Jellyfin is not just good... but *better* than Plex now?!
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That's so weird. I've been using Plex for years and had never heard of "Passout Protection" until looking it up just now, nor does it ever stop playback on its own for me unless it reaches the end of the queue. I'm using the free version via web browser on my computer. Maybe it's a setting that only affects apps? Continuous playback on Plex is one of the reasons why I've always preferred it over Netflix, etc.
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It's still terrible for music. There's not even user-based star rating...
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Jellyfin is still not up to snuff with where Plex was pre-enshittification, but Plex is enshittified. For everyone in between, there’s Emby, which I have been very happy with.
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Plex is closed source and gradually being enshittified. You might not leave today, but you should have an exit plan.
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The other thing is that my libraries are alphabetical in Jellyfin, so “Anime” comes before “Kaiju”, and I truly can’t stand the idea that Godzilla gets sent to the back of the bus.
If you mean the order the libraries are listed in the web interface, you change that from "User settings" -> "Home".
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Sorry, I misread. What is bad about the UX exactly? You don't need to customize anything if you don't want to; "it just works". And I dont follow you on how having the option to customize things makes it a bad user experience. You're assuming the native UI is bad for some reason.
I've used Plex a lot too back in the day but there's nothing it provides that Jellyfin doesn't do out of the box + self-hosted + for free.
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I randomly tried using Jellyfin today instead of Plex, but Jellyfin kept crashing my browser and logging me out, so I wasn't in the mood to troubleshoot, so I just gave up and went back to Plex.
In the past, I've been annoyed that Jellyfin didn't seem to have an option to sort media by "Last Episode Date Added", nor did it seem to have a way to build a queue of episodes from multiple different shows. I think I was also having trouble figuring out how to add multiple sources... I have my "long term" library on a local hard drive, plus anything "new" on a seedbox.
I theoretically want to fully switch over eventually, but so far, Plex is still good enough for my use case.
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Sorry, I misread. What is bad about the UX exactly? You don’t need to customize anything if you don’t want to; “it just works”. And I dont follow you on how having the option to customize things makes it a bad user experience. You’re assuming the native UI is bad for some reason.
Being given the tools to customize something by hand is not the same as being offered enough option to simply choose what you want. Having a good UX means that there was a UI designer who alread did the customzing for you and you simply have click a button to apply it.
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Is there a way to customize the order of libraries?
Nope.
subtitle playback
This is still a little weird. I found that the web client (in a browser) handles this really well with default settings. However, if I try to use the desktop app or a mobile client, I have to force it to burn in the subtitles for them to show up reliably. Fortunately, there are per-client settings for this now:
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I actually had the opposite experience, better subtitle support without transcoding the video track with Jellyfin
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I barely even remember what the specific dealbreaker was, honestly. I was just dabbling, considering expanding my NAS and maybe getting the gear to dump my 4K BluRays. I gave Jellyfin a try first, I went through the setup process and I remember it being a) confusing to set up directly on my NAS, and b) very ugly.
I gave Plex a try to cover my bases and that looked better and got me up and running faster, so I just stuck with it. Easier remote access was a feature for me there, too, but the choice was made purely on the onboarding process, there was nothing activist to it. It's maybe the most user-level, unresearched decision I've taken on software in a while, honestly. I was already trying to figuring out the ripping and encoding at the same time, so I didn't want to put any additional attention on library management.
If anything I gave Jellyfin a bit more of a chance than I otherwise would have because I had heard a lot of angry chatter from people about Plex. I guess I came in after they made the changes that pissed people off and didn't mind the state of the current product without a frame of reference. I would have bailed if there was a subscription, but they do have a one-and-done purchase, so now I'm set up, it's working and I've paid them as much as I'm going to, so I'm fine with it. I do appreciate a free alternative existing, though.
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Plex was always terrible, anyone that uses it is an imbecile.
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I have a lifetime Plex pass but am still annoyed at having to deal with "recommended" every time a device is setup or reset.
The recommended view is useless and there is no way to make library the default view. You have to reset every source. It makes it incredibly annoying helping my family remotely to get to family videos.
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Does jellyfin do any kind of library sharing? Because that's the killer feature that Plex has for me.
I have three friends who have Plex servers and between the four of us, I think we have all the content anyone could want.
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My media folder is a symlink to my NAS mount if that's what you're asking.
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gradually
Yeah nah. It's going pretty fast tbh.
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If you're on mobile, the app Streamyfin for Android and iOS is fantastic. Handles downloads, transcoding, great UI, and it even integrates with additional third-party tools that enhance it further, like Jellyseer.
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Yeah, I don't think it effects browsers.
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Plexamp being behind a paywall stopped me from using Plex for music. Went with Navidrome and it works great.
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I used Plex for a long time and was very tempted by their lifetime plan. I tried Jellyfin but at the time it just wasn't a patch on Plex. I continued with Plex but always had that itch to get away from closed source. I eventually tried Jellyfin again and whilst it's definitely not as feature rich as Plex, it does what I need from it which is a central store of media that any TV in my house can use. I've even given a few friends a login so they can watch content.
That said, I still have Plex running as I have one Samsung TV and there's no official Jellyfin client for it. Yes there's some long winded developer way to get one on but I just can't be bothered.
