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The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

reprodev.com

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Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#71

Post by squishington »

kennywinker wrote: post #64
luaybs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes I agree, it does need some tech literacy to setup properly.

It’s not about tech literacy to setup, it’s about sharing my content with friends and family - there is no easy way to do it, even if everybody is tech savvy it’s still high friction. The dream would be: anybody with a jellyfin install can add your library to theirs, anybody with the jellyfin client can be invited to browse your library.

I do this with friends and family. I'm not sure whether my solution is considered high friction. I gave them a router with openwrt installed, and a wireguard tunnel I set up, with a route to my jellyfin server. So they can point their jellyfin app on their TV to my server.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#72

Post by sparky_z »

wiether wrote: post #51

Weird article. Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall. On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves…

> leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves out for free.

What does this mean?

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#73

Post by reprodev »

squishington wrote: post #71
kennywinker wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about tech literacy to setup, it’s about sharing my content with friends and family - there is no easy way to do it, even if everybody is tech savvy it’s still high friction. The dream would be: anybody with a jellyfin install can add your library to theirs, anybody with the jellyfin client can be invited to browse your library.

I do this with friends and family. I'm not sure whether my solution is considered high friction. I gave them a router with openwrt installed, and a wireguard tunnel I set up, with a route to my jellyfin server. So they can point their jellyfin app on their TV to my server.

I have to say if Jellyfin could nail the library sharing then they would definitely be a much bigger alternative to Plex users on the fence imho

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#74

Post by M95D »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #63
M95D wrote: post #61

I use Kodi. I never used Plex or Jellyfin. I'm not even sure what they are. They look like media players, but... over the network? I don't really understand how that works. In a web browser? Why whould anyone run a media player in a browser? Can anyone explain?

Essentially, think of it as Netflix for which you provide the media yourself. A browser is one possible way to connect, but clients exist too (e.g. a Roku app and so on). Having the ability to connect with a client running on something connected to your TV is nice, as is the ability to connect remotely (if you open up the ports on your firewall of course). It also gives you things like remembering what shows you were…

Nope. I still don't get it. (Maybe because I'm too old for this stuff?)

> think of it as Netflix for which you provide the media yourself.

Netflix is a provider of content. If I have the content, why do I need a provider for?

> Having the ability to connect with a client running on something connected to your TV is nice

(???) But that's what I'm doing now with Kodi.

> as is the ability to connect remotely (if you open up the ports on your firewall of course).

Wireguard (only one port), and all home LAN is accessible, not just one service.

> It also gives you things like remembering what shows you were watching and giving a shortcut to the next episode

Kodi does that too. Or maybe you mean it remembers between player devices? See ep.1 on player A and it shows up as seen when I start player B too? That's nice. I think I read somewhere that Kodi can use a remote MySQL/MariaDB for it's library too. I could probably set up a shared DB.

> intro skipping

How does it know where the intro is and how long?

> transcoding

If I were to install Plex/Jellyfin it would be where the storage is - on a router that also serves as a NAS. It doesn't have the power to transcode anything, not even audio. Meanwhile, the lowest spec phone can play everything. So, why would anyone transcode in 2026?

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#75

Post by wiether »

sparky_z wrote: post #72
wiether wrote: post #51

Weird article. Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall. On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves…

> leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves out for free. What does this mean?

It means that I haven't slept enough to not make mistakes!

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#76

Post by wiether »

reprodev wrote: post #65
wiether wrote: post #51

Weird article. Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall. On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves…

OP here. Thank you for reading and it was something that's been brewing in my mind for a while. I agree with you and didn't really know how to approach it becuase I've got a lot of really good things to say about Plex and sure as hell have benefitted from the lifetime license. Recently, I've been asked more and more by friends and family to set up Plex for them as it's "free" and "easy". I do the basic setup or walk…

Thank you for your reply

I can see how scary the price increase on the Lifetime pass looks, and I see it as a deterrent to push people to something like the 5 years plan which looks like a good deal to me

The pricing around Remote Watch Pass is a bit weird to me because I haven't got any complaint from people access my server, and I know they don't have any kind of pass, so I'm not sure why it should be needed?

But having to pay 30/year to access someone else's server, who's already paying a regular Pass and the infra, sure seems abusive

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#77

Post by EnnEmmEss »

reprodev wrote: post #65
wiether wrote: post #51

Weird article. Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall. On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves…

OP here. Thank you for reading and it was something that's been brewing in my mind for a while. I agree with you and didn't really know how to approach it becuase I've got a lot of really good things to say about Plex and sure as hell have benefitted from the lifetime license. Recently, I've been asked more and more by friends and family to set up Plex for them as it's "free" and "easy". I do the basic setup or walk…

Hi, Since you're here, I just wanted to alert you to the fact that the link you posted w.r.t donating to Jellyfin doesn't work. https://jellyfin.org/donate gives a 404 and the correct link for donating is at: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/contributing/direct-donati...

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#78

Post by unsnap_biceps »

beAbU wrote: post #54

I've been a paying Emby user for close to ten years, ever since plex tried to launch a VR player or some shit, while there were still critical bugs in the player for web and other devices. Emby just works, it's players are great, and issues actually get fixed. I know it's a closed source fork of XBMC, I know that's controversial, but the product itself is just so good.

Jellyfin is a highly modified fork of Emby from Emby's last open source release (3.5.2). They're diverged since, but there's still a lot of similarities left.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#79

Post by reprodev »

EnnEmmEss wrote: post #77
reprodev wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here. Thank you for reading and it was something that's been brewing in my mind for a while. I agree with you and didn't really know how to approach it becuase I've got a lot of really good things to say about Plex and sure as hell have benefitted from the lifetime license. Recently, I've been asked more and more by friends and family to set up Plex for them as it's "free" and "easy". I do the basic setup or walk…

Hi, Since you're here, I just wanted to alert you to the fact that the link you posted w.r.t donating to Jellyfin doesn't work. https://jellyfin.org/donate gives a 404 and the correct link for donating is at: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/contributing/direct-donati...

Thanks for the heads-up I'll get that changed now

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#80

Post by reprodev »

reprodev wrote: post #79
EnnEmmEss wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Since you're here, I just wanted to alert you to the fact that the link you posted w.r.t donating to Jellyfin doesn't work. https://jellyfin.org/donate gives a 404 and the correct link for donating is at: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/contributing/direct-donati...

Thanks for the heads-up I'll get that changed now

I've updated that now and done a quick check so it's actually linked to the devs properly. Much appreciated and thanks for reading the article
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