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.
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.
Thanks rusty for the helpful answer! I’m going to have a look at downloading it and setting it up later tonight. I’ve heard a lot of good things about tailscale, so I might look for some newbie tailscale guides. When it comes to that kinda stuff, my biggest worry is that I might miss a step or not set it up right and then I’ve ended up exposing everything to the unfiltered internet and then my PC ends up in a botnet
I want to switch to jellyfin, I selfhost but I don’t want to open a port directly to my server. I don’t understand how everyone else figures this out and I’m apparently an idiot.
Also do people expect all who use my server to start a VPN each time? What if they leave it on and their other streaming services are using my bandwidth.
I don’t understand and I have looked it up but I don’t see a consensus.
I just use Tailscale when remote streaming.
From their docs:
By default, Tailscale acts as an overlay network: it only routes traffic between devices running Tailscale, but doesn’t touch your public internet traffic, such as when you visit Google or Twitter. The overlay network configuration is ideal for most people who need secure communication between sensitive devices (such as company servers or home computers), but don’t need extra layers of encryption or latency for their public internet connection.
Opening a port isn’t really bad if you have your firewall configured properly. You will have to open a port either way with jellyfin or wireguard. If you have a TLS/SSL certificate then just doing jellyfin is fine (but have good passwords since it’s public facing), otherwise a VPN like wireguard will handle encryption for you.
As for managing traffic on the VPN you can follow this advice: https://serverfault.com/questions/1075973/wireguard-how-to-only-tunnel-some-of-the-traffic
Basically setup your firewall to stop extra traffic on your end, and change accessible IPs in wireguard to your service(s) so the peer knows not to talk on that interface for unrelated things.
It isn’t bad until an exploit is discovered on jellyfin. Then it can get really bad.
It already happened on Plex. Just a matter of time until it happens to Jellyfin.
I deleted Plex from my barely functional home server.
I’ll give Jellyfin a try. I just want to be able to access my music away from home
Use Finamp for offline Music from Jellyfin
I prefer Symfonium
As in, symfonium.app? If so, seems questionable, given its proprietary nature and unavailability outside the play store. Although, the feature set is interesting.
Edit: yeeeah, no
From their FAQ:
licences checks requires a call to the verification server from time to time
The license is tied to your Google account
This is why we stremio
Anyone have a good audiobook app to use with emby? I’ve completely switched all my video to emby but still have plex for plexamp with my audiobooks
Not emby related but for audiobooks, it doesn’t get better than audiobookshelf.
+1. Audiobookshelf is fantastic.
I was planning to switch to Jellyfin but having to sideload the app in my Samsung TV is a headache for me. But guess I will be doing exactly that now.
If you really don’t want to deal with sideloading, Jellyfin can be accessed through an add on in Kodi (assuming Kodi is easily installable on the TV)
Jellyfin vue and access it from a browser.
Thus to all proprietary software!
From what the site says it’s just putting more stuff behind a paywall due to rising costs. That paywall is a subscription or the lifetime pass from what I can tell.
Since I got the lifetime pass a while back and host my own server, my brother should still be able to watch stuff in my library from his house. I also travel a lot so I’m going to be pissed if that’s not the case.
When I chose to use Plex initially it just fit better with what I needed. I can change to something else if I need to but it sounds like my lifetime pass means not much is going to change for me.
If you have Plex pass, this does not effect anyone using your server.
It’s still a shit asshole move by them, but at least it isn’t catastrophic. Hopefully by the time Plex starts to suck jellyfin will not blow chunks.
That is so sad. I was just reconfigured my hone server with plex last weekend. Seems like it’s time to switch to jellyfin now. Luckily didn’t finish the configuration.
If you have Plex pass (honestly, get the lifetime, it’s worth it, jellyfin is pretty shit compared to Plex) it will not effect users of your server.
I had Plex lifetime and still switched to Jellyfin as an open source and community driven project will always be better in the future compared to a commercial product
How exactly is it “pretty shit”? Running Jellyfin on my network with zero issues whatsoever.
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 use kodi… Not sure why jellyfin would be better. But sure, I cant stream to other devices than my tv.
Perhaps you can merge Jellyfin and Kodi, I know you can use your Plex Server with Kodi.
Just gonna… Drop this here…
In my experience Jellyfin doesn’t find or handle subtitles nearly as well, and I can’t watch modern movies without subtitles.
I have never had an issue with subtitles on Jellyfin, and my wife has turned our household into an always-on subtitles household. Are you making use of the Open Subtitles plugin?
I’m probably gonna set up Jellyfin this weekend. Any tips for a first timer?
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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
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
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
Pretty sure they’re also sunsetting watch together lol
Just to make it clear to any other people reading this, Jellyfin has Group Sync where you can create groups with participants and syncplay media.
