this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

The addons are great too. The intro/outro skip is slick and nearly flawless, background subtitle download is seamless, on and on.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I've been using both for ages.

For remote access to friends plex is easier and cleaner.

For offline viewing in Android plex is cleaner

I'm running tailscale with jellyfin for personal use and it's wonderful, But I wouldn't ask my relatives to do that and I don't trust to surface the port. Plex has a dedicated security team and 2FA.

The Roku client for jellyfin is also a futureless husk of a client.

I have lifetime Plex so I'm in no hurry to do a full conversion. I would love to drop plex all together though

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 18 hours ago

Jellyfin is so underrated

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I tried to switch from plex to jellyfin 2 months ago, running both at the same time in containers, but I removed jellyfin after a week

The main issue was the CPU usage, on idle Jellyfin was using about 1vcore while plex used only 0.3, no background tasks seemed to be running and after a week my 4tb of media should have been indexed

Also a feature that I use regularly with plexamp, starting a radio from a song, was not giving me good results on finamp

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Plex has recently started applying a green filter to certain content.

The files Plex has a problem with work just fine in Jellyfin.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

No, that issue can happen on Jellyfin as well, because it's happened to me. But that was before I used the Trash guides to set up Sonarr/Radarr so that Dolby Vision files were never fetched.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 19 hours ago (11 children)

It is…..if you use a computer. Their AppleTV app still looks like some random coder’s pet project with random playback issues.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I just sucked it up and paid for Infuse Pro and now my Apple TV experience with Jellyfin is great

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

I've had Infuse Pro for about 6 years and it has been an absolutely perfect app for me. I've used it across many different iterations of home media servers (Emby, Jellyfin, NFS, SMB, etc...)

If you use Apple devices it's the best way to go.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 16 hours ago

I've been running plex since 2016 and jellyfin since 2019. I'm slowly moving users over to jellyfin with the plan to cut off plex at somepoint in the next couple years. Jellyfin is missing some quality of life features but nothing super crazy

[–] [email protected] 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Jellyfin seems solid.

The only issues I've had are with dodgy media files. Obviously better player hardware gets you better performance, but transcoding eliminates some of those issues.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Yep same. I got an Intel Arc card for transcoding and it plays on anything perfectly now.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

I would probably be using Jellyfin if it were just me.

The handful of people in my family that use my Plex server though are all non-tech people. When I hear that random smart TV apps aren’t nearly as good, that is what gives me pause.

That, plus the fact that a lifetime Plex pass was a one-time purchase on sale several years ago. It may be a proprietary product instead of FOSS like it should be, but at least they aren’t trying switch me to $1.99/month or some BS like that. But they’re probably smart enough to know they’d really start the Plexodus!

Maybe I should run jellyfin alongside Plex to keep better tabs on it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

Absolutely run them together.

Especially in light of Plex trying to keep tabs on what everybody's doing and probably resell that data.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

If the apps don't work for you then I'd stick to plex. But I had the opposite experience, especially with the Plex Android TV app, it is so shitty... And the Jellyfin Android TV app is rock solid

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

I guess it’s worth trying rather than relying on vague internet comments. I’ll set it up for myself, then I can try apps on the various platforms as I visit people, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Idk PlexAmp is the killer app that I can't stop using. Does jellyfin have something similar?

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 day ago (11 children)

After having been shafted by sublime text I will never believe anything called a "lifetime subscription" is such.

A "lifetime subscription" is just a "until we decide otherwise" subscription

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 21 hours ago

The applications aren't that good. That's the only thing keeping me from switching completely. Subtitles, aspect ratio, audio track selection just don't work as expected. In some cases I can only pick the aspect ratio and no subs and sometimes the other way around? Also if I have no subs for a movie, I can't search for them on the fly - good feature of plex. As it stands, jellyfin video player is not up to my standards and I can't switch yet. I use it for porn though. That works fine.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I've found the opposite to be the case unfortunately. Plex "just works" while my jellyfin server had almost constant issues with subtitles (two of my frequent users need these because of hearing problems) and would frequently crash requiring docker restarts.

I adopted jellyfin very early, used it for many (maybe 6?) years and these problems only got worse over time.

I always prefer open source (often to a fault) but I am glad I switched to Plex a few months ago. I got the lifetime pass for cheap for black Friday. I still leave jellyfin running for a few users, but everyone else has already switched over.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

I don't use it for myself but my experience with Jellyfin is the subtitles UX kind of sucks. It got a lot better on the Android TV app recently (ty to the maintainer!), particularly with improved subtitle support, but because of ExoPlayer it still can't play bitmapped embedded subtitles easily, only .srt subtitles.

The experience on iOS/appletv with Jellyfin/Swiftfin was so bad that I ended up recommending Infuse. Infuse is a great app, but it's not a libre app, which kind of clashes with the rest of Jellyfin in that regard. And, once again, it needs massaging: unless you want to be popped up with a buy Infuse Pro pop-up your video and audio has to be in certain codecs.

As I said, I don't use these things, myself. I don't even have a TV. But every now and again, I will put a file up for some relatives, and I want it to be totally directly playable, because my server is just an old laptop. So I have to spend a lot of manual time making sure the files are juuuuust right. If there comes a day where there's direct playback with embedded PGS or SRT subtitles on all platforms that will be the day the Jellyfin suite of software becomes 10/10 software for me.

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