Hi, all. So I want to set up a media server using my Raspberry Pi. It will be used by me and my partner, who is very much tech illiterate. She knows how to use Plex, but I’m tempted by the open nature of Jellyfin. How steep is the learning curve there? Should I just go with Plex and keep it simple? Or is Jellyfin manageable if I set it up for her?
friends don’t let friends use plex.
its paywalling yourself
Conversely, letting friends use your Jellyfin is complicated.
reverse proxy that shit
eh, maybe. for me it was opening a port and adding a dns record. took me all of 4 minutes
im kinda lucky in that my isp uses ‘sticky’ ips so while its not static, ive had the same ip for 5 years
But now you’ve exposed your network to the open internet without any sort of security.
No you haven’t. The security is the Jellyfin login prompt, then Jellyfin itself, then the Jellyfin container, and if you’re really paranoid, that container won’t be in your LAN.
If you don’t trust nginx or caddy or etc security, just install Tailscale to the jellyfin node and share the node with friends. All they need is Tailscale client then, and you dont have to open any ports.
oh noes! im so ddead!
Peak “bad things only happen to other people” energy here. Ignorance and flippancy will surely protect you!
yes my world will burn when they crack into my jellyfin instance and magically break out of its docker container and then what? goo nowhere on its vlan?
literally thousands of self-hosted jellyfin/emby instances and the support forums are just chocked full of people getting hacked via it! so many!
oh wait, no there arent
Sadly, my ISP charges an arm and a leg for anything other than dhcp
Jellyfin all the way. But I wouldn’t run it on a pi, I would look for something beefier.
I haven’t heard of any learning curve with Jellyfin. It seems easy to set up, and the apps are about as user friendly as you can get (especially the third party ones)
I wish I’d have gone with Jellyfin when I migrated from Plex. I’m on Emby, it has a few features that I like that are not available in Jellyfin.
I am experimenting with Jellyfish this month and really enjoying it.
I have a lifetime pass from Plex from a long time ago so it’s my fallback now. And because of that I wasn’t sure if I should try Emby since … Well you have to pay. And I already have Plex.
But I’m curious … Because it feels like everyone who uses Emby is very happy with it and swears by it. And generally they all feel like Jellyfin is generally inferior to it.
Seems like Emby is a better Jellyfin that you have to pay for if you want all those premier features (I would).
Also, what’s to stop Emby from turning into Plex?
The media import is nice. That’s why I haven’t switched either.
Plex is an enterprise solution, if you need your tech illiterate grandma to access the media it’s easier to pay them. If it’s just a local network or you’re okay with going down a rabbit hole of setup, then Jellyfin does everything and does it better IMO (Plex requires you to be online to login before it shows you your local data, plus you’re sharing information on what media files you have to Plex).
I personally have been using Jellyfin for years, and my only complain is that the LG app is slow and I get some videos that stuck for a few seconds in it (probably some codec thing, that I could fix by transcoding the media but I haven’t been bothered enough to figure it out)
I have only recently started with self hosting and after some minor frustration, i am in love!!! Plex isnt just worse cuz its paywalling your own files, its install, support and ui are pretty trash, imo. The one advantage i saw was that it was easy to share w folks. If your jellyfin is going to be secure AND accessible, thats more work to do.
Keep in mind jellyfin does NOT recommend using a pi, bc it struggles w transcoding etc. That said, my first go was an rpi5. I used this guide and it was pretty brainless… ezpz: Indian tech guru to the rescue!
Beware, uptime w the pi is pretty bad… had to restart server all the time, and some devices would not stream properly. It did work, mostly though, and it was a great intro for me since i just had it lying around.
Have fun!
The main difference between Plex and Jellyfin is the network setup. Plex takes care of that for you, while you have to set it up your self with Jellyfin. Another difference is that Plex can combine content from multiple servers ( I think. I’m not a plex user, so I don’t know for sure), while it will always be seperate servers in jellyfin.
Jellyfin will always have my heart though, because it’s open source and not here to make money. Plex also have a reputation to show ads and other stuff from streaming services.
The networking aspect is basically the only thing stopping me from switching from Plex to Jellyfin. I got Jellyfin running and accessing my server myself, while on my home network is easy. However, when it comes to accessing outside of my network, it gets complicated, and when it comes to other people accessing my server it gets more complicated, and then accessing my own server and friends’ servers it gets even more complicated.
With Plex, all of that is super easy. I can watch stuff from my own server and my friends’ servers on any device, including a web browser, and I can tell my mom, for example, “install Plex on your Roku and tell me what email address you use to log in” and boom, she has access to my library.
Plex vs Jellyfin is a lot like Windows vs Linux in my view.
There are things in Plex you can point to that you think keep you from moving. I point to things in Plex I am glad I left behind.
Jellyfin is A-ok for the tech illiterate. I actually think it might be easier to navigate and use because it’s a bit more simple than Plex.
Jellyfin all day every day
It still has issues to fix but it’s open source and actually yours
I really would like to switch but can’t for one reason. It lacks a user friendly logon screen like literally every other similar system. I’ve tested jellyfin with my family. They liked it, but they all hated having to enter a username and password instead of just having a list of profiles to select, so they voted no. This seems like such a trivial thing to implement, and would improve accessibility for lots of people.
