Plex vs Jellyfin - Which Should You Use on Your NAS?

[@cameronfrye5514]

Thank you for the time you have put into these comparisons. I have had a lifetime Plex pass for over 10 years, but switched to Jellyfin two months ago. Maybe my observations will help someone, sorry if it gets a bit wordy.. First, Plex is spending their time working on adding streaming services. For the purposes of a self hosted media streaming application, those are clutter (my opinion). Each update pushed my personal folders back off the main page, behind these ad supported streaming services, requiring me to set them up again. Second, Plex is constantly "phoning home". Set up a Pi-Hole and just see how many connections Plex is constantly making even when the server is sitting there idle. Third, if you are in an area where you sometimes lose internet access, and someone tries to switch users.. you can't connect to the server from that device until internet access is restored. That last one was the spark that made me decide to switch. Lines got damaged last winter and it took almost a week to get our home internet back up. By the end of that time none of our devices could access the server. Seemed kind of pointless to have a self hosted media server you can't connect to without internet access. Jellyfin handles user authentication locally, so if you can see the server on the network you can authenticate. From the server side, Plex is more refined. That is to be expected from a paid app, but it is surprising how good Jellyfin is. Transcoding is easier to set up in Plex, but if you have the space you can do the transcoding in advance for the devices you intend to use and that's no longer an issue (which is what I do). Plex is also more tolerant when setting up Metadata.. if you inadvertently name a folder "Season Two" instead of "Season 2" Plex didn't seem to notice, but Jellyfin absolutely got lost and I had to correct a lot of those kinds of errors. I didn't find either of the servers difficult to manage, but you definitely need to be more aware and intentional when setting up Jellyfin. The user experience in Jellyfin seems much less cluttered and substantially more responsive. Whether on a Roku or a tablet the Jellyfin app opens nearly instantly, whereas the Plex app takes a few seconds. This isn't something that was troubling in Plex, it takes about the same amount of time to open the Plex app as any other streaming app.. but now I recognize that time delay is because of the offsite connection Plex makes. Jellyfin opens more quickly because everything happens on the local network. I have also noticed that Jellyfin seems to do a better job bookmarking where you are in a movie or series. In Plex I always had to remember where I was in a series because it would get stuck from time to time. Jellyfin will remember, user by user, where someone is and return to that spot. I don't think either one is difficult to set up or manage. I honestly expected less from Jellyfin, being an open source project, but was very pleasantly surprised. There are a few services it doesn't offer or do as well, such as music management and streaming, but I didn't really take advantage of those in Plex so their loss wasn't a big deal to me. If all you want to do is stream your personal video collection on your own network Jellyfin is the way to go in my opinion.

[@TheLindaHarrison]

Thanks for taking the time to write this. I'm primarily looking for music management features - what do you mean when you say Jellyfin doesn't offer or do as well with that?

[@vidviewer20]

Thanks Cameron. Great write up. I'm probably still old school and download content from torrents and host locally rather than streaming services. Saving my library for the apocalypse 😆

[@SoupOrSalad]

@@vidviewer20where do you find safe sites to download from these days, I’m young and don’t know any of the tried and true spots that are still operational

[@andystewart9405]

Thank you for explaining your experience it helped me choose Jellyfin

[@PhotoJohn80]

Interesting. I’ve never had any of these issues that you had with Plex. I got a lifetime pass 9 years ago for antenna TV and never been happier. Oh well each their own.

[@topgazza]

The effort and intelligence you put into these videos is superb. Thank you to yourself and the seagulls

[@TheRacheakt]

I Run Jellyfin on Truenas Scale, My use case was "the internet is down" streaming. Something that is kinda hard with Plex's must-phone-home even for local use made it less than ideal in my use case. I have no one outside my house that I will stream to, so why pay for that.

[@Irgendwasneues]

Appreciate all your work mate. For a few days now I am watching your content to educate myself to make an educated decision which NAS to buy, what to look out for etc. Thanks 👍

[@US_Joe]

Only you can do a review like this. You're such an expert in this field. Thanx mate👍👍👍

[@robertleem5643]

Many thanks for creating this video, I have been using Jellyfin now since December and absolutely love it. I did look at Plex but didn't want to pay

[@otisobl]

Been using Plex for at least five years, never paid a dime. What particular function did you feel you needed to pay for that you get for free in Jellyfin?

