2mo ago

Jellyfin is not just good... but better than Plex now?!

I've feel like I've used Plex forever. I also feel like every couple years I try Jellyfin to see how it's going. Recently I tried it again because of Plex restriction on more than one user.

Well, I just tried it again and it's substantially improved! This time it actually properly detected most of my library!

Also the Android TV app is AWESOME! No more glitches, lagging, and freezing trying to play my stuff like Plex did. It is butter smooth.

Wow! I'm impressed and I just deleted Plex. Good riddance.

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361 comments

I tried to setup Plex and it was just about the most god-awful experience I've ever had. It was unnecessarily complex to accommodate their cloud infrastructure setup.
Installing Jellyfin took like.. 2 minutes and I've had no issues since.
Only thing I don't like about Jellyfin is the metadata engine, which I have disabled and just use TinyMediaManager and save everything to .nfo which is picked up by Jellyfin immediately. Works great.
- Hm. I gave Jellyfin a try and the UX was a turnoff, so I ended up in Plex. The separate management of metadata does sound like a pain to me, too, but maybe there's a bit of sunk cost fallacy to that.
  Either way it seems people are mostly fine with their choices and there is a viable free alternative, so... all good there.
  
  You can change the UI design to whatever you want with a custom CSS. Can make your own or there's a plethora of themes on GitHub. I remember trying one that replicated the Netflix app, and don't hold me to it but I think I saw a Plex one as well.
  Also, regarding the metadata, there are options that auto populate it for you. Idk how it does it, but my haphazard library of torrents all had accurate metadata AND it downloaded the subtitle files as well.
  
  Not the UI, the UX. The UI may be editable, but if I have to make my own UI to be happy with what it looks like or works like, then that's bad UX.
  I get that sometimes those terms are used interchangeably, but they're not the same.
  
  Sorry, I misread. What is bad about the UX exactly? You don't need to customize anything if you don't want to; "it just works". And I dont follow you on how having the option to customize things makes it a bad user experience. You're assuming the native UI is bad for some reason.
  I've used Plex a lot too back in the day but there's nothing it provides that Jellyfin doesn't do out of the box + self-hosted + for free.
  
  Sorry, I misread. What is bad about the UX exactly? You don’t need to customize anything if you don’t want to; “it just works”. And I dont follow you on how having the option to customize things makes it a bad user experience. You’re assuming the native UI is bad for some reason.
  Being given the tools to customize something by hand is not the same as being offered enough option to simply choose what you want. Having a good UX means that there was a UI designer who alread did the customzing for you and you simply have click a button to apply it.
  
  I barely even remember what the specific dealbreaker was, honestly. I was just dabbling, considering expanding my NAS and maybe getting the gear to dump my 4K BluRays. I gave Jellyfin a try first, I went through the setup process and I remember it being a) confusing to set up directly on my NAS, and b) very ugly.
  I gave Plex a try to cover my bases and that looked better and got me up and running faster, so I just stuck with it. Easier remote access was a feature for me there, too, but the choice was made purely on the onboarding process, there was nothing activist to it. It's maybe the most user-level, unresearched decision I've taken on software in a while, honestly. I was already trying to figuring out the ripping and encoding at the same time, so I didn't want to put any additional attention on library management.
  If anything I gave Jellyfin a bit more of a chance than I otherwise would have because I had heard a lot of angry chatter from people about Plex. I guess I came in after they made the changes that pissed people off and didn't mind the state of the current product without a frame of reference. I would have bailed if there was a subscription, but they do have a one-and-done purchase, so now I'm set up, it's working and I've paid them as much as I'm going to, so I'm fine with it. I do appreciate a free alternative existing, though.
  
  I don't know if it's bad UX or UI, but I do agree there's something really disturbing with jellyfin's options and tweaks... More than once I lost my way and had to click on every option button again to find a specific thing to disable/enable something?
  Now It's easier after I have passed some time in the options/user menu, but some tweaks and options are not very intuitive.
  Other than that, Jellyfin is awesome and I can't believe something as good as Jellyfin is free and open source. Thanks to all devloppers behind this, I hope they will stay true to open source and jellyfin will last forever !! But I doubt it.
  
