Ahoy mateys, it’s time to setup Jellyfin if you prefer not to pay for the privilege of self-hosting your own content.
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/27204525
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
Lol, OK Plex, cya.
They’re honestly lucky I was willing to pay the $2.99 or whatever it was to be able to access MY server, using MY internet and cell data, to access MY media files from MY phone. Plenty fair a price for a nice app, might’ve paid a few bucks more but they can screw off trying to charge a monthly fee for… nothing in particular in my usage case.
Literally just set up Jellyfin w/ Tailscale which took all of 10 minutes and works just as well. GG no re 🖕
Was a little worried from the headline that it was being moved to another subscription tier.
I’ve owned a Plex Pass Lifetime subscription since it’s basically been available. I’ve honestly forgotten Remote Streaming was a free service at this point.
So I’ve currently got a yearly Plex Pass, because I didn’t want to get locked into Plex or feel any pressure to stay if they went down the dunny, but have been putting off migrating to JellyFin. For anybody who has, how did you find the process?
My media isn’t named the most sensibly. I just keep whatever name it came with for the most part. I also liked how Plex just handled the authentication and remote streaming for me - at no stage did I have to open up a port on my router, setup a reverse proxy, etc. Can I migrate my watch history?
I’m fairly new to this. Any migration advice or thoughts would be appreciated!
E: only me, though I stream things externally while out of the house fairly regularly. I’m tech literate enough to follow a readme and read docs, but that’s about it. I don’t need to worry about other, less tech savvy, users streaming my library
I switched to jellyfish last year. Though I didn’t try to get watch history over. Jellyfin should handle your file structure very similarly to Plex, so if what you have now works, it should work on jellyfin.
If it’s only you and you’re only using phones and laptops outside, then you can just skip reverse proxy and all that and just VPN into your system. Wireguard, tailscale, or zerotier are good options with simple easy setups.
I think you should just give jellyfin a try. You can run it at the same time as Plex, so you can just play around with it and see how you like it.
Does anyone have any helpful guides on setting up jellyfin with a certificate so they can privately host it while also keeping it secure and up to date? I think if using docker it would make sense to use compose and configure traeffic proxy and use let’s encrypt for certificates.
Plex takes care of this for you with their cert and authentication systems. I feel like if user management and secure authentication is easy to set up then that is the primary reason to leave Plex. If I can just hand out accounts to anyone whom I would like to access my instance with ease then my family members could easily access it.
If one was to host from the home, using something like tailscale to host it online with forwarding a port would also be ideal.
Look into a thing called Caddy. It can do a few things but it makes certificates super easy. You will likely need to buy a domain tho. They can be cheap if you don’t care what its called.
Cool. I was just looking to see if someone had a guide because I’m trying to understand the pitfalls of doing it this way and I’m curious if anyone else has opened up Jellyfin to the world.
It’s pleasantly surprising that they aren’t deep sixing the lifetime pass.
Yet.
Yeah this is definitely coming at some point. What are we gonna do? Stop paying?
I’m probably gonna set up Jellyfin this weekend. Any tips for a first timer?
If setting up official docker container looks hard, check out linuxserver.io’s docker container for Jellyfin. Even HWA is very easy.
You can’t even fucking bring yourself to write hardware acceleration for the newbie asking for help?
🤡
Take it slow.
Don’t ditch Plex just yet but slowly transition the move.
Test it with your usual browser. If playback doesnt work, test with another browser or the phone app.I set up tail scale with mine so I can easily access it anywhere.
Set up docker. I ran an installation on Linux and on Windows for a few years but having it running from docker using external drives for library is a game changer. Always up to date. User files and settings Safed on a seperate folder so you can transfer it to a different os any time. Fantastic.
This, also a recurring thing I keep hearing from people moving from Plex to Jellyfin is that not all media get recognised correctly.
Which is probably because Jellyfin is less forgiving on file structure, file names. So check their site first for what Jellyfin needs: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/shows
It’s not unreasonable requirements just seems somehow Plex didn’t care about structure as much.
Just use the arrs correctly and there will be no issue except for weird stuff.
Not an option everywhere outside the states. I mostly have to do that by hand
How so?
I am outside of the states and have absolutely no issues with recognition. Not for TV, movie nor anime.
And it’s usually available on tmdb or tvdb.Should have clarified. It’s not an option if you want to use it to get content that is not in english. For german content for example, you need access to german private trackers which you only get with a good torrenting record in addition to catching the exceedingly rare opportunities to get an invite.
Doesnt matter.
