Jellyfin
Free, open-source media server for organizing and streaming your own movies, TV, and music.
Liked as an open-source replacement for Plex1234 that reliably streams a home library to family and friends5678; the most common complaint is rough client apps, from clunky seeking to a less polished feel than Plex910111213, with some also fighting library indexing and metadata problems.1415
Why people recommend it
Plex alternative · 3
Many commenters switched from Plex over ads, pricing and hostile changes, and don't regret it.
“I've since switched to Jellyfin.”
“switched to Jellyfin and couldn’t be happier!”
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“I switched to Jellyfin and haven't looked back.”
Daily reliability · 3
Long-time users say it runs smoothly every day across large libraries.
“I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family.”
“Jellyfin is a daily driver for me and works amazingly.”
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“I've been using it on Windows for years with multiple devices and it's been working flawlessly.”
Family sharing · 3
Commenters share their libraries with friends and family, including non-technical users.
“Jellyfin has been great for sharing with friends, and having them share with me.”
“everything pipes into my Jellyfin server”
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“I use jellyfin with Infuse, Kodi, mpv-shim and a couple of mobile clients as well. No major issues so far”
Client compatibility · 3
It works with Infuse, Kodi, official smart TV apps and devices like HDHomeRun.
“I use jellyfin with Infuse, Kodi, mpv-shim and a couple of mobile clients as well. No major issues so far”
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“One thing that Jellyfin does really well is integrate devices like the HDHomeRun.”
Remote access · 3
Remote use via Tailscale or a reverse proxy is described as easy to set up.
“I use jellyfin remotely with tailscale. It was trivial to set up.”
“I use a raspberry pi and nginx to forward my jellyfin over Tailscale.”
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“I can access my Jellyfin instance from almost any smart TV in the world with the official apps”
Open source control · 3
Being open source guards against removed features and paywalls.
“With open source, I can at least fork/pin it from some version and merge things from upstream that I want, which is the reason why I was looking at Jellyfin.”
“switched to Jellyfin and couldn’t be happier!”
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“I switched to Jellyfin and also don't regret it.”
Caveats and dissent
Client UX · 3
Default clients have awkward seeking and missing or inconsistent basic behaviors.
“Default Android Jellyfin client seeking is really unpleasant.”
“the horrible way that Jellyfin deals with seeking”
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“I've been using Jellyfin for my family for years.”
Less polished · 3
Several users find it rougher and short of Plex's feature parity.
“The player isn’t quite as polished as plex, but it isn’t as buggy”
“I switched to Jellyfin and also don't regret it.”
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“I like Jellyfin, and run it alongside Plex.”
Library management · 2
Some fight thumbnails, episode grouping, rescans and unmarked watch status.
“I switched to jellyfin about 6 months ago and I can say it is definitely worse.”
“Constantly have issues with playback, files indexing and watch statuses that not marked”
Non-tech onboarding · 3
Getting family set up, especially with Tailscale, is harder than with Plex.
“Jellyfin is rough (I've tried!) and especially for external users (family).”
“I'd prefer to be exclusively on Jellyfin. It simply has more features that I use”
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“Now I’m on Jellyfin but the point is the same.”
Platform gaps · 1
Apple TV support is described as buggy and Chromecast casting from iOS is missing.
“Again, I love Jellyfin and I use it daily.”
Live TV, audio · 2
Live TV and music or audiobook support are seen as weaker than video.
“I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family.”
“I use JellyFin for video.”
Often compared with
14 moved from Plex to Jellyfin
1 moved from Jellyfin to Wholphin
1 moved from Jellyfin to Navidrome
1 moved from Jellyfin to Audiobookshelf
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team 18 mentions
- Jellyfin 12.0 13 mentions
- Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7? 7 mentions
- What I self-host 6 mentions
- Plex laid off the whole player team 5 mentions
- Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop a cryptominer 5 mentions
Data: jellyfin.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 47
“I use jellyfin remotely with tailscale. It was trivial to set up.”
“I've since switched to Jellyfin.”
“With open source, I can at least fork/pin it from some version and merge things from upstream that I want, which is the reason why I was looking at Jellyfin.”
“Question for Jellyfin users - how's the support for non-tech people that were using your library?”
“I only recently switched to Jellyfin because Hetzner blocks Plex”
“Jellyfin is rough (I've tried!) and especially for external users (family).”
“The player isn’t quite as polished as plex, but it isn’t as buggy”
“Default Android Jellyfin client seeking is really unpleasant.”
“it supports Plex and jellyfin, which would make switching to jellyfin in the future easier”
“Now I’m on Jellyfin but the point is the same.”
“I've been using Jellyfin for my family for years.”
“I use a raspberry pi and nginx to forward my jellyfin over Tailscale.”
“login to JellyFin every few days for no apparent reason”
“the horrible way that Jellyfin deals with seeking”
“it must've undergone a UI overhaul as now it looks quite nice imo.”
“jellyfin”
“It even works with Jellyfin, wrapped in systemd-socket-proxyd.”
“the lack of a Netflix-style recommendation experience in Jellyfin”
“jellyfin”
“running arr stack, jellyfin, home assistant, pi hole”
“Jellyfin currently idles at 330MB.”
“jellfin, *arr and torrents”
“runs almost 20 services, from home assistant and jellyfin”
- Navidrome - Jellyfin - Vaultwarden - Immich - pi agent. I use it through tmux and iSH on my iPhone - librechat. nice UI but honestly I probably jsut use pi more often - copyparty. to visually inspect whatever I create with pi, and to access my documents, to upload files I need on the server quickly and easily from any device
“public facing friend tools like jellyfin via tailscale tunnels”
“I can even run storage-intensive services like Jellyfin”
“Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge”
“I self-host plenty at home, but most are things that are mainly needed at home like Jellyfin”
“The Jellyfin server hosting media to friends and family on Docker.”
“everything pipes into my Jellyfin server”
“Jellyfin has been great for sharing with friends, and having them share with me.”
“then use something like Jellyfin to pull from that”
“Authelia, Immich, Jellyfin, Fusion, qBittorrent, Memos and Gitea.”
“Jellyfin: Movies and TV Shows”
“Jellyfin - videos and such”
“Jellyfin and (just as importantly -- at least for me) the distribution (Fedora) I use have been very good at patching/releasing updates”
“only I use my jellyfin mostly”
“I have been using the Jellyfin addon for Kodi as my main client”
“I am really looking forward to multiple libraries actually separating the contents.”
“My only beef with Jellyfind when I used it some time back was inability to resize subtitles”
“I switched to jellyfin about 6 months ago and I can say it is definitely worse.”
“Constantly have issues with playback, files indexing and watch statuses that not marked”
“I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family.”
“Jellyfin is a daily driver for me and works amazingly.”
“Again, I love Jellyfin and I use it daily.”
“I switched to Jellyfin and haven't looked back.”
“switched to Jellyfin and couldn’t be happier!”