  I tried Jellyfin out on my most recent build - don't think it's quite as good as Plex so far. Still using it though - I think either is perfectly fine for a simple home media server.
  
  The separate management of metadata does sound like a pain to me
  It's really not, but I guess it depends on how you do it. You can even automate it.
- It was unnecessarily complex to accommodate their cloud infrastructure setup.
  Please elaborate how you needed to "accommodate their cloud infrastructure setup".
  When I set my server up years ago all I did was log in on the web interface. Literally as simple as any other service.
  
  When I set my server up years ago all I did was log in on the web interface. Literally as simple as any other service.
  They make you register with their own website to login to your local instance... That's you jumping through hoops to accommodate their cloud bullshit;
  It’s important to understand that Plex Media Server does not have its own graphical user interface. When you run the server on your computer, NAS, or other device, you won’t see a window open with a “server UI” or similar. Instead, you use our web app to manage your server.
  It's so fucking unnecessary.
  
  Wait, isn't Jellyfin the same way? Pretty much every self-hosted app I run uses some web interface you log into so you can use it anywhere on the network. Sure, Plex also has some pre-set remote connection thing, but from the end user perspective it's the same set of steps. I also had to make a login for all the stuff I fully self-host.
  Is there no account management on Jellyfin? I would probably want that as a feature.
  
  Wait, isn’t Jellyfin the same way?
  Jellyfin has a native web-ui, yes. But not a proprietary one, like Plex uses. When I installed a Plex server I had to go to plex.tv and setup a user account there to be able to log into my own damn server... Then they strongly encourage you to use https://app.plex.tv/ to manage your local server.
  It's all unnecessarily confusing and difficult.
  Is there no account management on Jellyfin?
  Yes. Local accounts. Not some cloud based PAMd system.
  You made me feel like I was crazy, so I just downloaded Plex Media Server and installed it. Ran it, and was immediately presented with this: https://i.xno.dev/mqWFZ.png
  I was then immediately routed to app.plex.tv and see this: https://i.xno.dev/cLPfw.png
  There's no option to not use a plex account. You must either use an existing account or sign up for one. You cannot use local users. Then it forces you to use the app.plex.tv so it can display content you don't even have, or have access to...
  How in any possible way is any of this easier than Jellyfin?
  EDIT: Oh, don't forget the sales pitch! https://i.xno.dev/79WBs.png
  
  Okay, but... how is it confusing from the front end if what you're doing is going through the same steps of creating an account? You punch in a login and password in both.
  Sure, Plex is doing this extra thing where it's also bringing in centralized content along with your library and it will default to its remote access system if you log in from outside your network. But again, from the front-end that is transparent. You log in and you have your library. If anything they're being a bit too transparent, I've had times where networking stuff got in the way and it took me a minute to notice that Plex was routing my library through their remote access system instead.
  I can see objections to it working that way, you trade a (frankly super convenient) way to share content remotely and access content from outside your network without too much hassle for... well, going through someone else's server and having their content sitting alongside yours. But "confusing and difficult" isn't how I'd describe it. It seems to work like any other service, self-hosted or not, as far as the user-facing portions are concerned. I guess I just don't see the confusing part there.
  
  Okay, but… how is it confusing from the front end if what you’re doing is going through the same steps of creating an account? You punch in a login and password in both.
  Because there's zero difference between the app.plex.tv interface spawned from plex server, and one without. There's zero indication that it's actually your server and your content because it fucking displays everything by default.
  It's such an incredibly bad proprietary system...
  But again, from the front-end that is transparent.
  It's not. There's no server configuration options at all. There's nothing to indicate it's local content...
  I can see objections to it working that way, you trade a (frankly super convenient) way to share content remotely and access content from outside your network
  For 90% of the content people use Plex for, this is an illegal act. So I don't see the advantage to providing this option let alone making it easier to commit a felony... I've never needed to "share" my media library with anyone and even if this was something I wanted to do, it's a simple DNS record away from doing the same thing in Jellyfin. There's no reason to lock people into your login system because 10% of people would "find it easier." It's just such a bad argument.
  