[@chaotatca2003]

@@otisobl I switched from Plex to Jellyfin. the disadvatage of Plex regular is can't download for offline watch on laptop/tablet for travel, hardware transcoding. All of those features are free on Jellyfin while have to pay Plex Pass to use. Also Jellyfin is open-source that everyone can contribute to help built the system while Plex is owned by a company. if the company go bankruptcy, the app will be gone.

[@AndyGrayedout]

Thanks for this, I found your video as Synology no longer seems to support its own video station. I've started using Plex and then come across Jellyfin . As far as I can see it as a Mac and IOS only user Jellyfin is the better simpler option

[@cutsdbz]

Great video! In my opinion, to each their own. Each of these platforms are targeted to different user group. You have the group that love to ticker and put in the extra work and do customization and smile when things work. Then you have the group the just wants to install something, do a simple user friendly setup and things just work regardless of the fee. I am a Plex user for the past 6 years. I use my 8-bay Synology as the file server and I have a PC with a P2000 Quadro for transcoding. Most of the users a share library with are of the older age group that's not tech savvy. So sending and invite and just walking through the setup on the phone is simple. When I go on vacation, I can just connect to Plex on a smart tv and just start watching, I can log out when am done. I am not bashing Jellyfin or Emby, they are good, but it's not suitable for me.

[@nils-erikolsson3539]

Nice side-by-side comparison.

[@pjohnson21211]

Thanks going to circle back and re-watch this in a month or two as I do a personal assessment if I want to migrate from Plex to Jellyfin.....

[@sohammanna7929]

What did you decide? Let us know please.

[@Yandarval]

late to the party. The transcoding part is a load of UTTER rubbish. The commentary states he is comparing "Hardware" transcoding. Plex's dropdown, as shown, is CPU only transcoding. That is "software" transcoding. Jellyfin's dropdown is for real hardware transcoding.

[@Trevorodunne]

One of the Best reviews of Jellyfin and Plex..

[@CountZilch]

Great summary. I think one thing missing for me in the comparison blog though is the audio player. I'm trying to move from Plex to Jellyfin, but I'm stuck on there not being a viable equivalent of PlexAmp. This is important to me because I mainly listen to music in the car, so there needs to be a client that works with Android Auto. PlexAmp is pretty slick, and gives you your own private Spotify type experience. Also, are you able to do a guide of adding Live TV (TV tuner cards) support to a Synology NAS Jellyfin server sometime? And maybe how to tell if your NAS is capable of hardware transcoding. Thanks!

[@CountZilch]

Also, I'm really amazed no apps have a VR client app! I think Plex had one but it was never updated for the Quest 2 or something?

[@Incopyré]

Try Symfonium as a audio player for Jellyfin. It works with Android Auto.

[@sharksjungle7492]

Best of the best videos , great comparison, FYI Asustor has installer for jellyfin .

[@esenterre]

Awesome great video!

[@garrylove8955]

I love the father ted running on jellyfin. It was a surprise to be sure. Just found your account, you must be Irish?

[@GrillerGT]

Yup, the fact that Plex has support for most hardware/software under the sun is what pushed me to get the pass... it just works for the stuff I have.

[@NealeWard]

Great video as always. Like Cameron above, I lost my Internet connection in storms recently, and was seriously under impressed that I could not access my Plex library from the TVs etc. I ended up watching stuff on a laptop direct from the media files, HDMI cable, total lash up. My question: is there anyway to allow non authenticated access to Plex so i access it when the Internet is down? My DS920+ is well hidden behind firwalls etc, nothing exposed to the internet. Or is the way out of our next outage to install Jellyfin as a backup path? Plex plays well on the TVs, and I have enough Roku's to go round for the TVs without a Jellyfin app

[@AV84USA]

Can you use both? Setup Jellyfin and Plex to both use the same Movies folder on a Synology?

[@datboijdope]

Yes.

[@CaseySchneider]

Super easy

[@DavidM2002]

I see from one comment that Plex has a relay server. ( I'm pretty new to Plex.) But, I don't want to open port or activate UPnP on my router. Can you Tailscale directly into your home Plex server ?