I download multiple things with radarr from 3 available german trackers without issues.
Imports properly and depending on my jellyfin library settings will get either german or english metadata.Dunno what you are having trouble with.
I accidentally download German things all the time on mine.
Fuck around with proprietary software and find out.
The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature.
What “resources” do you need, exactly, to allow my friends to stream from my server?
for real though, such a dumb decision on plex’s part lol
Developers to keep things up to date and secure. Which I wouldn’t mind paying for, but instead they spend it all on making Plex a social media that emails your friends a list of shows you watch? I can tell you right now that other than “watch together” no one is using the Plex social features on purpose
As long as you have Plex pass it’s all good and nothing changes. That said, this was exactly my reaction. Plex expends exactly zero fucking resources for my server, so wtf is this shit supposed to mean?
I’m pretty sure that’s corporate speak for “we need to drive plex pass subscriptions more so we need to lock more feature behind it.”
This is 100% my opinion too.
I’m annoyed that I supported them and got a lifetime account on sale. At the same time I’m happy that I can take my time testing and moving my family and friends over to something else.
Paying devs
What does that have to do with my friends streaming from my server?
they never said they needed resources for the remote playback… they said that they needed more resources - ie money to develop the software in general, and this are feature gating a useful feature to try and convince people to pay
they never said they needed resources for the remote playback…
That’s exactly what it sounds like to me…
that’s fine… but it’s not necessarily what it says. it’s ambiguous at best, but if they’d meant they need you to pay them for resources then theyd probably say it more outright
Did they write their own software?
The software already exists, and has for decades.
Then just ask them if they would share their work for free, or recreate it yourself?
They’re already sharing it for free
Their revenue stream is based on license fees for the software? So if they want to keep the lights on they need money
Okay so you agree it’s nothing to do with “resources” and everything to do with locking features behind paywalls to drive up revenue?
developers are a “resource” and they need to be paid. Do you want to keep getting updates for your server? Someone needs to do that and that someone wants to be paid in this case
Yet again, FOSS showing why it’s always the way to go vs proprietary tech. So glad I started my self-hosting journey with Jellyfin!
I’m starting mine this weekend, what timing!
Right on!
I really don’t see how anyone in their hierarchy thought this was a good idea.
There are at least 3 other competitors that moreorless work better than plex already does, without even having a subscription.
I’m amazed they decided to go this route, especially when migrating is as simple as uninstall plex, install competitor of choice(like jellyfin), and then just specify media locations.
the only real annoying part is remaking user accounts and losing watch progress/history, but there is usually a migration tool for that
The key difference is client app support for various platforms. Jellyfin is far behind Plex on that front, and I say this as a user and advocate for Jellyfin. That’s a huge hurdle for migrating even just family and friends users.
I haven’t actually experienced this. I use my JF server on my roku, my Samsung tv (ok that was a pain because you have to side load it which requires a PC for TizenOs), all my families systems, and my tablet. The only systems I’ve found that seem to lack support of a jellyfin app is my ps5 and my xbox. It’s either been on native or been able to be side loaded on every smart tv I’ve used, and every mobile device has had an app in the app store allowing me to use it. I don’t understand the people saying there are no clients for it.
Sure, every use case is different, and I didn’t say there’s “no clients for it”, just that, objectively, there’s a gap in client support for Jellyfin in the context of migrating from Plex.
The gap also exists in maturity of available clients. In my case on tvOS/iOS, I’m using a third party client (Infuse) because Swiftfin is beta software and Jellyfin for iOS is a web view. I would have better feature coverage on Plex, if I could stomach that.
Just gonna… Drop this here…
They would charge you to watch your own DVDs if they could
… A fee for adding content to each media, capped libraries? What is next?
Let’s brainstorm guys ;D
nice try Plex
This headline is misleading. If the owner of the server has Plex pass than the users can use remote streaming as normal. If the owner does not have Plex pass, then the users need Plex pass to use that server remotely
Imo a stupid move by Plex, but as a lifetime Plex pass holder, no one that uses mine will have to worry so I’m relatively unbothered.
Dito. Every discussion I’ve seen, people were acting like Plex is already dead. This will basically change nothing for most people
And free local network management is still a fair deal… Pay for extra features makes sense for this kind of service? The software needs maintenance and new hardware is always being released so new bugs. Better methods of netow and transcoding etc, this kind of software isn’t a drop and run, it still needs work after release. So I get the need to form some kind of long term sustainability, we all saw it coming.
I’ve never paid even 1 cent to watch something online. Never paid for porn either.