  I am very confused here. You seem to have slipped from arguing that it was difficult and complicated to arguing that it's bad to be able to share content remotely because it's a felony, which seems like a pretty big leap.
  For one thing, it's not illegal and I do rip my own media. I will access it from my phone or my laptop remotely whenever I want, thank you very much.
  For another, and this has been my question all along, how is it possibly more difficult and complicated to have remote access ready to go than being "a DNS record away"? Most end users don't even know what a DNS is.
  And yes, not having (obvious) server configurations up front is transparent. That's what I'm saying. It does mix at least two sources (their unavoidable, rather intrusive free streaming TV stuff and your library), but it doesn't demand that you set it up. The entire idea is to not have to worry about whether it's local content. Like I said, there are edge cases where that can lead to a subpar experience (mainly when it's downsampling your stuff to route it the long way around without telling you), but from a UX perspective I do get prioritizing serving you the content over warning you of networking issues.
  I don't know, man, I'm not saying you shouldn't prefer Jellyfin. I wouldn't know, I never used it long enough to have a particularly strong opinion. I just don't get this approach where having the thing NOT surface a bunch of technical stuff up front reads as "complicated and difficult". I just get hung up on that.
  
  You seem to have slipped from arguing that it was difficult and complicated to arguing that it’s bad
  These are the same thing...
  For one thing, it’s not illegal and I do rip my own media.
  Soon as you share it over the Internet it is. You need a license from the IP holder to do that.
  how is it possibly more difficult and complicated to have remote access ready to go than being “a DNS record away”?
  They're effectively the same.
  Plex forces you to use their way. It's more difficult because it's not the way most people would want to do it in a selfhost environment.
  It does mix at least two sources (their unavoidable, rather intrusive free streaming TV stuff and your library), but it doesn’t demand that you set it up.
  I mean yeah, it doesn't demand anything because it doesn't give you an option. lol
  I don’t know, man, I’m not saying you shouldn’t prefer Jellyfin.
  And I'm not saying that you should prefer Jellyfin. But to call Plex "easier" than jellyfin is verifiably an incorrect statement--which is what I've been saying since the beginning here. The way Plex forces you to do things isn't easier at all.
  
  I feel like this conversation does a very good job of explaining why FOSS alternatives so often have terrible usability. "Not how most people would do it in a selfhost environment" is effectively "not how a tiny, teensy, borderline irrelevant proportion of users would do it".
  Selfhosting is moving towards being accessible to the average user in some areas. Not coincidentally, I suspect, mostly in areas where someone is trying to make money on the side (see Home Assistant increasingly trying to upsell you into their cloud subscription and branded hardware, for instance). This idea that structuring the software for the average phone user as opposed to the average home server admin is "bad" or "complicated" is baffling to me.
  Oh, and for the record, no, that's not the line for legality when it comes to watching the media I own. I am perfectly within my rights to access the files in my hard drive in any way I want. At least where I live. I make no promises for whatever dystopian crap is legal in the US. If anything there is a gray area on my using a specific type of drive to be able to rip commercial optical media that is theoretically DRMd in ways that my drive just happens to ignore. But remotely accessing my legal backups in my local storage? Nah, even if I was more worried about piracy than I am I'd feel fine on those grounds.
  But also, copyright as currently designed is broken and not fit for purpose, and I suspect you don't disagree and your pearl clutching here may have more to do with disliking Plex and not wanting to acknowledge an actually useful feature they provide than anything else. Maybe I'm reading too much into that.
- Has Jellyfin improved its subtitle fetching?It's been awhile since using Jellyfin. I stayed with Plex because downloading subtitles on the fly wasn't available in Jellyfin, and no extensions for it either.
  
  I guess it depends on when you last used it. I opt for the CLI approach, but Jellyfin can install a plugin which allows (on library scan) to extract internal subtitles, which fixes 90% of issues with subtitle display for devices like Chromecasts.
  Jellyfin also integrates with OpenSubstiles: https://i.xno.dev/gVee6.png

361 comments