That depends on your goal. If you want something free, open source and self-hosted then Plex isn’t the best option and you’d do better to look at Jellyfin or Kodi.
I still use Plex because of plexamp, but the OG Plex is becoming a shittier user experience by the minute. They keep adding third party streaming services that no one asked for and they’re clearly moving toward starting their own. It’s getting harder and harder to keep it pared down to just your own stuff. It still works for my parents’ needs and plexamp is dope, but for just your own video files I would start looking elsewhere.
I respect that they have made all of it opt out (or at least every thing that I don’t want to use).
Their app platform is just too polished to give up for me right now, but a nice, FOSS alternative that worked on the piece of shit smart TV from 6 years ago my mom uses would be nice too.
I’ve been looking for plexamp alternatives for jellyfin/emby - if you’re interested https://symfonium.app/ seems pretty cool (it costs like $5 for a lifetime purchase but has a trial). It also works with Plex.
The one thing I hate about sonarr is how difficult it is to get series that are already finished.
Omni with Radarr is braindead easy, but sonarr requires I go ask it to download each season, and sometimes it’ll just download individual episodes, and then many of those are dead torrents because most people are seeding the whole season
Aren’t these *arr software using public trackers? If that is the case I recommend private trackers. A lot more reliable with a better database. Also some allow you to create re-seed requests for dead torrents.
You have to give them trackers and set their parameters
But they still don’t automatically grab finished shows or released episodes, it’s just for keeping a series up to date episode by episode. You have to manually find the show in sonarr and tell ot to grab each season
I’ve tried downloading shows in non-English and it won’t. It seems hard coded to not look in Usenet foreign. Have you had any luck? Does it work for torrents?
Yes, it’s pretty amazing. Bought a NUC like 2 weeks ago after getting my first Prime videos ad, already downloaded about 1.5TB of stuff, both just released and from a few decades ago.
Yeah, I suppose I could have a specific directory for them to download to, then I move them to the directory which they play from, which is more restricted.
I thought one of the main benefits of those projects was that they can automatically download and replace versions with higher quality ones (if you have it configured that way). In that case, would I be able to have it look at my (restricted) directory which it doesn’t have write perms for, but download to a different directory?
I don’t think so, in my understanding it will try to overwrite the existing file. But I’m far from an expert, check the wiki they’re bound to have a solution for you.
Until it can act as a server on my Nvidia Shield TV Pro, have hardware acceleration through Docker in my Synology NAS (and Shield TV Pro) and be widely available for the people I share it with (like shitty TVs) it is not.
I think it only can do the hw acceleration part on Docker, but the last time I checked it didn’t work for me.
I disagree unless there is a way for me to share my library with other people with out putting my Jellyfin server in a DMZ or exposing it ports to the internet. There is some security things I am worried about and feel like Plex is better. And I run both
you have to have specific uses cases for plex, e.g if you want to share your plex servers to technologically illiterate, its centralized login is easier to use, at the cost of privacy of course. its significantly easier to send someone the invite and register using traditional means than having users enter ip addresses and ports that are open.
I still use Plex but I’m considering a concurrent jellyfin server for when it inevitably enshitifies in ways I can’t tolerate.
I paid for a lifetime like 10 years ago so I def got my money worth, and it costs me nothing to keep using now… but I don’t want all my eggs in one basket.
As the server owner, I’ve disabled all of plex’s self-promotional bullshit for now… and the only people who actually use my server are “home” users, which I have control over, so it’s just not an issue for any of them. Yet.
This is what I’ve been doing for the past couple years. I have a docker of Plex, emby, and jellyfin. Doesn’t really make much more work for me to run them all simultaneously so why not.
What’s the perk of three? Different use-cases for yourself, people unable/unwilling to access?
Like if I set up jellyfin, I’d leave Plex going for the ease of use for a few home users who frankly I’m surprised remember it exists and is installed on their iPads… but nonetheless occasionally watch movies on it.
Beyond my other users (this spurred me to check logs and I do have people using m Plex!!! 🥰), the jelly would mostly be for me, unless it has apps? And even then probably a handful would be willing to change.
