Honest question, because I know multiple people who are not looking to jump ship since they already have the Plex Pass.
Problem is access outside your home for family and friends.
There are serious security gaps that make it a non starter to expose to the internet.
I’ve been using Jellyfin ever since they forked out of Envy, and honestly, it’s the biggest complaint that I have. It is incredibly difficult to make it available to friends and family who are on various devices, networks, so on and so forth.
Whereas Plex “just works.”
Why not use a zero trust VPN like netbird? It is fully open source.
You can create a reverse proxy that requires a password to get through to jellyfin. I think there is a limit of like 5 for this though (unless you pay or self host).
Because clients would probably fail if there’s an authentication layer on front that they’re not expecting.
What security gaps in particular? I did have to reverse proxy to get it to https, are there additional security issues?
Exposed endpoints that have no authentication and various other things like that.
It’s application level security issues.
If there is an older collation here https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
thanks; for anyone looking, the issues have been split out at the bottom, none of them are addressed as of this writing. I don’t know that I feel like they are that serious (most of them allow you to play things if you know an ID), but they are the kind of thing you’d see in a project where there are bigger security issues.
Wait what? I have been sharing my jellyfin using a cloudflare tunnel to the endpoint.
Could you elaborate on the security gaps? How can I pen-test myself to see if I’m vulnerable
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415 nothing too serious, but here you go
Thanks, I guess I am mostly ok with these.
Ease of use for my users across multiple platforms with minimal tech knowledge on their end. I’m sharing my library with ranges from 12yo to 70. I need it to “just work” and it does that perfectly.
Same here. Plex just works for my folks with 0 tech literacy. I may try Jellyfin in the future, but I have a few friends that primarily access Plex via Playstation 4/5, and I know there’s no support there yet.
Yeah, lacking the client is not good. https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/2751/playstation-5-support
Couldn’t upvote this harder. Tried Jellyfin for 5 mins and was super confused why I couldn’t find sharing options. After googling and reading about reverse proxies and buying domains and shit I said fuck it and uninstalled
Totally understandable, however basic tailscale version is free and you can just have that installed on all of the connected devices as a “reverse proxy”. You then use the ip adress from the server or main computer with the files and connect to its tailscale provided ip adress after turning it on and as long as you have port 8096 open on the server computer (http:/with your adress here:8096) you can connect to the server through the jellyfin app on the device you’ve installed it on.
Yeah, I think you lost them after the first paragraph. 😉
I am tinkering constantly with my home setup, but I am lacking the time to set up everything to my liking.
So I am using neither Plex or Jellyfin, I am using Kodi and have a Webdav share available for when I am away on holiday. 😬😁
But then I am only sharing with my closest family in my home network. Somehow it seems everyone is providing a streaming service for half the neighborhood and the remote family (or possibly a polycule with the drama associated, IIRC).
I found that the most simplicity way of doing it if you want remote acess otherwise you can connect locally without tailscale
Yes. Same.
I never fully understood this argument as you would have to do that anyways with plex unless you’re using their proxy which would just artificially rate limit all of your users. But I do realize that jellyfin doesn’t have an email invite system in place which really is my biggest issue
What’s the “that” that you’d have to do anyway with Plex? I had to do nothing of the sort. I asky friends and family to make a Plex account and ask what email address they used. Then I give that email access to my library
I’ve never understood this stance. You do you, but if I’m offering to host stuff for friends or family for free, they can at least learn to operate that thing on their end.
Edited to add, wow I did not expect this to be such a hot take. Fuck me I guess lol.
What do they need to even learn? How to login using the username you gave them?
Surely you haven’t exposed your Jellyfin to the open net, since even the devs admit that that is a terrible idea
My Jellyfin is exposed to the open net and it’s completely fine, but users don’t need to know any technical details about that. They just need to know how to login.
Theres a reason everyone uses a VPN to allow remote streaming for their Jellyfin. The things as open as a barns door, so you should not just open it to the public. Like I said, even the devs say not to do that, its just not secure enough
You’re just spreading fud. Jellyfin devs actually have documentation on how to expose it to the net. Why would they do that if it were unsafe?https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/post-install/networking/
I’ve been using it this way for a couple years now and we are good. Never used Plex. I’m using only Jellyfin. So, I’ll pass on your advice. Thanks.
According to your own link that you totally read : “Note that opening a port gives full access to that port to the next higher Network. Opening a port directly to the Internet is therefore insecure and not recommended.” and “forwarding its Ports directly to the internet (not recommended!)”
This.
Did you try Jellyfin? I’ve had success with Jellyfin once I’ve been the one setting up the TV app, etc. It did just work, because users found it very simple in comparison to Plex. If anything, they like how Plex shows more things beyond the collection.
