I want to unlock the ability to view content on my mobile device. I can do that with a one-time purchase (payed with google opinion rewards) or with a subscription. I want to unlock the ability for my entire family though, across multiple devices. Do I have to pay the “one-time payment” for every device? If so, the plex subscription might be worth it. Is there any other major benefit to having a plex subscription?
Normally people are using https://jellyfin.org/ although i have never used it so I’m not sure if it offers the same functionality but it’s worth a try.
Jellyfin has more functionality but is a lot more technical to set up. I didn’t think it was worth the effort since I already have a Plex server running, but I could see going through that if I didn’t.
Been running Plex with a lifetime pass for around a decade. Worth it for me for sure.
I’ve run both, and I found both required about the same level of technical understanding for an in house setup.
I started with Plex as it worked nicer with my remote, then moved to Jellyfin when I picked up an Android TV. It was the hardware transcoding (without having to pay) that sealed the deal for me.
The dealbreaker about plex for me was having to use their auth servers and having to route traffic through them.
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You create logins on your server which is authenticated through them. I don’t think it routes traffic, just sends login tokens.
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This is problematic because if Plex suffers an outage (which has happened before) users are suddenly unable to sign in. Even if your media server is running fine, through no fault of your own your content becomes inaccessible.
Jellyfin does not have this issue because authentication is handled locally.
However, Plex has too many nice features so I’ll be staying with them for the time being. Credits/intro skipping and Plexamp are a godsend, and the UI is in my opinion way better than what Jellyfin has.
If you use Linux Mint, its a one click install from the software manager GUI and the config happens in a web browser. I use a VPN to connect and play videos from it on my phone. I like it and have it set up everywhere I can.
The only thing I can think of when people say jellyfin is more technical. Is there you have to set up port forwarding and some kind of DNS for your server for remote access.
It’s really easy to set up if you use Docker.
I want to use Jellyfin, but the clients just aren’t up to par with Plex and last I checked Jellyfin won’t transcode downloaded media.
Jellyfin does hardware transcoding.
It’s weakness is client side apps. Most are web apps and not native. It’s getting better but in comparison plex has native apps on almost everything.
I’m a lifetime plex pass user since 2016
I personally dislike the Plex apps, but yeah its native support is unmatched. The official Jellyfin app for Android gets the job done but isn’t native. However, Findroid seems like the future to me on Android and I use the Kodi plugin on my TV (which is amazing).