The open source alternative to my sponsor - Jellyfin vs Plex

my relationship with Plex has been

Rocky it feels like they've changed hey

uh can I watch a movie

when I signed up for a lifetime license

our future looked so bright

but what happened I've been a loyal Plex

user basically since I found out that

air video didn't have an Android client

and for the most part it's been great

well at least it's worked

mostly the truth is that increasingly

I've been feeling like plexus lost its

way I don't want games or live TV or yet

another bloody movie rental service I

want a management tool that organizes

and streams my media library to my

devices and while it does still do that

mostly the community feedback on our

recent sponsored video was the little

push that I needed to finally check out

the big competitor even internally

around here jellyfin which is a free and

open source media management tool has

received a lot of Praise but like any

open source project you can count on

three things

some really good ideas and functionality

that commercial products would do well

to copy a rabid fan base that will turn

any discussion of the paid alternative

into an excuse to talk about it and some

quirks that you'd have to have a blind

spot the size of Jupiter to miss that in

mind then let's go swimming with the

jellies and see what I've been missing

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Zoho desk one of the best things about

plex is the Doom appeal whatever the

device is be it a Samsung tizen TV

PlayStation 5 VR headset or even a

Facebook portal there's a first party

app that will let you stream your own

DVD and Blu-ray rips to it need more

Shrek on your Android auto dashboard

while you barrel down the highway well

they've got an app for that too no sorry

I'm just kidding about that one there is

a Plex app for the car but it's Audio

Only that's a key benefit of being a

for-profit company as opposed to an open

source project you have the money to pay

people to handle not just porting your

applications over and testing them but

also to deal with the tedium of getting

them certified and listed on the various

app stores I can't speak for our

International audience but in Canada

there are a total of 11 streaming apps

available on the PS4 five that aren't

specifically for sports and Plex is the

only one of them that's for self-hosted

media and while jellyfin does also have

an impressive lineup of official apps

especially when they're free and open

source nature is accounted for many of

them are simply rappers for web browsers

that access the standard jellyfin web UI

it is fine for most scenarios but as

we'll discuss later confining developers

to the limitations of a browser does

have some downsides just try using

jellyfin on the Xbox and it will become

painfully clear that this method doesn't

work well for every use case the

jellyfin team does seem to be moving to

address this issue though on iOS there

are currently two official apps

available jellyfin mobile which is the

standard web browser implementation and

the newly released Swift fin a proper

native app that aims to be a standalone

solution instead of piggybacking on top

of safari for now all that one can do is

basic Library browsing and Playback

which barely scratches the surface of

jellyfin's capabilities but unlike its

web browser dozen it finally works on

Apple TV and could help to expand

jellyfin's feature set in the future of

course none of these apps matter if we

don't have a server to get the content

from in the first place

thankfully neither Plex nor jellyfin are

difficult to set up on a Windows desktop

it's as easy as running an app and

following the basic instructions all you

really need is familiarity with file

explorer so that you can point the

server app at the correct folder or

folders on Docker it is a touch trick

here but it's not any more challenging

than setting up any other Docker image

the one curveball is you do need to

choose between the Linux server image

and the official image both are

acceptable but the Linux server group

just likes to change configurations a

little bit compared to stock once the

base installation is concluded the finer

details of setup are all done through

the web browser of any machine on the

same network as the server the only

scenario where there seems to be a big

difference in server install methods is

with FreeBSD Plex supports it jellyfin

does not and trunas core is based on

FreeBSD so it's a bit of a bummer for

users of what is arguably the best free

Nas software setting up the library was

as close to seamless as possible on

either platform with only minor hiccups

for a few titles on Plex for example our

Shrek Blu-ray rips were not detected

properly on Deli fin though Thor

Ragnarok was not detected properly it

was slightly easier though to apply

metadata on Plex as it gave us

recommendations for what this

unrecognized title could be while on

jellyfin we needed to use movie DB in

order to set it subtitles were

downloaded automatically by both though

which is a huge Plus for accessibility

DVD special features and extras on the

other hand were not handled

automatically on either system both

times the files needed to be put in a

specially named folder and have their

metadata entered manually this would be

a great area for both of them to improve

though we're not quite sure if there's a

good resource that already exists for

cataloging the home release extras

especially given how many of them there

are and how different regions and even

different releases of the same movie in

the same region will often have

different content speaking of content

filtering on jellyfin works pretty well

on web and Android the UI is easy to

follow with with enough options to find

most of what you want and all of them

seem to just work multiple options can

be selected both from different filters