I’ve been the one setting up the TV app, etc.
That is exactly the issue. I can’t personally set up the app for all my users. Most of them are not in my household.
Me either, but I don’t expect them to setup any sort of app themself (including Plex).
That’s his point though, he does expect them to be able to set up themselves, and apparently Plex is good for that.
Yes, in my case I personally had to setup both clients (Plex and Jellyfin) for the family members myself.
And right back to https://lemmy.cafe/comment/17371392
Ah, the answer to that… I configured the server beforehand and installed it at their house as a gift, so I have persistent SSH access over VPN and can administer it remotely at will within tmux. Has worked for several years.
Have lifetime already. No reason to jump. Generally it just works.
No need to have another project while Plex still works fine.
Same. Got it cheap. Untill they break lifetime. Why bail? I’m not compromising my own experience because someone else was too cheap, lazy or slow.
Is it messed up what they are doing? Yeah. But that’s not my fault. Nor is someone missing out on the very clear signposts about what was going to happen. I’m not sacrificing my user experience and investment to justify someone else’s missed opportunity or vendetta.
I already paid when it was cheap. I’ll stay and get my full dollars worth and then some. I paid for it, I’ll use it. When it is unusable I’ll bail. Anything else is stupid.
I paid for it, I’ll use it. When it is unusable I’ll bail. Anything else is stupid.
What you are saying is called sunk cost fallacy. A notoriously common stupid way of thinking.
The logical way to think of this is: You already paid for Plex so both are free for you. Since both are free, just pick the better one.
notoriously common stupid way of thinking
Why are you being rude to somebody you’re trying to convince to put in extra effort to switch services?
You’re right, but I don’t care if they switch honestly. I used that wording because of the “anything else is stupid” statement, which just irked me when paired with the obvious fallacy.
You thinking it’s an “obvious fallacy” is what should be irking you, cause you’re wrong lol
I wouldn’t call it “stupid way of thinking”. That sounds almost offensive, while it’s just a common fallacy that affects most humans.
It was just a reaction to the “anything else is stupid” statement paired with the fallacy. I wouldn’t use that phrasing otherwise.
No, it’s not the sunk cost fallacy lol
Not sure if you’re trolling or you just had a brain-fart 🤔 Happens sometimes. Maybe think about it a little more.
The sunk cost fallacy is when you keep sinking more money into something because of how much you have already sunk into it. It doesn’t apply when you simply make a one-off purchase and then don’t ever spend another cent.
no. What you describe is just one form of the fallacy. Sunk cost fallacy in general is when you include a sunk cost in your decision making process at all, instead of just considering the costs and benefits that are affected by the decision at present.
No, what I described is the sunk cost fallacy. You misunderstood it.
No I didn’t.
That’s not a sunk cost fallacy at all. I’m not playing catch up, I’m already ahead.
I am thinking about it logically. Plex is the superior experience, and considering I’ve already gotten my money’s worth out of it, they are both free. So why would I use the service that works less well for my use case?
If the user experience continues to degrade, when it finally gets to jellyfin level, I’ll switch.
Perfectly logical, no fallacies here.
The part I quoted is the fallacy. You wrote you will stop using it when it is unusable, not when it is inferior to Jellyfin. Maybe you were thinking something different, but we can’t read your mind. We can only read what you wrote and what you wrote is a sunk cost fallacy.
It’s ok bud. You misattributed the sunk cost fallacy. It happens. I’ve done it before too… No worries.
A sunk cost fallacy requires a continued investment in a lost cause. I financially have contributed no extra to Plex after my initial investment. I’ve nothing to lose now. No sunk cost. Is time or effort a sunk cost? Possibly? But I already invested that time and effort. My maintenance is also zero, same as my future financial investment. Switching to jellyfin increases my cost in time and effort that I already invested in Plex. Why bail unless necessary? It’s illogical.
The difference between unusable and inferior was never the cusp of this argument to begin with. The distinction of “unusable” vs “inferior” can clearly be acertained by the context of my first full reply. Interestingly enough, your reubuttle is a textbook use of the informal fallacy known as “moving the goalposts”
One again, it’s all good. Don’t worry. My point that Plex is still superior for my use case and I have the incentive to continue using it, still stands. Your use of the sunk cost falacy is disproven on the merit of, that’s not a real example of sunk cost, and also using additional fallacies to defend your position render your point invalid.
I rest my case.
I tried Jellyfin once about a year ago and it was… OK I guess? Certainly nowhere near as polished as the rabid fan base would have me believe, and there was something in my library that it flat out refused to play.