[@sandrorocha790]

I believe so, as long as both the server machine and the client machine are running Tailscale.

[@akenger]

Great content as always. I think there’s too much emphasis on “you need a plex pass to be comparable”. Lifetime plex pass for 100$ to me kind of makes any argument about a feature being behind that paywall irrelevant. At the end of the day, I think it’s would be a better review to just stick to overall capabilities. I am building by own NAS and have spent $ on hardware and potentially software (unraid or whatever). The cost of plex pass is pretty minimal in the grand scheme. Sure - it’s “one more thing” but it really shouldn’t be a determining factor. If plex doesn’t do something you need or doesn’t do it as well as jellyfin, that should be called out (or visa versa). Just my 2 cents.

[@vsuarezp]

I love it when you say "I HATE SEAGULLS!!"

[@nascompares]

Which is ironic, because I hate having to say it, but also like positive reinforcement.... Bugger! *Throws another rock at the birds*

[@derred723]

i use plex now but have issues with the scrobbler as it will skip ffw 10min only. no back. which makes not spoiling movies suck if you want to pause. it also goes fwd 10 even if you hit back. Don't know if it's my remote but it's annoying. i now have plex and like the visuals but usually actually watch longer movies i might have to pause on the shield tv vlc app. Tried emby for music it was great till it broke. It's a major pain to configure the music libraries and it doesn't read mp3 metadata remotely correctly and since that's how it organizes it screws up albums splitting them. Also when you navigate on the phone app by genre it goes genre, then songs, then gives a massive list of songs. Nobody with a music collection visualizes music like that. It should go genre, artist, album, song. And there's no option to force navigating like that and despite requests i've read they won't do it. Apples native app switched to doing that which is why i used a 3rd party one. But it's a major pain to pick like hip-hop as a genre and then just get a list 18k songs. Hell i don't even know the names of plenty of songs. I just know when i bought the album what album it's on. But it is useful if you have tons of music as basically a free spotify. Especially if you're like me and have lots of out of print or local music spotify doesn't have. I do like that once you figure out plex it pretty much just works. Wish i could just use vlc as the default video player cause vlc is rock solid and rarely fails me in terms of competent playback. I researched Jellyfin but won't get to try it until i buy a NAS.

[@fvheel]

I have a Qnap nas mainly for backup and media streaming with Plex. I have a lot of dvd's that i want to backup to my Qnap. The problem is that converting them from a dvd to mp4 takes a lot of time. Is there a way to play a copy of the VIDEO_TS folder of a dvd on my Qnap nas? Can i copy the VIDEO_TS folder to my Qnap nas and convert it on my nas to mp4, just like "Transcoding" in "Multimedia Console"? This way i don't have to use my computer for transcoding and let my nas do the work. Thank you

[@96indashade]

Main takeaway: seagulls were not invited to this party.

After I found out about Infuse supporting Jellyfin source, I immediately delete Jellyfin app from my iPhone and Plex from my synology :)

[@mekko1413]

I would use a polished setup and use vs ease of use as it describes it to both techies and normies.

[@RandallStevenson]

Jellyfin is completely free and the only time you need internet is when your TV requires it once to initially see the server.

[@pilske20]

I hate seagulls ! hahahaha then i was back in your video mate :) :)

[@dave24-73]

Can’t I do all this with Kodi or am I missing something.

[@SteveLamb]

I use Emby running in Docker on a DS920+. I was wondering if there's anyway to make use of the 2 lans and have Emby only running on lan 2, whilst everything else runs on lan 1? Can this be done? Video idea maybe??

[@o0Hotiron0o]

Thank you

[@454IsaacR]

I used plex for the better part of a year without complaint. My experience with it was finally soured when I got a nice OLED 4k tv, and I played a 4k movie via plex. I tried to turn on subtitles, and plex said I needed to pay to enable hardware transcoding if I wanted subs. Imagine you have a service running on your own hardware - you're paying for the silicon and the power - but you need to pay someone to unlock a feature that you yourself are going to serve on your own server. That's like ordering a pizza, but then it shows up and you have to put it together and cook it yourself. I'll do that, I'll cook it myself, but I don't want to pay someone for the right to work. I also ran into a situation where I had no internet, but plex required an internet connection before I could start the server. I switched to Jellyfin later that week. If you like plex, and you paid for it, and you're happy with it, then there's no reason to leave. However if you value running a service that's actually yours (one of the main reasons many of us got into home networking) with no asterisks, then its Jellyfin; every day.

