- plex has some fancy remote access thing so it can figure out your home network IP without DNS. You need to use VPN/Tailscale or self host something that advertises your IP if you want remote access with Jellyfin.
This is lame if your use case is “my parents remote play from my server from their smart TV” - getting VPN working on a smart TV can be a lot of hassle.
- Jellyfin iOS did not support continuing to play on app switch last I looked (it must have focus or playback stops). Plex app does not have this issue.
I will also say the new pricing structure is a non starter to me, if I wasn’t grandfathered into a lifetime pass from when it was cheaper I would not use Plex anymore. But I do have the pass so I’m not super motivated to change (for now)
I would absolutely love to cut to jellyfin, but for the TV integration.
Last time i looked samsung TV's (which most of my fam use) dont have a decent client. Has that changed?
Silo is a new up and coming competitor, also completely open source and written in go, and has full Postgres support from the get-go, along with proper architecture decisions to allow transcoding across multiple hosts.
The vision of Silo appears to be much more clear, and has quite a few great devs behind it. It also has features to run side by side and has full JF api support. I have no involvement in the project, just excited for a new player in the space.
The corporate creep was already felt when years ago they released the PlexAmp audio player.
Good player but to display lyrics you have to open the menu and select “Show Lyrics”, two clicks every time. Every time, for every track. When the next track is playing lyrics display is automatically turned off. It is not remembered either, you go back to previous track and have to click click them menu gain.
This is because they have to pay a licence and rather save $100 per month by inconveniencing their user base. you see, it’s extra work to click the menu every time so you won’t be viewing lyrics. Profit!
And no, if your file already has lyrics that doesn’t matter, you still have to open to view it every time, for each track.
Thanks for adding to this discussion especially around PlexAmp as there really isn't too much out there. I've been using PlexAmp for about a year now as a daily music player and someone else in tech who uses it all the time was telling me something similar about this whole lyrics situation which is why they just got Spotify to save the clicks.
I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I could never really figure it out so just learnt to live without but TIL that it's not just me and them setting it up wrong to begin with. I use the Android Player and Desktop app on my MacBook and as part of the Plex Pass I'm happy enough.
Can I ask if you or anyone else have tried any other players for it as my buddy who uses the Jellyfin (FinAmp) version of this for iPhone seems to have a lot more of a feature set than me?
FinAmp is pretty bad, the UI is an example of design by committee of developers. There’s a “new UI” beta version that’s been going on since 2022, you can get it via TestFlight. But that new version is even worse.
I tried to evaluate Jellyfin recently but dropped it pretty quick. Live (OTA) television is barely a thought (seems to be acknowledged that no dev uses it), and you have to figure out a source for guide data. I have complaints with Plex's implementation, but it's a lot smoother than Jellyfin.
Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall.
On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates.
On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves out for free.
Up till now, Plex kept their promise regarding the Lifetime pass: we still receive updates, we still have all the features.
So, unless they change that, they haven't broken their promise.
It seems only fair from them to try to run a sustainable business, which you can do without renewed income.
They have to find money.
They raise subscription price: no impact on existing Lifetime pass owners.
They add ad-supported features: no impact on existing Lifetime pass owners. I don't see a single add wherever I access my Plex library, I have hidden their "free" library. I still have 100% of the features I had when I bought the Lifetime pass. Except that I have now access to more features.
Sure, nobody forced them to say "Lifetime", but I don't see how I could be mad if they decided to release a completely new version that is out of the Lifetime scope.
I would still have access to the old one, but if I was interested in the new one, I would have to move to one of their new plans, that looks more sustainable in the long run.
Plex is still the easiest one to use for regular user or for the people, like me, that act as IT support for their family and friends, and don't want to spend their evenings and weekends tweaking their aunt's TV just for the sake of using Open Source software.
I've been a paying Emby user for close to ten years, ever since plex tried to launch a VR player or some shit, while there were still critical bugs in the player for web and other devices.
Emby just works, it's players are great, and issues actually get fixed. I know it's a closed source fork of XBMC, I know that's controversial, but the product itself is just so good.
I use Kodi. I never used Plex or Jellyfin. I'm not even sure what they are. They look like media players, but... over the network? I don't really understand how that works. In a web browser? Why whould anyone run a media player in a browser? Can anyone explain?
I think anyone grandfathered in to a lifetime license is getting a pretty good deal on this. Mine was $119 in 2017. The only other lifetime license I have bought is Adguard, also excellent. Software that gets unlimited updates for a low price is _very rare_ right? If there are other good examples, happy to hear them!
I get that things are changing with Plex, naturally given it was a steal. But somehow it feels in bad faith when the author got that great deal but puts out this hit piece.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 991 ms ] threadJellyfin-mpv-shim is great.
This will reduce the switching workload, and you can run both services at the same time whilst trying out Jellyfin.
- plex has some fancy remote access thing so it can figure out your home network IP without DNS. You need to use VPN/Tailscale or self host something that advertises your IP if you want remote access with Jellyfin.
This is lame if your use case is “my parents remote play from my server from their smart TV” - getting VPN working on a smart TV can be a lot of hassle.
- Jellyfin iOS did not support continuing to play on app switch last I looked (it must have focus or playback stops). Plex app does not have this issue.
I will also say the new pricing structure is a non starter to me, if I wasn’t grandfathered into a lifetime pass from when it was cheaper I would not use Plex anymore. But I do have the pass so I’m not super motivated to change (for now)
https://demo.jellyfin.org/stable/web/#/home
Username is demo, PW is blank
Also, I've been running jellyfin for many years, I've had no issues
I say that without judgement, it’s just a reality. Open source was always going to be the path.
The vision of Silo appears to be much more clear, and has quite a few great devs behind it. It also has features to run side by side and has full JF api support. I have no involvement in the project, just excited for a new player in the space.
Something to keep an eye on!
I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I could never really figure it out so just learnt to live without but TIL that it's not just me and them setting it up wrong to begin with. I use the Android Player and Desktop app on my MacBook and as part of the Plex Pass I'm happy enough.
Can I ask if you or anyone else have tried any other players for it as my buddy who uses the Jellyfin (FinAmp) version of this for iPhone seems to have a lot more of a feature set than me?
The only thing keeping me on plex is my lifetime plex pass, and family inertia.
Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall.
On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves out for free.
Up till now, Plex kept their promise regarding the Lifetime pass: we still receive updates, we still have all the features. So, unless they change that, they haven't broken their promise. It seems only fair from them to try to run a sustainable business, which you can do without renewed income. They have to find money. They raise subscription price: no impact on existing Lifetime pass owners. They add ad-supported features: no impact on existing Lifetime pass owners. I don't see a single add wherever I access my Plex library, I have hidden their "free" library. I still have 100% of the features I had when I bought the Lifetime pass. Except that I have now access to more features.
Sure, nobody forced them to say "Lifetime", but I don't see how I could be mad if they decided to release a completely new version that is out of the Lifetime scope. I would still have access to the old one, but if I was interested in the new one, I would have to move to one of their new plans, that looks more sustainable in the long run.
Plex is still the easiest one to use for regular user or for the people, like me, that act as IT support for their family and friends, and don't want to spend their evenings and weekends tweaking their aunt's TV just for the sake of using Open Source software.
Emby just works, it's players are great, and issues actually get fixed. I know it's a closed source fork of XBMC, I know that's controversial, but the product itself is just so good.
I get that things are changing with Plex, naturally given it was a steal. But somehow it feels in bad faith when the author got that great deal but puts out this hit piece.