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.

I definitely have noticed that it is important to install metadata plugins like imdb, as well as fanart, in order to feel closer to Plex. Users like seeing Rotten Tomato and IMBD scores, in addition to cast info and such.

The client apps on Apple TV are just not good. I have tried swiftfin which is slow and I find it not very visually appealing. There there is infuse which does look better, but is missing features and requires a subscription for full functionality. If there is a app I’m missing I would be happy to try it.

I keep Jellyfin up to date and check in or it from time to time. Even have watchstate so my watched history stays updated. Hoping one day there will be a good Apple TV app and I could fully switch.

Can it import my Plex settings, categorized titles, and watched lists for all my users? And whatever other things I’m not thinking of…

It’s on my radar, but I have a lot of data, custom images, etc. it would need to be 1:1

I have both. Plex for family and Jellyfin for me. I still don’t have hardware transcoding working (probably a permission thing. It’s always permissions) and haven’t had much time to tinker this year. Plex just… worked.

I can use Jellyfin without transcoding, but only one or two users at a time is all my CPU can handle.

Admittedly this was 4 years ago, but the lack of documentation was frustrating. I don’t know if remote streaming or transcoding was even a thing back then, but I could find little to nothing about much of anything. Now I just don’t have the time. I switched to Stremio + plugins for TV and movies, and I’m content to keep using Plexamp for my vinyl rips until it stops working.

Agree with most of the other comments here, but number one for me is PlexAmp.

I use both still, Jellyfins UI can be a bit janky sometimes and it does not sync viewing progress of the same episode or movie across UHD and HD content, which Plex does.

Overall I think Jellyfin is better though.

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.

There's still a bunch of outstanding API security issues last I checked, so it's not secure enough for me to open to the web.

Teaching friends and family to use it with a VPN is a whole another can. Also, you'll have to make sure the VPN is secure and users don't have access to the rest of your network...

and then you'll have to deal with client apps/access for mobile, android boxes, TVs, and Chromecasts...

I got lucky with the Plex Pass too so I can only ride this out to the end until Jellyfin catches up. (also, I'm not good to contribute code)

I have both. Plex is better with music at this time, which is a huge use for me. Jellyfin has a quicker UI and i swear looks better streaming to my TV, but could just be bias.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.

[Thread #307 for this comm, first seen 22nd May 2026, 16:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

I tried Jellyfin probably 2 years ago and it was fine but Plex is just “plug n play” in regard to my family setting it up themselves with little help from me.

Plexamp is the only way I stream music too so that’s a big reason why I won’t move yet.

No free Apple TV app is kind of a deal-breaker. Even Emby has one. Also the Roku app still crashes fairly regularly for me just randomly either browsing or during playback.

I'd love to use it fulltime but I don't want to have to buy new devices just to use it. Plex already works and I picked up a lifetime pass when it wasn't insanely priced.

I have both. My main gripe with Jellyfin is the the Google TV app. It doesn't seem to have an easily accessible skip 30 or jump to next chapter option. If that was improved, I might be ready to ditch Plex.

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.

if you install it and do not add plugins or mods or download them manually or with another tool, there is no way to pull subtitles.

You also need to sideload the app because it’s not available in app stores.

That’s the blockers for me… though the plugin for subtitles that now exists I have yet to try, and it may make it doable.

The lack of library sharing is what’s keeping me on Plex.

The ability to watch media across servers, and even transparently pull it for local transcode when necessary is just an amazing feature.

I have tried it but having Plex handle the out-of-home routing for me securely is a great feature Jellyfin doesn’t have but doesn’t for obvious reasons and I justify that as why I pay Plex. I have thoughts and better knowledge now about how to properly implement it, but I’m not sure I want to rebuild my current setup that just works with very minimal upkeep.

That and I am on someone else’s Plex server who updates it much more than I do. Mine just supplements theirs with stuff they don’t have and one-offs I’ve wanted and found. I’d still be using Plex even if I did rebuild with Jellyfin today.

But if these price increases keep coming, I may make the switch. It’s tempting to shell out the money for the lifetime membership, but I don’t have faith in companies, including Plex, to keep up their end of the deal on these things.

I’m not switching at this time because I already bought a lifetime pass about 7 years ago. If ANY of my functionality gets changed by Plex then I’ll be switching

I use Emby instead of Plex or Jellyfin; mostly because it has an Xbox client, and I’ve already got a lifetime licence. One of my most active users only watches via Xbox.

Really don’t like Plexs centralised user system or the overall direction they’ve been headed for years, so I moved away from that long ago (8+ years ago at least). Jellyfin wasn’t up to par at the time (though they’ve made leaps and bounds of progress in that time), and Emby has always supported more types of devices\clients. Their device limit (the client count limit with premeir) has never come into play for me, but I know there are larger user bases out there where that is a problem.

Embys development is extremely slow though, taking YEARS to implement simple features or even address major concerns. Plus their support sucks without the community stepping in and providing it on behalf of the staff. Luke (the main dev) is better at copy+pasting candid responses than he is at actually interacting with human beings.

I’m not using Plex, but I feel like I can answer my complaints about using jellyfin.

My biggest complaint is the lack of clients. It is such a pain in the butt to install jellyFin on all of my products.

My second complaint is the security design. They’ve had open issues about unauthenticated endpoints for three or four years now. And whenever the issue gets so old that it starts to look bad, they refactor the issue into a newer issue abd bury it in the sand.

For a while this was done under the guise of maintaining legacy client support, but just recently it looks like they’re starting to focus on more security, and I’ve noticed some of those security holes are being closed finally, but it’s a major concern for me that they’ve been open for as long as they have.

I got started with jellyfin and never used Plex but there’s a bunch of rough edges:

• No apps on several smart tv/streaming stick stores, Vizio has an app for plex but not jellyfin so I would need to buy a new streaming device. Yes smart tvs spy on you but the alternatives people recommend either spy on you just as much or are expensive (Nvidia shield) and most of them still require side loading so it’s a major obstacle for sharing with anyone else.
• Casting from the mobile app won’t play at full resolution, you can get around this by using VLC as your player and casting from that but that causes it to frequently lose watch progress. Also stopping casting or playing the next episode doesn’t work properly with VLC and you need to rapidly mash “back” to get into the jellyfin app again and queue up a new episode.
• The current release of Jellyfin desktop won’t play audio for iptv streams, this is fixed in the dev branch but I have yet to find a build without other critical bugs so I’ll likely need to wait for the next release which currently has no target date.
• The browser version has spotty controller support that stops working constantly. When it does work it lacks any way to access context menus to mark shows as watched etc. If you’re using a flatpak browser to run it on steam deck or whatever, you’ll have codec and passthrough issues (Chrome is the only flatpak with decent codec support).
• Others have mentioned the security issues which you can bypass by putting authentik or something in front of it but then you can only share with people using browser.

I don’t have time.

I absolutely love jellyfin and frequently take advantage of its features. But the client absolutely suck butt. When I can hardly get my mom to remember which app on her TV lets her watch what, I can’t also have her fucking around with play buttons that don’t do what they say, a “continue watching” list that’s often haunted by episodes that have been marked as watched, or inscrutable menu icons mashed into the top-right corner of a media browser.

And don’t get me started on getting people logged in on the client.

I only use my library with jellyfin and only locally. I left plex a few years ago. What I really want to set up next is a UI that uses a simple remote control and ditch the Roku interface so I can be seamlessly offline.