I use Plex every day. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I should quit.
The program, which allows you to turn your personal collection of TV shows and movies in a Netflix-style streaming service, it’s pretty simple. But Plex is offered by a company that, as of late, seems more focused on adding features than improving a cluttered user interface. Recently, it added a social platform and user reviews, two features that I quickly turned off. I want to look at things—not talk about them with strangers (I have friends for that). The company continues to make design choices that push its ad-supported streaming options over the personal media collection and DVR functionality I use the service to enjoy.
This can make sense from a business perspective. But it doesn’t make sense for my personal use of Plex, which is to watch live TV and TV shows that I’ve recorded and stored on my own computer. I pay an annual subscription fee of $70 for this. I could avoid the annual subscription by buying a lifetime pass, but only Plex the price has gone up from $250 to $750. That’s over a decade of annual passes, assuming Plex lasts the next ten years.
All of which is to say there are reasons to be frustrated with Plex. And that’s enough to look inside Jellyfishfree and open source software that offers many of the features that make Plex so attractive. Is Jellyfin a good alternative? It depends.
Solid Bases, Rocky Remote Access
If the main thing you want is to watch your digital collection of TV shows and movies in your home, I have good news for you: Jellyfin works well. You can download the server, point to your media, and access that media on other devices on your network, all in minutes.
Scanning works fine. In my case, a few things were mislabeled, but I dealt with similar issues setting up Plex and I know I can fix it without too much trouble—it’s just a matter of naming the files correctly.
You can access your server on the local network by typing the local IP into your address bar, which is easy. And there are Jellyfin customers for every major desktop, mobile, and smart TV platform you can think of. Simply put, you can get local media streaming up and running very quickly. If that’s your main use and you’re tired of Plex, I can confidently say Jellyfin is ready for you without fuss.
But sometimes you are not at home. Weird, I know. One of the best things about Plex is easy remote accesswhich allows you to view your media outside of your home network. With most modern routers, you won’t need to do much—the networks are taken care of. This is possible because Plex, the company, runs the infrastructure that routes other devices to your home server.
Jellyfin has no such infrastructure. If you want to access your Jellyfin server while away from home, you need to set up the network infrastructure yourself. This may mean paying for a domain name and pointing it to your server; can mean setting up a VPNor it could mean messing with port supply. There are instructionsbut they are very clearly intended for power users.
Basically, you have to play. Now, the kind of person who runs their own Plex server can probably navigate through all of this. But if you share access to your Plex server with others, Jellyfin will be difficult for them to set up and use.
