Plex is increasing Plex Pass prices and paywalling remote playback for personal media at $1.99/month or $19.99/year.
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Honestly, I don't really understand how people prefer the Plex UI to Jellyfin. No shade, it just doesn't make sense to me. Plex is incredibly cluttered and busy. Jellyfin is simple and clean. I like the latter a lot more.
Jellyfin looks pretty bad on an iPad. Subtitles setting keep getting reset on their own, it doesn’t understand basic keyboard controls (spacebar to pause), the UI is overall tiny. Oftentimes it will forget to save the spot where I finished watching and on the next launch will happily play the movie from beginning.
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These seem like reasonable changes
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I also paid for a lifetime pass and still switched to Jellyfin last year. I find it's quite a bit better than Plex. The UI leaves a bit to be desired, but the performance for me is way better.
I'd suggest giving it a try
Lifetime pass for Plex too. A few months ago, it bubbled up an ad-filled version of a show I was watching in front of the show on my server. That is, it showed up in Continue Watching. I was briefly baffled when I started watching an ad on a show that I thought was streaming locally.
Anyway, I switched to Jellyfin. There's some imperfections, but so far it hasn't tried to trick me into watching ads.
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The only thing Plex has on Jellyfin are client apps. Sever-side… Jellyfin hands down. I was super surprised to see av1 transcoding support… In Plex we JUST got HEVC.
I’m not hating on Plex by any means, but when I have an issue with Plex, Jellyfin picks up the slack. I’ll be using Jellyfin full time after the ATV app re-write.
I am curious, though, what is it that makes you think Jellyfin’s software is inferior? Since I’ve been following, Jellyfin has released new features long before Plex.
I need client side apps and easily sharing libraries with remote friends. Both are pretty hard to give up and not quite there yet.
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I also paid for a lifetime pass and still switched to Jellyfin last year. I find it's quite a bit better than Plex. The UI leaves a bit to be desired, but the performance for me is way better.
I'd suggest giving it a try
This is my experience too. The web interface is usable, but a bit rough. It is a lot like early Plex web UI. The options for clients are okay on Android / Google TV but they are kinda bad on Apple TV.
Hopefully as more people discover Jellyfin interest in development of both the server and the clients will surpass Plex.
I appreciate what Plex has offered for free for many years now, and I was once a subscriber, but I don’t love it anymore because I’m looking for the straightest path to watching my library on my devices. Jellyfin delivers this better most of the time.
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I also paid for a lifetime pass and still switched to Jellyfin last year. I find it's quite a bit better than Plex. The UI leaves a bit to be desired, but the performance for me is way better.
I'd suggest giving it a try
Does Jellyfin have remote play? I've had a lifetime PP for years now, but most of my users don't. I will be installing Jellyfin tomorrow to run parallel until it can be a full replacement, or just forever.
I just was asking someone on here a few weeks back if switching off Plex while already having a PP was worth it. I think the gist was no rush since it's working, but this news is my canary.
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Does Jellyfin have good skip intro functionality for TV shows? That was the main thing keeping me from switching last time I considered a couple years ago
There’s an extension/plugin that you can install for that. I have been meaning to do that, but I keep forgetting, so I can’t say how good it is.
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It increases on April 29th, so if you still want to buy a lifetime pass at the current rate, you have until then.
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There’s an extension/plugin that you can install for that. I have been meaning to do that, but I keep forgetting, so I can’t say how good it is.
It’s this sort of fiddly stuff that gives me pause with Jellyfin. And the fact that people say their apps aren’t that good.
I’m not the sort of nerd who wants to fiddle with plugins or hook my laptop up to every TV in the house.
But I’ll give it a try just to see.
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I paid for a lifetime Plex Pass years and years ago now, I've definitely gotten my money's worth.
That being said, I fully expect more bullshit like this, up to and including ending my "lifetime" pass.
When that comes to pass, I'm so glad Jellyfin will be available for me to use.
“We regret to inform you that your Lifetime Pass has died in a restructuring related accident. Consider easing your loss by browsing our other pass options.”
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It’s this sort of fiddly stuff that gives me pause with Jellyfin. And the fact that people say their apps aren’t that good.
I’m not the sort of nerd who wants to fiddle with plugins or hook my laptop up to every TV in the house.
But I’ll give it a try just to see.
I get that. I prefer to use what just works. Plex has for a while been moving towards putting barriers towards using it locally. Jellyfin has less polish, but none of the bullshit.
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I get that. I prefer to use what just works. Plex has for a while been moving towards putting barriers towards using it locally. Jellyfin has less polish, but none of the bullshit.
Yeah, I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Jellyfin makes it hard because, let’s face it, open source doesn’t do UX very well. Plex makes it hard because they’re enshittifying.
And I can’t make my own media server with blackjack and hookers because I’m too busy.
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I'm not sure I understand the need for charging to play media on a private server when not on the local network. Why is this no longer going to be free? I'm glad I bought a lifetime pass many many years back but I definitely wouldn't pay for Plex nowadays with alternatives being comparable. What a silly choice they made~
I’m not defending them because it’s a shit move, but they clearly understand the most valuable feature is not their ad-ridden free content but rather the original value prop of the service.
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I installed Plex a couple years ago and when I found I actually had to sign into their servers to access my own content it was immediately uninstalled. It was only a matter of time before they pulled this kind of shit.
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I see Jellyfin suggested as an alternative to Plex here. I hope it is one day.
At the moment it’s nowhere close.
I’ve been running Jellyfin side-by-side Plex for two years and it’s still not a viable replacement for anyone but me. Parents, my partner, none of the possible solutions for them come anywhere near close to the usability of Plex.
That will likely change because plex is getting worse every day. More noise, more useless features.
But at the moment it really isn’t close for most folks who are familiar with the slickness of commercial apps.
Even from the administrative side, Jellyfin takes massively more system resources and it doesn’t reliably work with all my files.
Again, Jellyfin will get there it’s just not a drop in replacement for most folks yet.
And for context I started my DIY streaming / hosting life with a first gen Apple TV (pretty much a Mac mini with component video outs) that eventually got XBMC and then Boxee installed on it. I even have the forksaken Boxee box.
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I need client side apps and easily sharing libraries with remote friends. Both are pretty hard to give up and not quite there yet.
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Jellyfin looks pretty bad on an iPad. Subtitles setting keep getting reset on their own, it doesn’t understand basic keyboard controls (spacebar to pause), the UI is overall tiny. Oftentimes it will forget to save the spot where I finished watching and on the next launch will happily play the movie from beginning.
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These seem like reasonable changes
They are updating the app at some point, which is removing the watch together feature. I wonder what else may disappear.
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It’s this sort of fiddly stuff that gives me pause with Jellyfin. And the fact that people say their apps aren’t that good.
I’m not the sort of nerd who wants to fiddle with plugins or hook my laptop up to every TV in the house.
But I’ll give it a try just to see.
Jellyfin did some work on integrating the Skip Intros plugin a lot better, AFAIK you just have to enable it once on your server and then once in the settings of all Jellyfin web players.
As for apps, there are some good native third party apps which I mentioned here.