[@daverules]

your pizza comparison makes no sense… the correct pizza comparison is plex gives you a pizza but you want different toping they say you need to pay for them. they made a software that they give for free and if you want to unlock all the features they want you to pay for them seems normal. you are literally asking wanting the company to do all the work for free

[@crot2035]

Imagine if you had to write and maintain all the code to give it all away for free.

[@WokeDetection]

Plex freezes my TCL Android TV if I try to browse my movies with it. It is better than jellyfin in that it feels slightly more refined and for some reason jellyfin can't look for new subtitle out maybe I don't know how to use it but that's an issue I've seen. jellyfin is more stable on the TCL Android TV though.

[@warwick129]

Hi Can you run both Plex and JellyFin on the same Synology server?

[@sandrorocha790]

I've had problems running Plex and Emby together on the same server. In addition to overloading the system and disk access, they were confusing each other's metadata.

[@JRJohnson1701]

My decision to switch from Plex would be: does it have season-specific special features for TV Shows? Does it have multiple airdates per country? (I have foreign versions of US shows that aired on a different date and want to preserve that). Does it have an aired today category/pivot on the recommended screen? Does it allow me to create my own custom channels and schedule shows so my wife can watch all her Jane Austen stuff on a channel and I can watch Star Trek on my own Star Trek channel? Does it allow movie pre-rolls dependent on various criteria (holiday, season, date, genre, series, etc.)? If Emby or Jellyfin could do that, I might switch

[@jsouto77]

I feel like ive been under a rockall my life...never heard of jellyfin

[@NickBR57]

Plex won't recognise my media properly. It insists some media is not what it is, even with optional folder naming ID and lifetime Plex Pass. It crashes regularly when showing Plex ads,requiring restart every time ads are shown. Support, for a lifetime Plex Pass holder, is non-existent. Emby is much more controllable. Jellyfin can't be installed when Emby is installed without changing ports and breaking some Emby client setup Transcoding regularly fails in both Plex and Emby. Often I resort to VLC via DLNA which will play all my files with no issues at the cost of having to navigate through folders, but that works.

[@TihomirKit]

Accessing your own hardware (hw acceleration) is a bit of a moot point (around 26min mark). Every application uses your hardware in some way, so whenever you pay for an application, you're in a way paying to access your hardware (in some custom, specific way). In case of plex and hw accelleration, you're not really paying to access your hardware (it's not like they're actively blocking that on free tier) but for (as you have said) dev time to integrate that hardware capability into plex. It is strong leverage to get people to get the license though. Great and informative video, thnx!

[@gl5638]

I have found that jellyfin is an amazing application with many excellent features but at the end of the day, not useable for very big collections.

[@ccevideo]

why? (just curious) and what do you mean by "big collections?"

[@rkrivera]

doesn't synology have a media player...how does it compare to plex or jellyfin

[@jeromeli159]

Video station just okay to use. Not any cool feature. I use it as my secondary player since I just don't want to pay Plex pass.

[@mxuther]

why not include Kodi?

[@blcjck8121]

Kodi is (out-of-the-box) a media player. Plex etc. are media servers. It's sorta apples and oranges.

[@MobileDecay]

I wish Jellyfin could download entire albums with one click. Unfortunately, you have to download every song one by one. =(

[@sandrorocha790]

Look for Lidarr.

[@joeD758]

I find Emby the best overall but havn't tried jellyfin in a long time in all fairness. Had nothing but library and streaming issues with plex.

[@tonguelover6666]

for not mention the fact that they being hacked and a day and another? that's insane, lately...

[@whya2ndaccount]

As far as I know, neither of these are fully supported in DSM 7.1.1 - Plex is a Beta and Jellyfin is a community app, that comes with a bunch of warnings/waivers. I'm a bit risk averse and will wait for DSM 7.2 and see what is supported before I potentially risk all my data just to stream a DVD that I can put in a machine.

