices in an hour tops. Everyones milage will very though
Literally just the basics of choosing audio/subtitles/quality settings
Oh 🤷♂️ I guess I never have issues with that.
I’m so glad that I changed to Jellyfin. So much better.
Seriously, why are we still even mentioning Plex at this point?
Because it’s easier, in a lot of people’s experience better, and has more users. Why wouldn’t people mention it?
I have a server but it’s still a bit rough around the edges
Lol that’s pretty much how it went for me. One day it pissed me off for the last time. Switched to Jellyfin and never looked back. Should have done it so much sooner.
I bailed on Plex a while ago, went to Emby, now Jellyfin.
I forgot what happened to Emby, but I do recall some enshittification, and bounced. Jellyfin seems pretty solid.
Jellyfin forked from Emby when it went partially paywall.