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I left Plex for Jellyfin + Infuse a couple of years ago, and I'm not looking back. But the sore point right now is outside access, which Jellyfin really isn't

I left Plex for Jellyfin + Infuse a couple of years ago, and I'm not looking back. But the sore point right now is outside access, which Jellyfin really isn't made for. I set up Tailscale so I can connect Infuse to Jellyfin remotely. But that's not exactly as smooth as Plex. I can't give friends and family access, either, which was dead easy with Plex. In terms of the UX, Infuse isn't very good, but it does the job okay. The built-in subtitle fetcher is amazing; that stuff never worked for me with Plex.

y-curious 27d ago
For people that don’t know, Infuse lets you use Jellyfin on Apple TV and it’s very helpful for day purpose
- Gareth321 27d ago
  Crazy expensive though. It's basically a Plex subscription, just for the player.
  - skydhash 27d ago
    Isn’t it something like $10/yr or something?
    - illegalbyte2 27d ago
      Yep. Worth every cent. The Apple TV experience of Infuse is night and day with Plex. I used to constantly struggle with Plex buffering and crashing on my local network with the Apple TV app. Infuse just points to a file share on my NAS and streams beautifully, even at larger 4K files. I used Plex for years. I’d never go back from Infuse now, and I’m happy to pay that subscription to support its excellent development.
    - Gareth321 27d ago
      It's not as bad as I thought/misremembered. $23/year here in Denmark, and $140/lifetime.
  - swat535 27d ago
    I just bought a lifetime pro access , I think it was around 200$ but really worth it. I get all the updates for free. Whenever I can, I buy my software now these days instead of renting it.
    - opello 27d ago
      It seems like a strange juxtaposition to talk about buying vs. renting while getting updates for free.
      - deleted 26d ago
        [deleted]
  - sharts 27d ago
    Not as expensive as a Starbucks habit
- orsorna 27d ago
  There is also an open source tvOS client called Swiftfin. The experience isn't as good though. You can also transcode your files to formats that the free version of Infuse supports if you are a miser.
  - tstrimple 26d ago
    Best to specify the formats you can play in the *arr tools than rely on client transcoding. I aim for media I can direct play and the filters in radarr and sonarr make that pretty easy. I also use tdarr to clean up / convert things I couldn't get a direct play file for.
- tomaskafka 27d ago
  ... and is awesome even without Jellyfin - I have it installed on all devices including Apple TV, connected to family NAS through webdav.
felixmc 27d ago
I use port forwarding on my home router to open up jellyfin to outside access. it's not as pretty, but it works.
- sfwf 27d ago
  [dead]
fl0id 27d ago
tailscale + cloudflare for lets encrypt support. can then give family tailscale access
- penetrarthur 27d ago
  Has cloudfare become any more strict with passing large amounts of video data through them? I heard they were kind of against it, but haven't enforced anything.
  - zchrykng 27d ago
    If you don't proxy or tunnel the connection, it isn't an issue. I assume they are using Tailscale for the actual connection.
- LollipopYakuza 27d ago
  One does not need cloudflare for letsencrypt. The tooling has become really simple to use.
  - zchrykng 27d ago
    You do need a DNS service with API access for automatically creating/renewing the certificates for things that are only served over tailscale though, since they aren't publicly accessible for the letsencrypt servers to talk to.
    - unshavedyak 27d ago
      I've got a Caddy instance setup which proxies my traffic and has dead easy integration for domain DNS registration. Super handy
      - entropicdrifter 26d ago
        Same, it's fantastic. As long as you don't need to support as many requests per second on your hardware as something like NGINX could, Caddy is the way to go.
davidmurdoch 27d ago
Jellyfin works just fine with remote access and multiple users.
- atombender 26d ago
  I don't trust Jellyfin to be secure enough to be put on the public Internet.
  - pull_my_finger 24d ago
    Why is that? Did you have an issue with how it's set up? Or does it not do enough out of the box and leaves security for the administrator?
rdudek 27d ago
Is Plex/jellyfin even necessary for Infuse? I've been using Infuse for years now and it has direct access to my NAS to look for media content and just directly plays it. It's a such an amazing app and it plays everything I throw at it without any buffering or transcoding issues. The Pro version pretty much has all the necessary codecs, including all the dolby things for hdr/atmos. It just works so well.
- frizlab 26d ago
  Yeah I have Infuse only, and am happy with it. No need for jellyfin or whatever else. Honestly Infuse may be one of my best app purchases of these past 10 years…
nobody9999 26d ago
>But the sore point right now is outside access, which Jellyfin really isn't made for. I set up Tailscale so I can connect Infuse to Jellyfin remotely. But that's not exactly as smooth as Plex. I can't give friends and family access, either, which was dead easy with Plex. I'm confused about this bit. I installed jellyfin to provide outside access to me and my family/friends. It wasn't difficult to make it available on the 'net, setting up new users is pretty simple and jellyfin has clients (both first and third party) for most platforms. In fact, I went from never having used jellyfin to giving external access to friends/family within a few hours. I'm sure I'm missing something, so if you wouldn't mind, I'd be very interested to hear your experience.
- atombender 26d ago
  I don't believe in Jellyfin being secure enough to put on the public Internet. In my case, Jellyfin is on my home network, and the box has access to a lot of files and devices.
  - nobody9999 25d ago
    >I don't believe in Jellyfin being secure enough to put on the public Internet. In my case, Jellyfin is on my home network, and the box has access to a lot of files and devices. Fair enough. IME, Jellyfin and (just as importantly -- at least for me) the distribution (Fedora) I use have been very good at patching/releasing updates to both the clients and servers when vulnerabilities are found. Initially, I stuffed jellyfin (and a bunch of other stuff) behind HAProxy[0], which was fine. Now I don't even bother. It's been at least three years since I put up my jellyfin server and haven't had any issues at all. All that said, I understand your trepidation and am glad you found something that works for you! [0] https://www.haproxy.org/ https://www.haproxy.org/
BrendanThompson 24d ago
I have the exact same setup. I found Infuse a PITA to begin with. Now it works pretty dang well, even remotely. One big irritation though is the subtitles are always on by default, on Apple TV it's an issue as I can't find a way to disable the default haha! Sometimes there is also a delay between when Jellyfin can play a new video in the browser and when Infuse can play it even though it can see the file. I do find Infuse significantly better than the Jellyfin apps though.