But what about that third one, emby? What’s that do for you? I’ve not heard of it so I’m curious
Also how can those run in dockers? Aren’t those containers supposed to be, like, sandboxed or whatever? (I know nothing about docker but I guess I have to learn it for some of the things I want to do related indirectly to this, even tho I’m totally unprepared for that task…)
That raises more questions than it answers for me, but I feel like an intro to docker course would probably solve some of that so I’m not going to bother asking. 😅
Thank you for shattering my perception ahead of time 😊 it’s been on my to-do list for a solid while but I’m not all that techie so it’s gunna be a bit yet I’m sure before I really understand that answer.
Jellyfin is a fork of emby from the time when emby went closed source. They are very similar, emby has a similar thing to Plex pass (emby premiere) to monetize for extra features, but it’s not enshittified (yet, maybe - who knows).
I’m not sure if it’s available without premiere but it has the intro detection and skip feature, which is one of the main things I miss from jellyfin. I also prefer the app on android TV for some small reasons (over jellyfin). I’m not sure if it’s overall better, especially if you hadn’t already paid for it - I got a lifetime pass on it for cheap once.
Do people not prefer Plex anymore?
Don’t need it. Stremio does everything I need.
Indeed, with a Debrid account for sure, and if you want more customization you have Kodi.
Plex has been enshittifying for a good while now.
That depends on your goal. If you want something free, open source and self-hosted then Plex isn’t the best option and you’d do better to look at Jellyfin or Kodi.
Thanks for the info.
I still use Plex because of plexamp, but the OG Plex is becoming a shittier user experience by the minute. They keep adding third party streaming services that no one asked for and they’re clearly moving toward starting their own. It’s getting harder and harder to keep it pared down to just your own stuff. It still works for my parents’ needs and plexamp is dope, but for just your own video files I would start looking elsewhere.
Thanks for the info.
I respect that they have made all of it opt out (or at least every thing that I don’t want to use).
Their app platform is just too polished to give up for me right now, but a nice, FOSS alternative that worked on the piece of shit smart TV from 6 years ago my mom uses would be nice too.
Doesn’t Jellyfin?
I’ve been looking for plexamp alternatives for jellyfin/emby - if you’re interested https://symfonium.app/ seems pretty cool (it costs like $5 for a lifetime purchase but has a trial). It also works with Plex.
Plexamp is sooooo good.
Jellyfin is the new plex
Combine it with sonarr, radar, jackett and qBitTorrent and it’s incredibly easy to get a new show or movie
I feel like a wizard being able to add a movie to jellyfin for my mom in minutes
Also love that new episodes auto download!
Look into prowlarr instead of jackett.
The one thing I hate about sonarr is how difficult it is to get series that are already finished.
Omni with Radarr is braindead easy, but sonarr requires I go ask it to download each season, and sometimes it’ll just download individual episodes, and then many of those are dead torrents because most people are seeding the whole season
Aren’t these *arr software using public trackers? If that is the case I recommend private trackers. A lot more reliable with a better database. Also some allow you to create re-seed requests for dead torrents.
You have to give them trackers and set their parameters
But they still don’t automatically grab finished shows or released episodes, it’s just for keeping a series up to date episode by episode. You have to manually find the show in sonarr and tell ot to grab each season
They use whatever trackers you set them to.
In truth you set the trackers in prowlarr (if you’re still using jackett, it’s time to switch)
Just switch series monitoring to “All Episodes” and then do “Search Monitored”, or use Jellyseerr.
Both handle old seasons perfectly, I’ve not had any individual episode downloads.
Noted, thank you!
The one thing I hate about Sonar (v4) is how absurd the language filters have become
I’ve tried downloading shows in non-English and it won’t. It seems hard coded to not look in Usenet foreign. Have you had any luck? Does it work for torrents?
Jellyseerr seems to take care of that issue for me
It actually grabs old seasons and finished shows?
I think I looked into it once but it wasn’t a clear instal for windows or something? I havnt moved to Linux yet
Yes, it’s pretty amazing. Bought a NUC like 2 weeks ago after getting my first Prime videos ad, already downloaded about 1.5TB of stuff, both just released and from a few decades ago.
I really want(ed) to look into the *darr projects, but I don’t want to give them write permissions to my NAS :/
They should only be able to read/write to your download and media directories anyway.
