Jellyfin is fine if you’re an advanced user and you don’t care about streaming outside your network — and your software is made by an AI company (Microsoft) or an advertising company (Google). If it’s made by a computer company (Apple), you have a bit more work ahead of you. Mac users are a minority, so Jellyfin does not prioritise them. Even if you go all-in with ads and AI, you still don’t get remote streaming, which is kind of the point of Jellyfin.
iPhones come in up to 2TB (for the Pro Max) now. I have 512GB on mine, and I have a dozen HD-4K movies (one is actually 1440p) and a few TV shows. I use an app called Outplayer. It’s like VLC but it has folders, you don’t have to have everything in one place like VLC does. (Though, I suppose you can put your files in the Files app and have them open with VLC. But I mean in the app itself you can have folders.) Android phones have similar sizes, though I’m not sure they go up to 1-2TB. I’m not sure though. Older ones can get there with SD cards, but the read/write on those things is so slow, I would hate to move big videos to and from them. Like start that transfer and then go to bed, hope it’s done in the morning without errors.
Plex went from $120 to $250 a few years ago, and they warned people first. No one who had any sense waited for the price increase before buying. Like most others, I paid less. I think I paid $90? Anyway, at this point they’re just going after the whales. There were plenty of sub-$100 deals on Plex back in the day. Those who didn’t see any value in running your own Netflix chose not to pay, and of course they’re not gonna pay more. Plex was worth paying for at $120 or less. I could almost make the case for it at $250. At $750, if you’d told me 10-15 years ago when it was new how much value I’d get from it, I would have paid — and bought more hard drives.
If you do use Apple stuff, you kinda have the best option, but it’s not free, and it absolutely does not work outside your network. It’s called Infuse. First, the price. It’s priced old school, so if you buy lifetime, it’s only lifetime of the current major version. 6 or 7, I think. So when the next one comes out, you can buy at a discount or you can go to monthly. Yearly is actually the best option, it’s $10 a year. That’s not bad. Ten years of it is $100, and paying monthly or yearly means you’re always on the latest version. Considering lifetime is like $60-80, I think it’s a great deal to go yearly. The thing is, Infuse only works with Apple tech, and it’s not a web server and I don’t think you can make it be one. What it does do is catalogue your media and let you easily download to your Apple devices. It’s got some quirks I don’t like. For example, the player will work with a Plex (or Jellyfin) library, but it won’t write back. What that means is, if you’re watching a series on Plex hosted by Plex, you know, it’s gonna update what episode you’re on. Infuse will read that data (say, it knows you’re on episode 6), but it won’t tell Plex what it’s playing, so if you watch 2 episodes on Infuse, Plex still thinks you’re on 6. Infuse clients only talk to Infuse hosts. (Infuse also doesn’t need a host. Just share the files on the Mac using macOS’s built in file sharing feature like any OS has, and Infuse will read straight from that. It’s very smart and robust, and it’s also considered one of the best media players in the Apple ecosystem, rivaling VLC, and that other one that is only on Apple stuff that people love to recommend. I think it’s ugly, but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool VLC diehard, so I got no room to talk about ugly software. I just like the one I’m used to.
I don’t think Jellyfin is really good at much of anything but being free. It’s not Plex. It kind of acts like Plex, but it doesn’t do for its users what Plex users consider worth paying for. Infuse doesn’t, either, but Infuse takes a different approach. It’s one that Plex also takes (you download stuff to your device rather than streaming it remotely, which is based on you having an idea of what you want to watch when you’re not at home), but it’s not Plex’s priority and I don’t know about Jellyfin.
That said, Jellyfin does let you edit certain things. For example, both Jellyfin and Plex use The TVDB for metadata, but The TVDB tends to prefer foreign language casts when multiple exist, so if you don’t speak the language, and you don’t listen to that dub, the metadata is kind of useless. The problem is that there’s no source as good as The TVDB that provides multiple dub casts, so the media server apps don’t have the ability to let you pick the cast based on your language preferences. However, Jellyfin will let you manually change the metadata, per show. It takes time, but you can do it. Plex doesn’t let you do it at all.
I do feel for people who are looking at Plex’s $750 price tag, but it’s not like they weren’t warned. Plex users have been promoting the hell out of it for years. Those who thought “it’ll go down” and it more than doubled, and then thought, “oh it’ll go down for sure now” and now that it’s tripling… you kinda gotta lay in the bed you made. Or go build one from scratch. Or use a computer from a company that isn’t based around AI or advertising and find a different way.