I’m not about to start
Still don’t get why people use Plex over Jellyfin
For me?
- Remote Play (I’ve never been able to get it to consistently work on every device with Jellyfin)
- PlexAmp is awesome
- LiveTV
- IPTV
- Way better clients
- Numerous small little issues.
There’s FinAmp for jellyfin. There’s also support for LiveTV and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least a plugin for IPTV.
In my own house, or just myself. Jellyfin is fine. I haven’t spent as much time on it though compared to Plex.
Plex has its own user auth, I don’t need to manage that. My friends and family don’t have to hit me up for password resets.
It has apps on pretty much every device.
Users can just log in. They don’t need to know what server to type in.
Just gonna drop this link here for anyone who’s interested in a 3rd party Jellyfin user management application. This fixes the issues related to inviting users and allowing them to reset their own passwords. Would obviously prefer all of this built into jellyfin, but solutions do exist for those determined enough.
Yer it’s clear people who go on about not understanding either have small circles of users, or don’t actually support people…
You aren’t getting Pop and Nan to understand how to troubleshoot or setup Jellyfin access on their old TV compared to just throwing in a Chromecast or fire stick and having Plex auto logon with an account you setup for them if the couldn’t. Makes life a ton easier, even at the cost of other liberties.
They just want to watch Zulu or Are you being Served again, nothing more.
TIL that jellyfin doesn’t support an actual password reset. I’ve never had to actually try. That’s somewhat disappointing.
I am a lifetime Plex Pass User… I am not affected by their BS… Yet (watch together is going though).
you are, though. your personal information (like usage data) is going through them
No no, they promised they don’t do that nasty stuff, I gotta believe them.
It’s a lot easier to setup and get non-techy family to join. Setting up Jellyfin is easy until you want access outside your LAN. Setting up TLS or a VPN is a hassle I don’t want unless there is no other option. Plex has features I (and my family) use that jellyfin doesn’t support by default yet. Last I checked syncing of files for offline viewing in the official app wasn’t very good yet. Plex has a bunch of ad supported live streams baked in that aren’t too bad. There is a “How It’s Made” channel, a Mythbusters channel, and Top Gear channel. PlexAmp isn’t perfect, but it’s better than any of the Jellyfin options I’ve seen.
Inertia, mostly.
Of course Plex then takes advantage of that with the slow erosion of the free edition.
Because comparitively, jellyfin sucks.
Once they reach some semblance of feature parity, then you can in good faith ask this question.
Jellyfin does everything it needs to. Movies, tv, metadata, music. What else?
that is the most basic list of features… if something implemented only that list id consider it an alpha
the thing im waiting on to switch is skip buttons on intro/outro/etc across all platforms i care about
It has that.
because it’s actually usable?
I didn’t realize my setup wasn’t usable. What does plex offer that makes the usability so much better? I considered plex for my newish setup but if anything, all the privacy controversies and charging for features was more unusable to me than anything I’ve noticed with Jellyfin
Client Support is way better, Hardware transcoding is more reliable and easier to set up (as in you don’t have to in Plex), UI/UX is better (if you can live with removing Plex’ stuff once from your homescreen), that also means the settings, which I find convoluted in Jellyfin. The media matching is way worse and I won’t go through thousands of folder to rename them just because Jellyfin only accepts one singular way to name things
bad take, jellyfin is great.
bad take, people are allows to have opinions that aren’t yours
Not about jellyfin being bad. One of the best FOSS
I paid Plex Pass Lifetime for peanuts (maybe $50 or $75) a decade ago, not using it would mean wasting that so yeah…
I will make the switch once they revoke my lifetime pass, but in the meantime I’m really hoping that Jellyfin gets a face lift. I’ve tested Jellyfin a good bit and it mostly has feature parity for everything I care about, but it’s UI is objectively uglier than Plex’s
Because some of us bought the lifetime Plex Pass for cheap many years ago and it’s what our family is used to. Plex also passes the “wife test”, and my kids use Plexamp on their phones for music.
Not gonna stop me from ditching Plex in the not-too-distant future though, once I figure out Jellyfin and another local music streaming app that doesn’t have an interface stuck in 1997.
It syncs all movie covers and metadata automatically. When I used jellyfin last, this was a struggle.
It’s only an issue if the files aren’t properly named. If you’re using *arr this won’t be an issue. E.g. “Title (Year) - TMBD/TVDB ID” works flawlessly.
That’s good to hear. I’ve got an arr setup so this is promising whenever plex becomes unusable to me.
Definitely not an issue anymore