[@catboypleasepet-jt4ot]

just give jellyfin 6 bucks and then use it for life

[@anonamos6086]

Plex has given up on life. They’ve lost all motivation.

[@thethirdman225]

Ah phooey. I can't run Jellyfin on my TV.

[@chrishalle1982]

I use neither of them i use videostation

[@Paelmoon]

I've tried both and don't like Plex. Just the user experience is unpleasant.

[@oscs4556]

I just run both Jellyfin and Plex media servers pointed to the same media folder

[@the_bogeyman.]

I will probably do the same. I am a Plex user and I find it good most of the times (Windows and Linux PCs, appleTV, LG smart TV, Amazon Firestick, apple ios mobile devices) When do you find Jellyfin a better experience than Plex?

[@oscs4556]

@@the_bogeyman. doesn’t have the extra crap like Plex and everything is not behind a paywall. Jellyfin has really good plug-ins stuff.

[@the_bogeyman.]

@@oscs4556 What extra crap do you mean? I have the lifetime plex pass tho. I am trying to install jellyfin on my synology with docker but I get an error (invalid volume specification/mount config)

[@oscs4556]

@@the_bogeyman. I’m on the free account for Plex. Don’t know anything about lifetime Plex. I run both Jellyfin and Plex on podman on my OpenSuse micro os home server. I have three volumes set up for Jellyfin ; config, cache and media. For example /ServerDataVolume/AppData/Jellyfin/config: /config in docker or docker compose yaml file. You need to create mount points or volumes first.

[@CountZilch]

@@the_bogeyman. Might be easier to use the community package. That's what I did and works pretty well

[@triamera99]

why using plex today? whats the meaning?

[@iankester-haney3315]

Plex has the Trump card in all comparisons. They are the only 1 with a relay server option. I'd pay for something like jellyfin to supply a relay service for remote playback outside the home. That's the main reason I still use plex over the alternatives.

[@CountZilch]

That's the main reason I don't use Plex. Why do you want someone in the cloud decoding all your data and managing your user accounts?

[@zephyr8954]

A lot of users like myself see that as a major red flag. And with the recent Plex data breach, it’s a very good reason to not trust Plex.

[@floid33556]

Dude you must be a politician. It takes an awe full lot of time and a lot of words to say anything.

[@TheCynysterMind]

I like the look of Jellyfin but that is a hard pass when it comes to the need to install docker to run it. Like VMware...Docker is a waste of time and effort if all you plan on doing is running the one thing... Both Docker and VMware are only worthwhile for a very small number of use cases. It is like Buying a flatbed truck and then hauling around your sports car with it.

[@454IsaacR]

You can install docker and use it to host jellyfin, and sonarr, radarr, and maybe even a torrenting app. Then when/if you upgrade to a dedicated server, you simply move your containers to the server and you're up and running with all your old settings intact. Then if you upgrade your server in the future, the migration is just as easy. Containerization is so popular among dev ops engineers because it pays you back a hundredfold for the effort you put into learning it.

[@tonguelover6666]

docker is THE way my friend, learn the code, is easy and you will be able to replicate it everywhere you need :)

[@TheCynysterMind]

@@tonguelover6666 please take this with the best intentions possible. But replicate it where? I have no need for popping up instances all over the place. what I need is a backup configuration file(s) to media in a firesafe I am very familiar with both docker and VMware and they have their place... just not on my home NAS

[@tonguelover6666]

@@TheCynysterMind if you really use vmware and docker then you can't say is a waste of time. Otherwise, you should do yoyr backup offline and just that, NAS is definitely too much for you then

[@TheCynysterMind]

@@tonguelover6666 I back up my VM's directly to an Encrypted Hard Drive in a dock and place the drive in a firesafe. Every Sunday it is my morning routine to backup all my data to drives that go into a firesafe. I prefer to utilize my OWN cloud because I know how cloud base services STEAL from those that use them. So no.. a NAS is not to much for me. Wasting time and resources IS to much for me.. You seem to want to walk out your front door around the block to get to your back yard instead of walking out your back door. Just because something is new does not make it better. Oh and I was being polite... you are being an ASSHAT

[@phillcom3]

not gona lie got lost and lost interest about half way thoruhg even though i sitend tot eh whole thing