Plex has overhauled its apps from the ground up to make them easier to navigate. The teams says it will be able to roll out new features faster as well.
I used plex for years and years with my lifetime license, but a few years ago I felt Plex was way too bloated and swapped to Jellyfin. I don’t think about Plex now unless an article mentions it. There’s no feature of functionality I notice that’s missing, and I have a low tolerance for dealing with troubleshooting when I want to relax.
Jellyfin didn’t have an app for my then 3-year old LG WebOS TV so, unfortunately, I couldn’t use it.
I know people are going to say I should just use a smart box connected to my TV instead of my TV’s smart features, but there’s a difference in usability that they’re not acknowledging.
I abandoned jellyfin shortly into my self hosting setup. Plex just worked, with Jellyfin I spent an hour trying to figure out how to get it to serve an acceptable to Firefox codec and never succeeded. I’m sure with more effort I could have figured out what the magic combination was, but it wasn’t obvious and I had too many other things to set up.
Not sure, I don’t use Jellyfin myself. I use Emby. It’s the more feature rich and polished older brother of Jellyfin.
I’ve been following Jellyfin’s progress because I’d like to go full FOSS but it’s still just not there yet. UI, clients, performance, all too big a downgrade from Plex still.
I can definitely recommend you look into Emby. It’s still the best alternative to Plex’s enshittification.
I can’t speak for iOS but for Android the official app allows you to download the files but you have to watch them in another app. There’s a 3rd party app for Jellyfin that lets you download and watch in-app. It’s peak open source fragmentation.
Server transcoding is there and works great though.
Right now, Jellyfin is still too buggy and feature-poor for my tastes. I can’t imagine trying to convince my friends and family to use it instaed of Plex. Jellyfin shows a lot of promise though. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I’m comfotable making the switch. I suppose Plex might force my hand before that.
Even my mother can use it.
The only issues I encountered so far is playback on my chromecast dongle with the embedded player refusing to play nicely with some files/subtitles.
I used plex for years and years with my lifetime license, but a few years ago I felt Plex was way too bloated and swapped to Jellyfin. I don’t think about Plex now unless an article mentions it. There’s no feature of functionality I notice that’s missing, and I have a low tolerance for dealing with troubleshooting when I want to relax.
Are jellyfin apps available on most devices yet?
Jellyfin didn’t have an app for my then 3-year old LG WebOS TV so, unfortunately, I couldn’t use it.
I know people are going to say I should just use a smart box connected to my TV instead of my TV’s smart features, but there’s a difference in usability that they’re not acknowledging.
Yes
Not for xbox
Jellyfin does support dlna as well
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DLNA is pretty janky compared to a real app though.
I abandoned jellyfin shortly into my self hosting setup. Plex just worked, with Jellyfin I spent an hour trying to figure out how to get it to serve an acceptable to Firefox codec and never succeeded. I’m sure with more effort I could have figured out what the magic combination was, but it wasn’t obvious and I had too many other things to set up.
How long ago was that and do you remember the codec?
They finally added intro skipping within the last month that works with the web client. Now we just have to wait for clients to update.
How about iOS downloads for offline viewing? Server transcoding?
I’m a lifetime plex user but this enshitification has been increasing a lot lately.
Not sure, I don’t use Jellyfin myself. I use Emby. It’s the more feature rich and polished older brother of Jellyfin.
I’ve been following Jellyfin’s progress because I’d like to go full FOSS but it’s still just not there yet. UI, clients, performance, all too big a downgrade from Plex still.
I can definitely recommend you look into Emby. It’s still the best alternative to Plex’s enshittification.
Thanks so much for the response. You understand. I want to go OSS but I’m just not quite willing to settle for a huge feature gap.
It’s funny, it’s a race to see if the OSS can get good enough or if the commercial software gets shitty enough.
Eventually I’ll switch but the loss in feature has to outweigh the shit.
I can’t speak for iOS but for Android the official app allows you to download the files but you have to watch them in another app. There’s a 3rd party app for Jellyfin that lets you download and watch in-app. It’s peak open source fragmentation.
Server transcoding is there and works great though.
Right now, Jellyfin is still too buggy and feature-poor for my tastes. I can’t imagine trying to convince my friends and family to use it instaed of Plex. Jellyfin shows a lot of promise though. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I’m comfotable making the switch. I suppose Plex might force my hand before that.
What is feature poor about it?
Even my mother can use it.
The only issues I encountered so far is playback on my chromecast dongle with the embedded player refusing to play nicely with some files/subtitles.