y-curious 27d ago

For people that don’t know, Infuse lets you use Jellyfin on Apple TV and it’s very helpful for day purpose

Gareth321 27d ago
Crazy expensive though. It's basically a Plex subscription, just for the player.
- skydhash 27d ago
  Isn’t it something like $10/yr or something?
  - illegalbyte2 27d ago
    Yep. Worth every cent. The Apple TV experience of Infuse is night and day with Plex. I used to constantly struggle with Plex buffering and crashing on my local network with the Apple TV app. Infuse just points to a file share on my NAS and streams beautifully, even at larger 4K files. I used Plex for years. I’d never go back from Infuse now, and I’m happy to pay that subscription to support its excellent development.
  - Gareth321 27d ago
    It's not as bad as I thought/misremembered. $23/year here in Denmark, and $140/lifetime.
- swat535 27d ago
  I just bought a lifetime pro access , I think it was around 200$ but really worth it. I get all the updates for free. Whenever I can, I buy my software now these days instead of renting it.
  - opello 27d ago
    It seems like a strange juxtaposition to talk about buying vs. renting while getting updates for free.
    - deleted 26d ago
      [deleted]
- sharts 27d ago
  Not as expensive as a Starbucks habit
orsorna 27d ago
There is also an open source tvOS client called Swiftfin. The experience isn't as good though. You can also transcode your files to formats that the free version of Infuse supports if you are a miser.
- tstrimple 26d ago
  Best to specify the formats you can play in the *arr tools than rely on client transcoding. I aim for media I can direct play and the filters in radarr and sonarr make that pretty easy. I also use tdarr to clean up / convert things I couldn't get a direct play file for.
tomaskafka 27d ago
... and is awesome even without Jellyfin - I have it installed on all devices including Apple TV, connected to family NAS through webdav.

