Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
layandreas.github.io
Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
1–10 of 192 posts
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#2It's worth the effort to host your own media. There are privacy benefits, you own the audio files (presumably) and are no longer hostage to a platform that cares little (if at all) about artists.
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#3Nice. I self host using Navidrome, FreeBSD and Wireguard. I have a decent Fibre connection to my house and a static IP so it's "free" to serve.
I primary do it because Spotify is basically sucking the life out of the music industry and I love heavy metal.
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#4The article is surprisingly missing the most important part: a cost comparison. I understand and share the frustration with rising prices and ads creeping into paid plans, but for people who value optionality and broad access, streaming is still meaningfully cheaper than owning content.
In many cases, the price of a single movie is comparable to an entire month of a streaming service, which gives access to thousands of titles. Ownership can make sense if you repeatedly watch a small, fixed catalog over many years, but for most casual or exploratory viewing, the economics still favor streaming.
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#5A couple of points missed for why Spotify is bad:
- Paying musicians cheap wages to make boring music (ghost artists) for playlists they promote: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
- Not paying musicians anything at all if they don't have enough streams: https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payo...
- Not preventing the deluge of AI-generated music flooding the platform: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/spotify-no...
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#6The article is surprisingly missing the most important part: a cost comparison. I understand and share the frustration with rising prices and ads creeping into paid plans, but for people who value optionality and broad access, streaming is still meaningfully cheaper than owning content. In many cases, the price of a single movie is comparable to an entire month of a streaming service, which gives access to thousands…
Some people do not mind buying art or paying artists for their work.
If we assume an artist gets 1¢ per stream of a song, and that album is 10 songs long, you need to listen to it 100x for the artist to get the same as just buying a $10 CD from Bandcamp.
I understand this example is missing the cuts given to other parties (label, etc) but it is still more to the artist than streaming unless you obsessively stream the same albums repeatedly.
Spotify is cheaper because your favorite local indie band makes far less from it.
Additionally, thrift stores have loads of CDs you can rip for extremely cheap.
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#7A couple of points missed for why Spotify is bad: - Paying musicians cheap wages to make boring music (ghost artists) for playlists they promote: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin... - Not paying musicians anything at all if they don't have enough streams: https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payo... - Not preventing the deluge of AI-generated music flooding the platform:…
They also commission music from "ghost artists" that they can pay a fix rate, then place said artists in popular playlists to reduce royalty payouts.
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#8I recently made the same switch. Tailscale plus jellyfin is great. Threw in Immich too for good measure.
I wanted a nice native client for Linux instead of using the web app so I wrote one in Rust. Shameless plug: https://github.com/Fingel/gelly
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#9The article is surprisingly missing the most important part: a cost comparison. I understand and share the frustration with rising prices and ads creeping into paid plans, but for people who value optionality and broad access, streaming is still meaningfully cheaper than owning content. In many cases, the price of a single movie is comparable to an entire month of a streaming service, which gives access to thousands…
Some people do not mind buying art or paying artists for their work. If we assume an artist gets 1¢ per stream of a song, and that album is 10 songs long, you need to listen to it 100x for the artist to get the same as just buying a $10 CD from Bandcamp. I understand this example is missing the cuts given to other parties (label, etc) but it is still more to the artist than streaming unless you obsessively stream the…
Spotify pays me about $0.003 per stream. That's pretty typical for every artist on the site.
Re: Self hosting my media library with Jellyfin and Wireguard on Hetzner
#10A couple of points missed for why Spotify is bad: - Paying musicians cheap wages to make boring music (ghost artists) for playlists they promote: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin... - Not paying musicians anything at all if they don't have enough streams: https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payo... - Not preventing the deluge of AI-generated music flooding the platform:…
Also:
- the chief executive invests money into AI weaponry https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-12/spotify-boycott-danie...