The open source alternative to my sponsor - Jellyfin vs Plex

When we shout about home AV servers, it's like we're shouting into a canyon. We scream "PLEX!" and an echo rings out "JELLYFIN! JeLlYfIn! JellYFiN! jellyfin! ʲᵉˡˡʸᶠᶦⁿ...." So we listened to the void we screamed into, and decided to give Jellyfin a shot. Does it succeed where Plex fails? What are its shortcomings? Is Jellyfin the chosen one where Plex was unsuccessful?

FOLLOW US
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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:39 Device Compatibility
3:31 Server Setup
4:30 Library Setup
5:30 Filtering
6:35 Parental Tools and Account Management
7:50 Video Players, Skip Intro, and Plugins
9:08 Google TV
9:57 Android Mobile and the Download Problem
12:16 iOS, the Apple Problem, and Disappearing Features
13:05 Plex as a Sponsor and Switching to Jellyfin Longterm
15:05 "bUt WhAt AbOuT eMbY?!"
15:39 Closing Statements

[LinusTechTips]

Have you switched from Plex to Jellyfin or vice versa? What was your experience? If you've tried Emby, how does that compare?

Don't forget to take a look at our sponsors!

[nyanmisaka]

FFmpeg dev of Jellyfin nyanmisaka here!

For the past two years I've mostly been busy polishing the hardware acceleration. As of Jellyfin 10.8, we have supported the complete transcoding pipeline include using AMD GPU. And use GPGPU filtering to accelerate video scaling, subtitle burning, tone mapping and other features. We are the first to support transcoding Dolby vision profie 5 to SDR. By the way I've been playing with the ARC A380 for a few months, so AV1 encoding is on the way.

If you are familiar with developing with FFmpeg and would like to improve Jellyfin please let me know.❤

[slopiijoe]

2024 called... It wants a update to this. Plex vs Emby vs Jellyfin

[niklas]

Hi, I wrote the configurable HDR tone-mapper you mentioned at 14:48, and also added support for Dolby Vision playback :D

Thanks for the shoutout!

[spencerlay]

I think it’s a massive advantage that the Jellyfin developers are IN your comments section, and are fully engaged with what you’re saying. It’s one of the beautiful things about the open source, nature of the project. I’m sure Plex developers also have their opinions, but are bound by contract to let the PR team speak for them. Hopefully this stands as a good reason for Plex’s decision makers to get competitive again. A little bit of healthy competition is always good. As for me, I will probably be going with Jellyfin regardless, and finding a way to support the devs over there.

Edit: grammarz

[kozan]

The fact that Linus rips on his sponsors is what keeps me here. Keep it up, Linus.

[joshuaboniface]

A very fair and balanced review, thank you for this Linus!

There's one comment I want to make regarding money. We've always explicitly wanted to keep money out of the project because, exactly as you said, capitalism ruins everything and we don't want to "start the cycle" again. We forked because Emby jumped headfirst into that cycle, and I made a commitment - to myself, to our team, and to our users - to never become part of that bandwagon. Period.

What that means is - we've already seen an uptick in donations. Which is nice, thank you everyone! But I want to reiterate that we only use the money donated to us for infrastructure costs, for which we currently have a huge runway (we could pay for our DigitalOcean VMs for like, 3-4 years at this point).

What we need as a project more than anything is talented, experienced developers who are willing to contribute to the project. So if you, or someone you know, is good with C# (core server, plugins), React (main WebUI), Vue.js (alternate WebUI), Apple Swift (Swiftfin), Kotlin (Android), Brightscript (Roku), or Python (Kodi), a high-quality contribution makes a far bigger impact than any amount of money ever could! Contributions to our documentation are also a huge help, especially for some more niche (for us homelabbers/selfhosters) areas like a solid Windows setup guide.

Happy watching!

[Bucket_Boy]

Netflix: increases fees, prevents password sharing.
Linus: Anyway here's a video about Plex and Jellyfin

[floorpizza]

This seems like a timely opportunity to ask LTT to do an updated "Build your own HTPC" system video.

[Richest_The]

Lifetime Plex user of 10 years. I feel the exact same. It's changed a lot, and mostly not for the better

[JeffGeerling]

Jellyfin continues to improve little by little, wearing down every little bullet point Plex used to call out as an advantage. Some of the biggest things are being able to transcode without paying, having a native Apple TV and iOS app, and all the little plugins for weird edge cases like eBook integrations.

[DanielLopez-frif]

FYI: Filebot is great for getting the naming right for meta data. Can also be used to source subtitles

[oliverjames]

I have been using Jellyfin for a number of years now, since it forked from Emby, it is by no means perfect but has steadily improved throughout the updates to be a genuinely competent competitor to Plex. I am so thankful for the project and it’s amazing devs. Great to see it is finally getting the praise and coverage it deserves.

[TusharSelvakumar]

As a relatively long time user of Plex who just moved to Jellyfin not too long ago, I'm glad LTT is finally making a video about it.

[njf]

I switched from Plex to Emby some years ago and have been (mostly) very happy with it. One feature I like, which Plex didn't have then, although I don't know whether it has now, is that when watching TV series, it knows to play a Special that has been allocated to Season 00 in TVDB in the right order with the regular episodes. The development team are also very responsive in their forums. There is lots of available customisation. Linus should really give it a go. I would love to see a LTT video on Emby.

[djphaelix]

Totally agree, it feels like plex has abandoned its roots as a private media server and put all its efforts into paid/advertisement driven avenues. I feel like a lot of the feature requests that have been there for years have been ignored to push in the less self managed direction which is frustrating. PLEX: you used to be by the people, for the people... lets move back in that direction eh?

[lxndrDaGreat]

I would love to see more videos like this - an in-depth comparison of software options.

[kooplah]

I paid for the Plex lifetime license and ended up switching to Jellyfin after a few months of dealing w/ the Plex issues. A big factor for me was the plugin library that PLEX USED TO HAVE too, but that allow me to expand into supporting things like SSO (OIDC & LDAP) and more!

[bigironenthusiast]

I've had emby since 2018-2019 and it's been a near flawless experience. Sometimes it will have issues identifying movies/shows but the downloads work great as well as transcoding

[RandallStevenson]

Can Plex be used without an active internet connection, like Jellyfin can? The entire point is being able to still watch something on my smart TVs when the internet goes down.