Plex is discontinuing its “watch together” feature
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I have had a plex instance but when they started adding their own movies and crapola into it, and requiring logins and etc etc etc I started keeping a Jellyfin instance live as a hedge. I still use Plex primarily, but use Jellyfin and keep it patched just in case. If there's any kind of ugly action with Plex, I feel like my bets are pretty well hedged. Plex definitely has a lot more polish than Jellyfin, but I wouldn't doubt if there is a rug-pull in some way or another. After all, Plex sold a bunch of lifetime subscriptions ONCE but they still end up paying to support those. Sooner or later they are going to want more money again.
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Emby I feel is more mature then jellyfin in the sense of every device my family or I have just works on emby but has some issues on jellyfin. Also emby has features closer to plex that jellyfin doesn't have, like offline downloads and, at least in the emby beta, smart playlists. Jellyfin gives you more settings options for things like transcoding and per user settings than emby or plex. Both programs do some things better than plex too, like scheduling individual server tasks or outright disabling them. Overall from my experience a direct competitor to plex right now is emby while I would say a few more features are needed for jellyfin to be a direct competitor.
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That's interesting, I wonder why no one in these comments mentioned it if it's a bit farther along than Jellyfin. Maybe just good word-of-mouth marketing?
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By it's not too difficult, are you actually expecting average users to run certbot cli?
We need to get out of the mindset of jellyfin being self hosted and into the same mindset Plex has of you're just running it.
Hosting is one of my professional duties so I don't have problems doing all this. But any idiot can install PMS and have secure shared communication with their friends and family. And we need those idiots.
Jellyfin needs the ability to request certificates and install them without any serious user intervention beyond the initial setup, maybe just an email address. And none of this should require users to touch CLI. This probably needs to be dynamic DNS, maybe we also partner with duck DNS. Right in the GUI make an account, store off the URL in the configs.
I'm presuming this means a le API that will not change from the let's encrypt side, or advanced clear notice when things are going to change, with opportunities to delay if possible and necessary. That's where your actual partnership comes in.
We need that thing that Plex has that shows you that your server is remotely accessible from inside the admin. This will help the uninitiated set up a port forwarding and test it.
Once the server is set up and working we don't need centralized login but we need something. Start with the main settings page, where you drop down in your account on the admin We need an invite users option. It just takes you to users add.
Users add needs to have email or slack or something so that when you add the user it can notify them that they've been added and send them a link back to your server. It could be a mailto:// or maybe just a page saying here's the link to share with your family.
That link would contain the dynamic DNS previously set up and whatever port you're able to use.
It's just a handful of creature comforts that plex does particularly well that is barely touched on the jellyfin side. But there's some of the most important comforts.
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I used to use Plex as well but similar to your remarks, they started doing a lot more updates that added a "corporate" feel to it such as adding their own movies/tv. Nothing inherently wrong with that but in my opinion, when a platform has the option to add features such as that, that costs money. And they're gonna want to get that money back somehow. Yeah they offer subscriptions but to me this all was a redflag that I could see them taking further in the future. Where as Jellyfin is completely free at the cost of a little extra work to setup.
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Jellyfin is actually open source and free. Totally self hosted. Emby is closed source and has a licensing model similar to Plex's.
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Agree, they’re making all the wrong moves lately
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Switch to jellyfin, it's really at the point where it's ready for everyone
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I loved the idea of navidrome and also briefly ran an instance, and like you use plexamp heavily. I stopped using Navi because one day it broke, and I found the plexamp experience just better.
Maybe it's time to try again.
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you are correct. On holiday with a few beers I'm surprised I got that close lol
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Thanks for sharing
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Thanks for sharing
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I run both Plex and Jellyfin. Jellyfin is ready for everyone who doesn’t have to deal with the Mother-in-Law Factor. Plex has an easy setup process, and I could walk my MIL through it on my phone. In 5 minutes, her TV was connected to my server.
Jellyfin isn’t to that point yet, and likely never will be. Since there’s no centralized server for an app to phone home to, there’s no way to create a unified account creation/login experience. Jellyfin is nice as a “just for me” server. But as soon as I have to help others use it, it becomes a nightmare. Walking my MIL through setting up Jellyfin on her TV was the reason I re-installed Plex in the first place.
I had finally converted my wife away from using paid streaming apps, and dealt with all of the “Why do I have to use three different apps to access it on my three different devices? They all look different and are harder to use” complaints. By the time it got around to my MIL, I was tired of dealing with it and just reinstalled Plex so people could have a consistent experience.
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Downloads definitely haven’t been removed. I use it virtually every day to watch stuff on my iPad at work.
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I'll sadly have to keep using Plex until jellyfish makes library sharing simple.
I have like 10 different family members using my server. If I have to do anything beyond just letting them log in to a plex account on the app to get access, they just won't.
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Jellyfin has this, but it's kinda busted: https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-syncplay. There was one guy working on it and he apparently vanished. It still does work for some use-cases but be prepared for some rough edges.
Maybe someone will pick up the torch now that Plex is axing it?
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I'm in the same boat, I use Jellyfin where I can but Plex is still so much better for sharing, especially with non-technical people so I run both. Really hoping the Jellyfin folks realize they can sell a relay service to make some money and fund their development to improve the app. Seems to be working well for Homeassistant!
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Is adding a URL too much? Jellyfin is also just login in addition to enter the server URL.
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Maybe I'm not understanding offline downloads, but I'm able to download media and watch it offline.
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Yes. Even with Plex I've had people just never log in.
Most of the problem isn't even Plex/Jellyfin/etc.'s fault, it's that the UI of smart tvs is a nightmare hellscape running on underpowered hardware and people just want to interact with it as little as possible. The absolute best thing would be to copy Netflix/Disney/etc and throw a QR code on the screen to sidestep that by throwing to the phone to authenticate.