Also, I don’t think you can pirate Plex, if anyone’s asking. The server runs locally, but the Plex Pass features are server-based.
What I’d suggest if you don’t like Plex or paying for media server tools is, work on Jellyfin or donate in some way or otherwise contribute to the project. Because at some point Jellyfin is probably going to start charging. So I would “get in on the ground floor” now. Be using it. Be advocating for it. Be contributing to it any way you can. Not just to avoid having to pay if and when they do start charging (I do not know that they will, it’s just my guess), but to make it something worth paying for before (if it does start charging), it starts charging more and you’re back at square one. Because none of us are getting any younger. If you missed the Plex boat, don’t miss the Jellyfin boat. Or get into the Apple ecosystem and pony up for Infuse. (Though, as an Apple guy/Mac guy/iPhone guy, I don’t use or pay for Infuse. I just copy the files over to OutPlayer and play them there. It’s not as pretty, but it works.
This is such an incredible long bunch of misinformation and nonsense…
Jellyfin is everything Plex used to be before it started sucking.
Streaming outside your home network might be slightly trickier with Jellyfin but that’s the cost of security and ownership… But really, setting up tailscale is dead simple as well, and would get you what you need in a way that is far superior to Plex…
I stopped reading beyond that because as I skimmed the post it was just more nonsense. Are you sure you’ve actually used Jellyfin?
Why should I answer if you don’t read things that are inconvenient to or challenge your worldview? Just block people who do that and enjoy your echo chamber. That seems to be what you want.
LLMs weren’t trained on every post on Reddit and forums. They focused on long-form comments that prioritised proper grammar and correct spelling. So while I don’t use AI to write my posts and comments, LLMs were likely trained on them, so even though you’re incorrect, I can’t really fault your assumption.
I can’t type like a kid to try to not sound like AI and I don’t want to do that anyway.
It’s interesting you equate Google to advertising (search company). And you equate Microsoft to an AI company (software company). But you equate Apple to a computer company, which in theory it is, but over 50% of it’s sales and revenue are the Iphone.
Lmao I didn’t even get that far down their stupid post. That’s some impressive stupidity. Apple is a marketing company that happens to manufacture some sub-par commercial devices that appeal to idiots that like to pretend they know what they’re talking about.
Did this person manage to get anything correct in their long-winded cloud yelling?
Yes. I am a bit biased and I generally try to decorate biases when they aren’t obvious.
I do admit, I’m a bit older, so Apple was primarily a computer company while I was growing up. They were a bit of a media company before they were a phone company, with the iTunes Music Store. They still are with Apple Music and Apple TV.
To be fair, they run the iPhone like they run the Mac. They don’t allow pack in software, sometimes called shovelware, and including stuff like Facebook and Amazon. Though some say including their own apps counts. I don’t really think so, but I don’t think it’s worth debating. I think their rent seeking and not allowing third party app stores and sideloading is the more interesting criticism, and one I share as well.
The problem is that Apple is getting into services, which is where Google started. And adding ads is the next step and they’ve already begun that.
Google makes a lot of money off that sentiment. The compute power of their latest Pixel has been compared to that of the iPhone 11 (2019). And it makes Google on average $1700 a year. More off some people than others.
But hey, vote with your wallet. Put your money into companies that will make the world you want to live in. I admit, I’m living in the past thinking of Apple as the Steve Jobs led company of 1983 with the six colours logo. But I still think computers should serve people first. Maybe none really do anymore, but that’s what I want.
My Pixel 10 Pro feels just as fast as my iPhone 16 Pro. I feel like they are both good phones and other than specifications on paper and benchmarks online I wouldn’t know the Pixel was that much inferior.
Sure I don’t game or do video editing on a phone so maybe I’m just not the target audience but for general use I think Google have done a good job.
I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max (2024) and a Galaxy S10 (2019). I think the iPhone might boot up a second faster? Has a better battery. Better camera. I’d be perfectly happy using the S10 as a daily driver. And to think an iPhone 11 (also 2019) is faster? We hit a plateau years ago. All a newer/faster phone is really for is top-end gaming (hobbled by a 6-7” screen) and AI. And the Pixel 10 Pro has some solid AI features. Of course, compute power doesn’t matter if it’s done off-site. (Not sure how Pixel does it.)
