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This is like the infamous Dropbox comment. - Plex or... - Jellyfin - Navidrome - Homelab - proxmox - OPNsense - Caddy - Tailscale Plex is not worried

This is like the infamous Dropbox comment. - Plex or... - Jellyfin - Navidrome - Homelab - proxmox - OPNsense - Caddy - Tailscale Plex is not worried about people like you, because you just described an insane amount of effort just to avoid a one-time cost. Most will not.

ibejoeb 9mo ago
What does plex do? I installed jellyfin from its apt repo and it's running.
chung8123 9mo ago
It is hard to beat the polish that Plex has. I setup Jellyfin to try it out and I couldn't find a client that was smooth or had the polish of the Plex apps. The AppleTV app was close but then I go down the rabbit hole of codec support. Wanted to like Jellyfin but without a nice looking front end it was a non-starter for me. Good news is you can have the side by side and if a time comes it gets parity with Plex I will be happy to change over.
- JamesSwift 9mo ago
  Yes, my biggest current gripe is that infuse is a much better client than the first-party app. Otherwise, I'm very happy with it even if it lacks some polish of Plex.
  - watermelon0 9mo ago
    I think that Infuse has better codec support than any other Apple TV (and possible also macOS) app.
    - JamesSwift 9mo ago
      Yeah thats exactly why Im on it. The frontend is fine, maybe a wash compared to Swiftfin last time I tried it out. But for my library, I had frequent issues with codec support on native client vs 0 times on Infuse.
- crtasm 9mo ago
  Is the Plex app somehow able to play codecs on a AppleTV that Jellyfin's app can't?
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
- Tallain 9mo ago
  When I looked for a Plex alternative I settled on Emby. It still has some "premium" features but they're all just QOL, not necessary things. The base app is great and even has handy little features Plex doesn't, and so far, it runs on all the same devices with a much snappier UX on the client side.
iceflinger 9mo ago
The only two of those you actually need to have a Plex-like setup are Jellyfin and Tailscale, both are trivial to setup and will run on basically any hardware you can imagine wanting to use for this.
samdk 9mo ago
Most of that stuff isn't necessary just to replace Plex, the OP's saying them Jellyfin started them on a journey they're presumably enjoying, not that they needed everything there to replace it. I think you're right the bar is still too high for most folks, although I will note that I think it's dramatically lower than it used to be. A lot of the tools are all-around way easier to deal with, tailscale makes a lot of "personal cloud" use-cases much more feasible, and then coding agents (I'm using claude code) dramatically reduce the labor costs of getting this stuff all working and fixing it when something goes wrong.
- cheschire 9mo ago
  Yep you nailed it. That’s all I was saying. None of those things were critical to Jellyfin working. But I will say for the size of my music library, Jellyfin was not quite as good as plex and was the impetus behind my switch to navidrome for audio. And navidrome isn’t the best for audiobooks so I’m in the process of testing good audiobook hosting platforms. So the reply wasn’t wrong either. Plex is just easier for a lot of folks, and that is why I don’t have any ill will towards their changes. They just aren’t for me.
  - Aluminum0643 9mo ago
    Check out audiobookshelf, it's quite solid: https://www.audiobookshelf.org/ https://www.audiobookshelf.org/
stavros 9mo ago
It's not a one-time cost, it's a subscription now.
- bigstrat2003 9mo ago
  I just checked their website and they still sell the lifetime Plex pass. Currently the price is $250.
  - stavros 9mo ago
    I bought the app and now it wants a subscription, so I both don't understand their pricing models and don't trust their lifetime pricing now.
DANmode 9mo ago
Why are we worried if they’re worried?

ibejoeb 9mo ago

What does plex do? I installed jellyfin from its apt repo and it's running.

chung8123 9mo ago

It is hard to beat the polish that Plex has. I setup Jellyfin to try it out and I couldn't find a client that was smooth or had the polish of the Plex apps. The AppleTV app was close but then I go down the rabbit hole of codec support. Wanted to like Jellyfin but without a nice looking front end it was a non-starter for me. Good news is you can have the side by side and if a time comes it gets parity with Plex I will be happy to change over.

JamesSwift 9mo ago
Yes, my biggest current gripe is that infuse is a much better client than the first-party app. Otherwise, I'm very happy with it even if it lacks some polish of Plex.
- watermelon0 9mo ago
  I think that Infuse has better codec support than any other Apple TV (and possible also macOS) app.
  - JamesSwift 9mo ago
    Yeah thats exactly why Im on it. The frontend is fine, maybe a wash compared to Swiftfin last time I tried it out. But for my library, I had frequent issues with codec support on native client vs 0 times on Infuse.
crtasm 9mo ago
Is the Plex app somehow able to play codecs on a AppleTV that Jellyfin's app can't?
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
Tallain 9mo ago
When I looked for a Plex alternative I settled on Emby. It still has some "premium" features but they're all just QOL, not necessary things. The base app is great and even has handy little features Plex doesn't, and so far, it runs on all the same devices with a much snappier UX on the client side.

iceflinger 9mo ago

The only two of those you actually need to have a Plex-like setup are Jellyfin and Tailscale, both are trivial to setup and will run on basically any hardware you can imagine wanting to use for this.

samdk 9mo ago

Most of that stuff isn't necessary just to replace Plex, the OP's saying them Jellyfin started them on a journey they're presumably enjoying, not that they needed everything there to replace it. I think you're right the bar is still too high for most folks, although I will note that I think it's dramatically lower than it used to be. A lot of the tools are all-around way easier to deal with, tailscale makes a lot of "personal cloud" use-cases much more feasible, and then coding agents (I'm using claude code) dramatically reduce the labor costs of getting this stuff all working and fixing it when something goes wrong.

cheschire 9mo ago
Yep you nailed it. That’s all I was saying. None of those things were critical to Jellyfin working. But I will say for the size of my music library, Jellyfin was not quite as good as plex and was the impetus behind my switch to navidrome for audio. And navidrome isn’t the best for audiobooks so I’m in the process of testing good audiobook hosting platforms. So the reply wasn’t wrong either. Plex is just easier for a lot of folks, and that is why I don’t have any ill will towards their changes. They just aren’t for me.
- Aluminum0643 9mo ago
  Check out audiobookshelf, it's quite solid: https://www.audiobookshelf.org/ https://www.audiobookshelf.org/

stavros 9mo ago

It's not a one-time cost, it's a subscription now.

bigstrat2003 9mo ago
I just checked their website and they still sell the lifetime Plex pass. Currently the price is $250.
- stavros 9mo ago
  I bought the app and now it wants a subscription, so I both don't understand their pricing models and don't trust their lifetime pricing now.

DANmode 9mo ago

Why are we worried if they’re worried?