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FOSS alternative to Plex for self-hosting a media streaming service.
It serves as an alternative to traditional streaming services like Netflix, and a private alternative to similar software like Plex which are more cloud-integrated.
Media Player Software
Yep! This is a fantastic tool. Having used Plex, I still prefer Jellyfin. And it’s FOSS and under active development.
Love this tool for all my media.
Can we “enrich” a tiny bit the short description adding a mention of Emby? Something a long those lines:
“FOSS alternative to Plex and Emby for self-hosting a media streaming service.”
Emby is a closed source fork of Jellyfin (it is the other way around like was pointed). They added quite some advanced features that Jellyfin lacks currently.
For a FOSS recommendation Jellyfin is the way to go but I just felt that worth the heads up about Emby. It also serves as an info that Plex isn’t the only option.
The short explanation here might not make it onto the final page anyways.
and besides I think I am with Jonah, Mentioning Jellyfin itself is enough
It is the other way around.
Emby came first, slowly got worse, and then there was a fork that removed the license checks, and later it completed changed paths and Jellyfin came around.
I actually had my own personal fork of Emby many years ago removing stuff like sending the MAC addresses off.
macOS Server and media player app don’t use the App Sandbox, enables JIT, Allow Unsigned Executable Memory, disables library validation, all of which have security warnings from Apple. Don’t disable get-task-allow which is for debugging the app and is meant to be set to false before distributing: Resolving common notarization issues | Apple Developer Documentation
Media player Flatpak has user device access and network access. No flatpak available for the server.
I can;t comment on MacOS, little misunderstanding on flatpak and I would daresay is better than kodi
this is the permissions it asks:
I feel it is in line with what it needs but that could be just my opinion, I feel it is still better than kodi all though kodi being a local media player also means that it is fine with it requesting some file access as long as it asks consent for the rest of the folders
again I think both handle flatpak sandboxing better, than even VLC (Media Player Software) imo as VLC’s flatpak requests all file access which can be alarming.
for comparison’s:
Kodi (Home Theater Software) :
Edit: about server, it does have server: Install Jellyfin Server on Linux | Flathub
and it honestly handles permissions very well again than VLC or kodi
I think in terms of flatpak:
(obviously order being from better to worst)
I use Jellyfin in coordination with Ombi, Sonarrr, Radarrr, and Lidarrr. Works great for my use case.
I will say I thought the flatpak talk was for the jellyfin-server and they only have a flatpak for the client listed on their website.
If they watch it on a pc, they can access it on a web browser, this is probably what we want to recommend using instead of installing another software.
The jellyfin-server is better being installed as a docker.
The elephant in the room is that most people will want to watch it on their mobile device/TV. Their open source iOS app ( Swiftfin ) is terrible and very behind development, last time I used it didn’t have offline downloads.
I will link this one, in case you want to consider recommending third party.
I have a Jellyfin server running via docker and use the Jellyfin client applications. I almost exclusively use the client through the TV app (where I watch everything else).
Is plex not good? Should I not use it? I understand it’s not foss, but are there other glaring privacy issues with it? I was considering buying plex pass now that they’re increasing the price as my main use case is watching media on phone which presumably jellyfin is not good at.
tbh I think Linus pretty well described the issues with Plex: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=jKF5GtBIxpM
But even if you don’t have these issues, I don;t think I would support them with their problems rn over something like Jellyfin.
Thanks a lot for this video.
If I can summarize, his biggest pain points is with downloading your media library for offline viewing (while traveling for instance). There are many other bugs listed, but also many complaints on Jellyfin.
Basically, if you don’t have any issues with Plex, you don’t have to switch. The biggest pro for me, is that Jellyfin’s open source. I’ll probably switch to it eventually when it’s more complete.
A post was split to a new topic: Stremio (Media Streaming Software)