If I didn’t already have a lifetime Plex Pass, and it was just me hosting my own media for a user count of one, then sure, I’d use it. But none of those things are true. I need something that “just works” and Plex fits that bill.
Like most people here, I bought a lifetime pass when it was $75 and it’s paid for itself over and over again in the time since. I honestly think I’ve had more than $750 worth of value from my purchase. Sure they’ve made some odd decisions recently, but until they start actively taking away functionality or rescind existing lifetime subs then I will continue to use it.
Meanwhile, not to belittle you personally, but the fact that every thread that mentions Plex in any way, good or bad, is guaranteed to be dominated by people circle-jerking over their beloved Jellyfin has put me completely off the project, to the point that I’ve had to add the word to my blocklist. Obviously that’s not working too well or I wouldn’t have seen this post!
Yea, Jellyfin might be good tech but the fans are insufferable
Tbh I just fanboy any FOSS company like that
TL;DR… Lowest common denominator stops people setting up tailscale or the like, along with sunken cost fallacy.
This is all a fascinating thread because everyone says Plex “just works”
I started using jellyfin about 6 months ago. I don’t really know anything about plex use. However, jellyfin worked out of the box for me. Set up with a docker container and have never had any problems with it.
Its never failed to load media, or loaded duplicates or any of the other random things others have mentioned here.
For the most part it feels like people in the thread have just used Plex for a long time and had their first impression of jellyfin years ago and probably haven’t checked it out since.
Which, fair play to them, life gets busy and setting up and migrating a media library is something that takes at least a couple hours which could be spent doing anything else.
If people are new, I’m sure they won’t even bother with Plex and their ridiculously high fees. I cannot see Plex maintaining their userbase at this rate.
With them unable to maintain their userbase, I give it a year before they cancel lifetime passes and 2 years or so before it’s completely enshitified and unusable.
I’m at the user level of “people keep saying docker… what the fuck is a docker?” -looks it up- “this explains nothing.”
Plus, I got lifetime Plex a while back, and can use it to stream videos to my remote classroom for examples in class.
docker means that the software is so brittle that it only works on the developer’s machines. So they ship the developer’s machine too.
Docker is not a software distribution medium
I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not. The world runs on containerisation… you can totally package, ship, and run software using docker images.
Yeah I understand that. I was also at that level when I started. It did take me a while to understand the docker compose syntax. But was pretty simple once I got into it. I understand not wanting to dive that deep though.
Did you read what they are saying Plex “just works” a[ that Jellyfin doesn’t?
I tried jellyfin/emby for the third time about 6 months back. I had heaps of encoding issues (not playing) with x265 and lots of issues with dolby encodes (running it through my home theatre from a 2017 nVidia shield using the official client). I even went so far as to run a separate ffmpeg instance but no dice. Until it’s not a hobby project and ‘just works’ I’m not interested.
Plex just works, especially for library sharing and remote watching - something that does not work without insecure and/or messy workarounds on jellyfin.
yeah as a former plex user I can confirm the setup is way more annoying. for me “just works” means I spin up the container, point it at my media library, and I’m done. never had to make an online account or pay for anything with jellyfin. I agree with ppl that say the plex web UI and native apps are more polished but that’s about the only positive
Not it’s mostly about remote access anywhere without VPN. Forcing your friends and family to use a VPN to access a jellyfin instance securely is not something everyone is willing to do (and might be impossible on some devices).
Lifetime subscriber when it was like $75 bux
Setup and runs on my NAS (unRAID) Uses a small GPU to transcode as needed Shared only with non technical family members
Has worked as is for YEARS.
So, the question is, am I looking for something to replace a working free (prepaid) solution I have? That answer is nope.
Having non-technical family on board is priceless tbh.
Yeah, my mom uses it. My mom. I have to remove search bars from her chrome like it’s 2005.
This is my POV. It already works perfectly, is prepaid, and is accessible to my nontechnical users. Switching would be a major pain for a worse experience.
Also, Plexamp.
Someday in the future no doubt Plex will enshittify for lifetime users such that it will justify a change, but that hasn’t happened.
+1 to all of this. I paid for it when it was $90 lifetime, before either Jellyfin was popular before I heard of it, who knows. It works fine. No reason to put extra effort into replacing something that I have no problems or qualms with.
I paid for it ages ago on a deal, and it currently suits my needs. It runs as a docker container and it just works. It’s easy enough for my elderly mom to use remotely and I’ve ripped my entire movie collection for her to watch. I also like the live tv that’s included with the pass.
I would switch in a heartbeat if it wasn’t doing what I need, but so far I have no complaints, it works well for my family’s needs.