Yeah, I suppose I could have a specific directory for them to download to, then I move them to the directory which they play from, which is more restricted.
I thought one of the main benefits of those projects was that they can automatically download and replace versions with higher quality ones (if you have it configured that way). In that case, would I be able to have it look at my (restricted) directory which it doesn’t have write perms for, but download to a different directory?
I don’t think so, in my understanding it will try to overwrite the existing file. But I’m far from an expert, check the wiki they’re bound to have a solution for you.
Thank you, I’ll definitely check it out.
Until it can act as a server on my Nvidia Shield TV Pro, have hardware acceleration through Docker in my Synology NAS (and Shield TV Pro) and be widely available for the people I share it with (like shitty TVs) it is not.
I think it only can do the hw acceleration part on Docker, but the last time I checked it didn’t work for me.
I disagree unless there is a way for me to share my library with other people with out putting my Jellyfin server in a DMZ or exposing it ports to the internet. There is some security things I am worried about and feel like Plex is better. And I run both
Agreed. I’m sticking with Plex for now.
That’s fair, yeah
There are ways, mainly cloudflare tunnels with cloudflared.
you have to have specific uses cases for plex, e.g if you want to share your plex servers to technologically illiterate, its centralized login is easier to use, at the cost of privacy of course. its significantly easier to send someone the invite and register using traditional means than having users enter ip addresses and ports that are open.
This didn’t help
Thanks for the info.
I still use Plex but I’m considering a concurrent jellyfin server for when it inevitably enshitifies in ways I can’t tolerate.
I paid for a lifetime like 10 years ago so I def got my money worth, and it costs me nothing to keep using now… but I don’t want all my eggs in one basket.
As the server owner, I’ve disabled all of plex’s self-promotional bullshit for now… and the only people who actually use my server are “home” users, which I have control over, so it’s just not an issue for any of them. Yet.
I’m in a similar boat, but I haven’t really switched because my watch history is all in Plex. Have you solved for this, or just lived with it?
I’ve tried jellyplex sync (I think), but config got to be a bit much.
This is what I’ve been doing for the past couple years. I have a docker of Plex, emby, and jellyfin. Doesn’t really make much more work for me to run them all simultaneously so why not.
What’s the perk of three? Different use-cases for yourself, people unable/unwilling to access?
Like if I set up jellyfin, I’d leave Plex going for the ease of use for a few home users who frankly I’m surprised remember it exists and is installed on their iPads… but nonetheless occasionally watch movies on it.
Beyond my other users (this spurred me to check logs and I do have people using m Plex!!! 🥰), the jelly would mostly be for me, unless it has apps? And even then probably a handful would be willing to change.
But what about that third one, emby? What’s that do for you? I’ve not heard of it so I’m curious
Also how can those run in dockers? Aren’t those containers supposed to be, like, sandboxed or whatever? (I know nothing about docker but I guess I have to learn it for some of the things I want to do related indirectly to this, even tho I’m totally unprepared for that task…)
If Plex pulls some shit, emby or jellyfin are ready to go. That’s the purpose.
Docker is a container technology. You can run as many containers as your system can handle.
https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-plex/
https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-emby/
https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-jellyfin/
Also if you are checking logs for who’s using your Plex, I suggest using tautulli instead:
https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-tautulli/
Full web Gui of all these sorts of stats and more.
Like any other program. It’s up to you what you put in said container. Or they could have separate containers.
That raises more questions than it answers for me, but I feel like an intro to docker course would probably solve some of that so I’m not going to bother asking. 😅
Thank you for shattering my perception ahead of time 😊 it’s been on my to-do list for a solid while but I’m not all that techie so it’s gunna be a bit yet I’m sure before I really understand that answer.
Jellyfin is a fork of emby from the time when emby went closed source. They are very similar, emby has a similar thing to Plex pass (emby premiere) to monetize for extra features, but it’s not enshittified (yet, maybe - who knows).
I’m not sure if it’s available without premiere but it has the intro detection and skip feature, which is one of the main things I miss from jellyfin. I also prefer the app on android TV for some small reasons (over jellyfin). I’m not sure if it’s overall better, especially if you hadn’t already paid for it - I got a lifetime pass on it for cheap once.