this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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I've feel like I've used Plex forever. I also feel like every couple years I try Jellyfin to see how it's going. Recently I tried it again because of Plex restriction on more than one user.

Well, I just tried it again and it's substantially improved! This time it actually properly detected most of my library!

Also the Android TV app is AWESOME! No more glitches, lagging, and freezing trying to play my stuff like Plex did. It is butter smooth.

Wow! I'm impressed and I just deleted Plex. Good riddance.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't use it for myself but my experience with Jellyfin is the subtitles UX kind of sucks. It got a lot better on the Android TV app recently (ty to the maintainer!), particularly with improved subtitle support, but because of ExoPlayer it still can't play bitmapped embedded subtitles easily, only .srt subtitles.

The experience on iOS/appletv with Jellyfin/Swiftfin was so bad that I ended up recommending Infuse. Infuse is a great app, but it's not a libre app, which kind of clashes with the rest of Jellyfin in that regard. And, once again, it needs massaging: unless you want to be popped up with a buy Infuse Pro pop-up your video and audio has to be in certain codecs.

As I said, I don't use these things, myself. I don't even have a TV. But every now and again, I will put a file up for some relatives, and I want it to be totally directly playable, because my server is just an old laptop. So I have to spend a lot of manual time making sure the files are juuuuust right. If there comes a day where there's direct playback with embedded PGS or SRT subtitles on all platforms that will be the day the Jellyfin suite of software becomes 10/10 software for me.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

I love jellyfin! I've been using it for a few years and it has definitely gotten better. Every once in a while, it will incorrectly detect a show and I'll have to manually add it. Usually on obscure or older shows and movies.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The only problem I'm having with jellyfin is around subtitles, but it's getting better all the time. I bought the plex lifetime license a few years ago, but we've moved our whole house to jellyfin now.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Recently I tried it again because of Plex restriction on more than one user.

What do you mean by this? I don’t recall seeing anything about a change like this.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've been considering switching to Jellyfin for a while due to concerns about Plex either becoming worse or them peering into my library. Any idea how the apps work on Fire TV Stick? I have one for home and one I take away with me and it all works seamlessly with Plex

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Works great. I use VLC as a player (personal preference).

Not sure how the internal player works.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

So glad people are dipping out of plex.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

What problems are you having with it?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I genuinely do not understand the issues people are having with Jellyfin subtitles. I just have Bazarr set up to automatically download and they play on every device (web, android, iOS, roku, android TV) with zero issues.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I could never get Plex to work the way I wanted it to, so I'm actually someone who moved to Kodi and then to Emby. Once I got into Emby, I've yet to leave it. My biggest problem now is that I want to leave it for Jellyfin, but the lack of many things I love about Emby have never been moved to Jellyfin.

For example, I have a very specific organization of my music libraries I use to navigate what I want to listen to much quicker, since I'm into all kinds of genres of music. Emby allows me to navigate by folder structure, so if I'm in the mood for heavy metal one day, go to that folder. If classical another day, go there. Jellyfin on the other hand didn't have folder structure view and even though it's one of the top requested features for the past few years when I last checked, it's never been added...

I think the day Jellyfin does fill in these gaps, assuming new ones aren't introduced due to Emby also improving, I'll finally jump over.

I guess to the original topic, I do think Jellyfin exceeds Plex though lol.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

I've been running plex since 2016 and jellyfin since 2019. I'm slowly moving users over to jellyfin with the plan to cut off plex at somepoint in the next couple years. Jellyfin is missing some quality of life features but nothing super crazy

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Although I have my issues with plex, jellyfin has its own problems:

  • STILL can't clear out the TS transcoded files automatically. So if you watch a bunch of TV episodes on a weekend, your jellyfin container will run out of space and break.
  • STILL can't handle subtitles properly. I swear, this must be jellyfin's Waterloo.
  • jellyfin cannot demux 5.1 and present stereo sound on certain streams. I think this is a tooling issue. But it's low level enough that I can handle it manually with mkvtoolnix myself on the few cases it happens.
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)
  • I’ll have to check but I haven’t had an issue with the transcoded files filling up.
  • Subtitles work as expected for me but all of my file names are in English, are the ones you’re having problems with file names in another language perchance?
  • That last one I fixed myself by wrapping ffmpeg around a script I wrote that forces 5.1 to transcode to AC3 so it goes to my speakers properly.
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I might have to check out Jellyfin. Can you run both at the same time?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I don't see any reason why you couldn't with default settings. Beware of enabling any setting that stores data next to the media like nfo metadata storage, as those could maybe cause conflicts.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (9 children)

It's still terrible for music. There's not even user-based star rating...

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Wait - what restrictions on Plex?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Any recommendations about how to install all this jazz?

I'd like to build a music box controllable by the family, eventually centralising videos so anyone (or at least me) can just pick up their phone and watch an episode of star trek without the hassle of copying. Automatic subtitles would be magic.

Cheers!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I’ve been running plex for a few years no. No real issues to complain of.

Until today. I just upgraded my server with an Intel ARC. Was looking forward to enabling qsv for streaming. Turns out you need plex pass to do that.

Can jellyfin do it?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I've had both for a while now, but I find that subtitle playback is a bit spotty in Jellyfin. Is that fixed, or have I missed a setting somewhere? The other thing is that my libraries are alphabetical in Jellyfin, so "Anime" comes before "Kaiju", and I truly can't stand the idea that Godzilla gets sent to the back of the bus. Is there a way to customize the order of libraries?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

I actually had the opposite experience, better subtitle support without transcoding the video track with Jellyfin

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The addons are great too. The intro/outro skip is slick and nearly flawless, background subtitle download is seamless, on and on.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I never used Plex. Up until my kids were born I used to just watch my videos on my desktop, but now I find myself watching on my phone and TV more often. My Jellyfin server has been super stable for the last 6 months or so running on a super low powered machine and external hard drive. The only issues I have is with movies with Dolby digital, they tend to get out of sync when scrubbing the timeline. I am assuming that is due to the lower power of the machine. But, I have a 400watt desktop with a 7th gen i7 and a pascal Quadro P1000 that I am planning on migrating to. Then adding a 20tb internal drive for storage. Hopefully that will resolve the small issues I have seen with it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I knew basically nothing bout jellyfin except it existed and this thread inspired me to finally set up my own server and client on the tv cause the chromecast has just become so unbearably bad.

I had it up and running in 5 minutes. Hardest part was remembering the auth key while running between rooms. I don't buy into the atmos meme, for music I have bt amplifier or vinyl and it has everything I need: Watch content from my tv.

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