and from the same section on Google TV

and swiftfin that's unfortunately not

the case you have some sorting options

but it's not really a replacement Plex

content filtering on the other hand is

much more robust but it lacks the

ability to mix and match options usually

on Android you can mix and match away

but don't try it on your TV in order to

get to the filtering on either though

you will first have to go into the

section for the type of media you want

then into the library tab from the

default recommended tab jellyfin's

default view by contrast just feels less

demanding the first thing you see is a

row of your different Library types

followed by a row of media you can

continue to watch and then finally a

list of the latest additions to your

libraries no matter what you want you're

clicking in roughly the same area and it

doesn't require you to use multiple

menus and click all around your screen

just to filter through shows or movies

parental controls in jelly are likewise

pretty complete libraries can be

restricted by account and maximum

parental ratings can be set since we're

in Canada the Canadian Motion Picture

ratings are used but even when media has

a rating from another system it seems to

translate over pretty well a PG-13

rating for example will be read the same

as a 14a rating Plex has a cool feature

called managed accounts which allows you

to set maximum ratings by selecting one

of four restriction profiles younger kid

older kid teen and none you're not able

to customize however what these profiles

restrict or create new ones which seems

like kind of an oversight to me if you

create a managed account you can

actually share that with your friends

and family but they won't have very much

autonomy over it you can share your

entire Plex library with their separate

account that they control though turning

your Blu-ray collection into a sort of

Legally problematic private Netflix

in order to use all the features though

they will need a Plex pass of their own

jelly Fin's only option for accounts is

to create one manually for each person

not unlike a Plex managed account which

isn't a problem but they won't be able

to select their own username or recover

their account if they lose their

password so if you enjoy resetting great

aunt Janine's six letter password every

three weeks so she can watch her stories

uh you'll have a great time with that

how about the actual video players

though as it turns out these vary a fair

bit between platforms on web Plex allows

you to do quite a bit like changing the

subtitle Styles accessing the play queue

adding a video to a playlist downloading

the file and granting Library access to

others the only things jellyfin does

that Plex doesn't do out of the box is

show you what time it will be when the

video ends that's kind of cool while

they can both skip intros they both use

the same flawed method of detecting

intros audio gets compared between

episodes and sections that match are

flagged as long as they adhere to a rule

set as a solution it's far from perfect

especially for shows with opening gags

and variations such as how Lisa's

saxophone riff changes slightly between

episodes a better solution might be to

allow a mixture of this and scene

recognition with the ability to tweak it

between shows Plex does not detect

intros for example that are less than 20

seconds long and can only find them in

the first half of an episode jellyfin's

intro skip on the other hand is a

plug-in that needs to be installed which

isn't convenient but the payoff is that

it is much more customizable that

customization comes at a cost though as

the only way to implement the skip intro

button is with the web UI for those

browser wrapper apps like the jellyfin

player on iOS that works fine but for

the native apps like Swift thin and iOS

and Apple tv there is no way to pop up

that skip intro button on Google TV both

uis are similar to pretty much any other

video streaming app Plex lets you toggle

subtitles playlists and playback quality

the usual oh and it also has an added

bonus sometimes when you switch playback

quality on a TV show just after the

credits finish it'll act like the

episode has completed kicking you to the

the up next screen and then it'll auto

play the next episode at original

quality which is this this is intended

functionality right man I've seen a lot

of bugs on Plex uh jellyfin on Google TV

while looking similar enough actually

has a surprising amount of options for

customization you can change the entire

layout of the home screen the

functionality of buttons on your remote

and because it's a native app you can

even change what underlying video player

is being used though again this means

that plugins that rely on modifying the

web version like skip intro simply will

not work on standard phone and tablet

Android we see the biggest difference so

far between the uis functionally they're

not that different from their Google TV

counterparts aside from one key detail

the ability to download one of plex's

biggest selling features is offline

mobile access they know it and you will

too if you try to use a free account

gotta love that upsell the idea and this

came along long before YouTube and

Netflix offered similar functionality is

that you can download your videos at

whatever resolution in bitrate you like

and then watch them on the plane or

wherever else you happen to be then when

you come back online any episodes or

movies that you watched will be marked

as such in your library man that would

be a cool feature to have wouldn't it of

course it would be which is why I get so

angry about this plex's mobile downloads

feature is buggy at best and

non-functional to the point of false

advertising at worst on Android

downloads

might work fine for you mostly so long

as you want the original quality but

half a gig or more per 20 minute episode

is going to eat up your storage very