Jellyfin is fine if you’re an advanced user and you don’t care about streaming outside your network — and your software is made by an AI company (Microsoft) or an advertising company (Google). If it’s made by a computer company (Apple), you have a bit more work ahead of you. Mac users are a minority, so Jellyfin does not prioritise them. Even if you go all-in with ads and AI, you still don’t get remote streaming, which is kind of the point of Jellyfin.
iPhones come in up to 2TB (for the Pro Max) now. I have 512GB on mine, and I have a dozen HD-4K movies (one is actually 1440p) and a few TV shows. I use an app called Outplayer. It’s like VLC but it has folders, you don’t have to have everything in one place like VLC does. (Though, I suppose you can put your files in the Files app and have them open with VLC. But I mean in the app itself you can have folders.) Android phones have similar sizes, though I’m not sure they go up to 1-2TB. I’m not sure though. Older ones can get there with SD cards, but the read/write on those things is so slow, I would hate to move big videos to and from them. Like start that transfer and then go to bed, hope it’s done in the morning without errors.
Plex went from $120 to $250 a few years ago, and they warned people first. No one who had any sense waited for the price increase before buying. Like most others, I paid less. I think I paid $90? Anyway, at this point they’re just going after the whales. There were plenty of sub-$100 deals on Plex back in the day. Those who didn’t see any value in running your own Netflix chose not to pay, and of course they’re not gonna pay more. Plex was worth paying for at $120 or less. I could almost make the case for it at $250. At $750, if you’d told me 10-15 years ago when it was new how much value I’d get from it, I would have paid — and bought more hard drives.
If you do use Apple stuff, you kinda have the best option, but it’s not free, and it absolutely does not work outside your network. It’s called Infuse. First, the price. It’s priced old school, so if you buy lifetime, it’s only lifetime of the current major version. 6 or 7, I think. So when the next one comes out, you can buy at a discount or you can go to monthly. Yearly is actually the best option, it’s $10 a year. That’s not bad. Ten years of it is $100, and paying monthly or yearly means you’re always on the latest version. Considering lifetime is like $60-80, I think it’s a great deal to go yearly. The thing is, Infuse only works with Apple tech, and it’s not a web server and I don’t think you can make it be one. What it does do is catalogue your media and let you easily download to your Apple devices. It’s got some quirks I don’t like. For example, the player will work with a Plex (or Jellyfin) library, but it won’t write back. What that means is, if you’re watching a series on Plex hosted by Plex, you know, it’s gonna update what episode you’re on. Infuse will read that data (say, it knows you’re on episode 6), but it won’t tell Plex what it’s playing, so if you watch 2 episodes on Infuse, Plex still thinks you’re on 6. Infuse clients only talk to Infuse hosts. (Infuse also doesn’t need a host. Just share the files on the Mac using macOS’s built in file sharing feature like any OS has, and Infuse will read straight from that. It’s very smart and robust, and it’s also considered one of the best media players in the Apple ecosystem, rivaling VLC, and that other one that is only on Apple stuff that people love to recommend. I think it’s ugly, but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool VLC diehard, so I got no room to talk about ugly software. I just like the one I’m used to.
I don’t think Jellyfin is really good at much of anything but being free. It’s not Plex. It kind of acts like Plex, but it doesn’t do for its users what Plex users consider worth paying for. Infuse doesn’t, either, but Infuse takes a different approach. It’s one that Plex also takes (you download stuff to your device rather than streaming it remotely, which is based on you having an idea of what you want to watch when you’re not at home), but it’s not Plex’s priority and I don’t know about Jellyfin.
That said, Jellyfin does let you edit certain things. For example, both Jellyfin and Plex use The TVDB for metadata, but The TVDB tends to prefer foreign language casts when multiple exist, so if you don’t speak the language, and you don’t listen to that dub, the metadata is kind of useless. The problem is that there’s no source as good as The TVDB that provides multiple dub casts, so the media server apps don’t have the ability to let you pick the cast based on your language preferences. However, Jellyfin will let you manually change the metadata, per show. It takes time, but you can do it. Plex doesn’t let you do it at all.
I do feel for people who are looking at Plex’s $750 price tag, but it’s not like they weren’t warned. Plex users have been promoting the hell out of it for years. Those who thought “it’ll go down” and it more than doubled, and then thought, “oh it’ll go down for sure now” and now that it’s tripling… you kinda gotta lay in the bed you made. Or go build one from scratch. Or use a computer from a company that isn’t based around AI or advertising and find a different way.
Also, I don’t think you can pirate Plex, if anyone’s asking. The server runs locally, but the Plex Pass features are server-based.