felixmc 27d ago

I use port forwarding on my home router to open up jellyfin to outside access. it's not as pretty, but it works.

sfwf 27d ago
[dead]

fl0id 27d ago

tailscale + cloudflare for lets encrypt support. can then give family tailscale access

penetrarthur 27d ago
Has cloudfare become any more strict with passing large amounts of video data through them? I heard they were kind of against it, but haven't enforced anything.
- zchrykng 27d ago
  If you don't proxy or tunnel the connection, it isn't an issue. I assume they are using Tailscale for the actual connection.
LollipopYakuza 27d ago
One does not need cloudflare for letsencrypt. The tooling has become really simple to use.
- zchrykng 27d ago
  You do need a DNS service with API access for automatically creating/renewing the certificates for things that are only served over tailscale though, since they aren't publicly accessible for the letsencrypt servers to talk to.
  - unshavedyak 27d ago
    I've got a Caddy instance setup which proxies my traffic and has dead easy integration for domain DNS registration. Super handy
    - entropicdrifter 26d ago
      Same, it's fantastic. As long as you don't need to support as many requests per second on your hardware as something like NGINX could, Caddy is the way to go.

davidmurdoch 27d ago

Jellyfin works just fine with remote access and multiple users.

atombender 26d ago
I don't trust Jellyfin to be secure enough to be put on the public Internet.
- pull_my_finger 24d ago
  Why is that? Did you have an issue with how it's set up? Or does it not do enough out of the box and leaves security for the administrator?

rdudek 27d ago

Is Plex/jellyfin even necessary for Infuse? I've been using Infuse for years now and it has direct access to my NAS to look for media content and just directly plays it. It's a such an amazing app and it plays everything I throw at it without any buffering or transcoding issues. The Pro version pretty much has all the necessary codecs, including all the dolby things for hdr/atmos. It just works so well.

frizlab 26d ago
Yeah I have Infuse only, and am happy with it. No need for jellyfin or whatever else. Honestly Infuse may be one of my best app purchases of these past 10 years…

nobody9999 26d ago

>But the sore point right now is outside access, which Jellyfin really isn't made for. I set up Tailscale so I can connect Infuse to Jellyfin remotely. But that's not exactly as smooth as Plex. I can't give friends and family access, either, which was dead easy with Plex. I'm confused about this bit. I installed jellyfin to provide outside access to me and my family/friends. It wasn't difficult to make it available on the 'net, setting up new users is pretty simple and jellyfin has clients (both first and third party) for most platforms. In fact, I went from never having used jellyfin to giving external access to friends/family within a few hours. I'm sure I'm missing something, so if you wouldn't mind, I'd be very interested to hear your experience.

atombender 26d ago
I don't believe in Jellyfin being secure enough to put on the public Internet. In my case, Jellyfin is on my home network, and the box has access to a lot of files and devices.
- nobody9999 25d ago
  >I don't believe in Jellyfin being secure enough to put on the public Internet. In my case, Jellyfin is on my home network, and the box has access to a lot of files and devices. Fair enough. IME, Jellyfin and (just as importantly -- at least for me) the distribution (Fedora) I use have been very good at patching/releasing updates to both the clients and servers when vulnerabilities are found. Initially, I stuffed jellyfin (and a bunch of other stuff) behind HAProxy[0], which was fine. Now I don't even bother. It's been at least three years since I put up my jellyfin server and haven't had any issues at all. All that said, I understand your trepidation and am glad you found something that works for you! [0] https://www.haproxy.org/ https://www.haproxy.org/

BrendanThompson 24d ago

I have the exact same setup. I found Infuse a PITA to begin with. Now it works pretty dang well, even remotely. One big irritation though is the subtitles are always on by default, on Apple TV it's an issue as I can't find a way to disable the default haha! Sometimes there is also a delay between when Jellyfin can play a new video in the browser and when Infuse can play it even though it can see the file. I do find Infuse significantly better than the Jellyfin apps though.