quickly if you're working with web

downloads and just two full fat Blu-rays

could completely fill up an entry-level

phone but then that's the whole point of

having a server to transcode the files

in the first place right unfortunately

downloading transcoded videos is where

the trouble really happens the fact that

the download fails is enough to get

frustrated over like no you retry this

you know it failed you know it has to be

retried why do you need me to come back

to my phone constantly and click the

button but it's even worse than that

Plex will sometimes show that a download

has completed even though it never

downloaded anything now this problem can

be made worse by not using Hardware

transcoding but it can be very

challenging to figure out if Hardware

transcoding is working or even if it is

working which GPU it's running on I mean

imagine taking a long road trip with a

back seat full of kids you've spent

valuable packing time in the evening

before loading up all the entertainment

trusting Plex when it tells you hey I

got you half an hour into the drive all

hell breaks loose and it's become

painfully clear you've been lied to it's

enough to make you wish you had a

vehicle with a separate back seat bubble

Dome complete with optional restraints

and muzzles to contain your quarreling

children which is a reference they might

get if the shows I tried to download for

them had worked on iOS things aren't

much better often the app will just

crash for me when I'm trying to download

and even when it doesn't it might just

not work anyway if you're using a

firewall with DNS rebinding or not

reflection there's a very good chance

that the security certificate that Plex

attaches will get the transfer blocked

and this has been a known issue ever

since Plex switched their mobile SYNC

feature for mobile downloads back in

mid-2021 you heard me right Plex has had

more than a full year to fix a major

selling feature that they advertise and

still haven't done so but thank God I

have games

and it's not the first time that they've

pulled this mobile photo backup to your

server was an awesome alternative to

paid cloud services that just quietly

went away fine I got over that one but

downloading my media for offline viewing

is a make or break feature for me I care

so much about it that when I realized it

had stopped working which was on a

recent trip I didn't really travel for a

couple years and didn't really notice I

dropped Plex as a sponsor but we're not

going to work with Plex until they

resolve some of my longtime issues with

it however it's also the same reason

that I am not going to be switching over

to jellyfin yet for now jellyfin only

offers bog standard download the

original file offline viewing and has no

way of keeping track of what has or

hasn't been viewed this way thankfully

though the roadmap going forward looks

very promising at least on paper the

move to Native apps means that offline

playback is a very real thing that's

coming up because it doesn't require

downloading a web page for the UI and it

can use the system's built-in video

player on official apps like fendroid

already allow you to watch shows offline

and can even update episodes once

they're viewed unfortunately it lacks

the option to download a transcoded

version meaning that it's pretty rough

on your storage but it is an

implementation nonetheless and that

means that the jellyfin core team has

something to iterate on offline viewing

is the top post on jellyfin's feature

request board and they have said they're

working on it even if there is no ETA

yet similarly native intro skipping is

the fourth most requested feature though

for that one there's no word on whether

anyone is actively working on it given

that there's already open source

implementations for these features in

some capacity hopefully they can use the

work that's already been done to cut

down on development time but being free

and open source slow development Cycles

are to be expected and we should just be

grateful for everything that they do do

jellyfin's biggest contributors still

have day jobs after all making it all

the more impressive then when they

LeapFrog Plex and functionality like

their configurable HDR tone mapping I

mean it's frustrating that the paid

solution is so buggy and incomplete and

that the Free Solution is so slow in

development I mean if we could just put

plex's money into jellyfin maybe we'd

have a good solution but then because

capitalism ruins everything we'd

probably start the cycle all over again

probably that leads us pretty well then

into the elephant in the room MB is the

formerly open source project that

jellyfin is based on and apparently

already has several of the features that

Plex claims to have and that jellyfin

claims to be working on its user base

though is significantly smaller to the

point where I'm kind of hesitant to put

the time into switching over and it also

doesn't help that there's no effective

way to try it before you buy it but

given that there's seemingly no other

matured Alternatives could it be worth

giving a shot I would love to know your

experiences positive or negative With

Envy sell me on it or talk me out of it

as for my final message to the Plex team

guys you haven't lost me yet but you

have got to get it together basic

functionality hair like this crappy copy

of Hercules that I have that won't play

back audio at original quality but will

if I transcode

[Music]

like which by the way when I transcode

half the time it reduces the audio

volume and not to mention your inability

to play the next episode for me on

mobile stuff like that

cannot be broken but if you can deal

with my list here I will happily take

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lab today if you guys enjoyed this video

you might like our Plex server guide

even if you're using something like

jellyfin it's actually still quite

relevant