What I’d suggest if you don’t like Plex or paying for media server tools is, work on Jellyfin or donate in some way or otherwise contribute to the project. Because at some point Jellyfin is probably going to start charging. So I would “get in on the ground floor” now. Be using it. Be advocating for it. Be contributing to it any way you can. Not just to avoid having to pay if and when they do start charging (I do not know that they will, it’s just my guess), but to make it something worth paying for before (if it does start charging), it starts charging more and you’re back at square one. Because none of us are getting any younger. If you missed the Plex boat, don’t miss the Jellyfin boat. Or get into the Apple ecosystem and pony up for Infuse. (Though, as an Apple guy/Mac guy/iPhone guy, I don’t use or pay for Infuse. I just copy the files over to OutPlayer and play them there. It’s not as pretty, but it works.
This is such an incredible long bunch of misinformation and nonsense…
Jellyfin is everything Plex used to be before it started sucking.
Streaming outside your home network might be slightly trickier with Jellyfin but that’s the cost of security and ownership… But really, setting up tailscale is dead simple as well, and would get you what you need in a way that is far superior to Plex…
I stopped reading beyond that because as I skimmed the post it was just more nonsense. Are you sure you’ve actually used Jellyfin?
Why should I answer if you don’t read things that are inconvenient to or challenge your worldview? Just block people who do that and enjoy your echo chamber. That seems to be what you want.
No way a human wrote all this slop
LLMs weren’t trained on every post on Reddit and forums. They focused on long-form comments that prioritised proper grammar and correct spelling. So while I don’t use AI to write my posts and comments, LLMs were likely trained on them, so even though you’re incorrect, I can’t really fault your assumption.
I can’t type like a kid to try to not sound like AI and I don’t want to do that anyway.
Bullshit
So just entirely ignoring that Linux exists?
And that more users of jellyfin host with Linux cause it’s more lightweight
It’s interesting you equate Google to advertising (search company). And you equate Microsoft to an AI company (software company). But you equate Apple to a computer company, which in theory it is, but over 50% of it’s sales and revenue are the Iphone.
Bias much?
Lmao I didn’t even get that far down their stupid post. That’s some impressive stupidity. Apple is a marketing company that happens to manufacture some sub-par commercial devices that appeal to idiots that like to pretend they know what they’re talking about.
Did this person manage to get anything correct in their long-winded cloud yelling?
Yes. I am a bit biased and I generally try to decorate biases when they aren’t obvious.
I do admit, I’m a bit older, so Apple was primarily a computer company while I was growing up. They were a bit of a media company before they were a phone company, with the iTunes Music Store. They still are with Apple Music and Apple TV.
To be fair, they run the iPhone like they run the Mac. They don’t allow pack in software, sometimes called shovelware, and including stuff like Facebook and Amazon. Though some say including their own apps counts. I don’t really think so, but I don’t think it’s worth debating. I think their rent seeking and not allowing third party app stores and sideloading is the more interesting criticism, and one I share as well.
The problem is that Apple is getting into services, which is where Google started. And adding ads is the next step and they’ve already begun that.
Apple died the second Woz was pushed away.
Woz was absolutely the best part of old Apple.
Google and Apple are basically just the same text in a different font at this point
Google makes a lot of money off that sentiment. The compute power of their latest Pixel has been compared to that of the iPhone 11 (2019). And it makes Google on average $1700 a year. More off some people than others.
But hey, vote with your wallet. Put your money into companies that will make the world you want to live in. I admit, I’m living in the past thinking of Apple as the Steve Jobs led company of 1983 with the six colours logo. But I still think computers should serve people first. Maybe none really do anymore, but that’s what I want.
How much did the most recent iPhone cost again?
And yes, you’re in the past, they’ve not been a computer company in at least a decade
Same as the most recent Pixel and Galaxy… and it’s faster than both. Your point?
Also, the most recent phones aren’t necessary. We hit a plateau years ago. Your phone is mostly limited by its ageing battery more than anything else.
Apple devices definition don’t serve people first lol
My Pixel 10 Pro feels just as fast as my iPhone 16 Pro. I feel like they are both good phones and other than specifications on paper and benchmarks online I wouldn’t know the Pixel was that much inferior.
Sure I don’t game or do video editing on a phone so maybe I’m just not the target audience but for general use I think Google have done a good job.
I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max (2024) and a Galaxy S10 (2019). I think the iPhone might boot up a second faster? Has a better battery. Better camera. I’d be perfectly happy using the S10 as a daily driver. And to think an iPhone 11 (also 2019) is faster? We hit a plateau years ago. All a newer/faster phone is really for is top-end gaming (hobbled by a 6-7” screen) and AI. And the Pixel 10 Pro has some solid AI features. Of course, compute power doesn’t matter if it’s done off-site. (Not sure how Pixel does it.)
“I use Apple btw”