I say the following as a current Jellyfin user who stopped using Plex for privacy reasons: Plex making it easy to share your library outside of your LAN is an absolutely gigantic point in its favour. I don’t understand why so many Jellyfin people seem unable or unwilling to understand or acknowledge this.
I’m surprised there is not a service specifically attempting to fill this gap.
It would have to be paid, the exact thing that jellyfin evangelists despise……while half of them happily subscribe and pay $ for a VPS just so they don’t have to subscribe to Plex while having a much worse experience 🤣
JellyFin users seem to be like Linux users.
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WhatI’ve noticed is that people who prioritize privacy and just want to watch their downloads on their tv usually use jellyfin and people who prioritize ux slickness and want to run an IPTV service for their friends and family usually use plex.
It’s not a matter of privacy vs UX. I actually think Plex has ruined their UX. But if you have friends and family, some are tech-illiterate, some have their own media servers, and you all want to share with each other quickly and easily, Plex is the only viable option. Same if it’s just you, but you travel a lot, and want to watch something from your home server without lugging around a device that has access to your VPN and a screen/hdmi-out.
Jellyfin is really only viable if it’s just you on your own network.
Jellyfin is awesome for local use, Plex is better at sharing libraries with friends and family and jellyfin is total ass for music
I run jellyfin
I stopped trying for the music side.
Right tool for the right job. Switched to navidrome and am consuming it mainly through subsonic clients, such as Symphonium and Feishin.
For music you’ve got to add a background and make it a ‘music video’, then it works, but mostly it’s for video
I like Plex.
When I bought my Plex lifetime pass I saw it as an investment. So far, it’s paid off handsomely.
I’m still getting great experiences, able to access it from anywhere in the world, on basically any device, seamlessly and simply.
I get it that the jellyfin community is really excited about their thing - I just am not.
I’ve run jellyfin, it was kind of cool I guess, but there was nothing compelling about it. So I uninstalled it. What is jellyfin’s “must have” feature, anyway?
I wouldn’t go out and build a new car when I’m perfectly happy with my 10-year old sedan. If you’re expecting me to go through that just because the new ones cost more than I spent years ago, you’re insane. I wouldn’t go and re paint my house just because the old company now charges new customers more for their paint.
I paid for it, it works well. There’s no reason (except all the FUD I keep seeing on lemmy,) to even think about dismantling and recreating it with something new.
Keep building your dream tool Jellyfin people - Godspeed, but your community should target acquiring net-new users instead of trying to scare and poach happy users away from what they already have.
As said in literally every thread here that ever mentions anything about Plex or jellyfin, biggest is remote library sharing.
No, I will not walk my in-laws through setting up a vpn gateway so their TV will connect to me
No, despite my extensive homelab setup, I am not going to set up a reverse proxy and go through the SSL/TLS cert bullshit and expose especially considering the security limitations the devs say likely will not be fixed
There’s others, but those are the main ones for a bunch of us
With tailscale you either have to 1) download an app and click a button on every device you want to watch Jellyfin or 2) click a few buttons once, and then access your Jellyfin on the open internet forever with HTTPS
Plex is the most plug-in-play, I understand not wanting to go through setting it up, but you’re not accurately portraying how difficult it actually is to access. It is not difficult to access, but you have to set everything up yourself.
Yes I am
Oops, you replied to the wrong guy!
Most devices that people watch tv and movies on in people’s houses don’t have a way to connect to Tailscale.
Yes
Lifetime pass, it still works well so why would I switch?
Same here, but I am also maintaining jellyfin alongside it. In case Plex decides that “lifetime” means something other than what I expected it to mean. I’ve long ago gotten my $80 of usage out of it.
Jellyfin is… ok. It works, it works consistently, and it is consistently almost great. But I provide “cable replacement” and “streaming supplement” services to family that doesn’t live in the same house, and will all likely break a box that managed a VPN.
Given the above, we’ll ride out Plex until they go nuts. Hopefully jellyfin will be polished enough for child use by then.
Why would you bother “maintaining” jellyfin when you don’t use it? Just install it if you ever move away from Plex. Seems like work for nothing.
One, so that it’s already ready if I ever need to use it seriously, and two, so I can continue to observe its progress and dependencies.
I suspect Plex will not give us a lot of warning if they decide that old lifetime passes aren’t good enough anymore. Money grabs like that are best as a surprise.
I have two Plex servers I maintain, for myself, friends, and family. Both also have jellyfin serving the same sources. It’s trivial to maintain them side by side. Since it’s there, I can easily use it occasionally and see if the things I don’t like about jellyfin have been fixed.
