A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.
Resources:
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
Well this is a good reason to finish my migration to Jellyfin I think.
I only use remote streaming a couple times per year, so paying for plex pass just for that seems a bit silly. Their online-only account auth is also super annoying if the internet is down.
Join us
I use Jellyfin and VPN into my home network to stream on the go.
Can’t say I have a huge issue with this - Plex isn’t FOSS and the infrastructure to make this happen isn’t free. Other options are available if you don’t want to pay the fee.
Why would you expect this to NOT be paid? It requires them to be running servers to stream the media through, I wouldn't expect this to be a free feature.
I dislike Plex for several reasons, but asking for payment for stuff that costs them money is completely justified.
I gotta be honest, when I look at the problem pragmatically, it'll be a lot easier to pay $20 a year than to switch to jellyfin and get all my users to figure out how to install clients and make it work for them.
I'm already at the point in my life where my primary concern is making things work smoothly, and if I need to throw money at something to make it work smoothly, the choice is a no brainer. (At least for some values of "money")
Jellyfin works in the browser just like Plex.
And for now you can do that, but that's not the first, and not the last update trying to prevent people selling access to their server.
Browser apps are very annoying though. The support for some codecs (like HEVC) is usually worse in a browser.
It definitely has some issues for ease of use. For example Jellyfin for some reason will not find the server on my network in any of the client apps, and typing in a URL by hand with a TV remote is not fun.
I use a firestick since it has app support
Yeah, but jellyfin's clients apps are all pretty bad. And I say this as a jellyfin user.
So then Photoprism is going to lock my photos and ask my mom for money to see them?
Its selfhosting, not freehosting for yet another asshole company.
How to kill a service speedrun any%
Lol jellyfin
If only jellyfin had an app on Tizen, I'd be all aboard.
It's not super easy, but you can install it on tizen tvs by enabling developer mode. I was able to follow this walk-through to get it on a new TV for my relatives.
https://github.com/Georift/install-jellyfin-tizen
Since their TV was newer, I had to do extra steps to create a custom certificate.
The whole process took a while, but it's doable.
Firestick has a built in app which is how I open it on my tv
Does this "tizen" not have a web browser?
It has, but browsing using tv remote is a nightmare
I just want to make sure I read this correctly. It says that if you're a Plex plass holder already that remote streaming changes won't affect your service. This means that if I have the lifetime subscription and host my own server than users whom have not payed for Plex pass can continue to access this server without issue correct?
Correct
Thanks
I absolutely love that Emby is such a third thought that they don’t even get a mention anymore. They fucked their loyal users over so much that they don’t even get mentioned anymore. Can’t wait for plex to suffer the same fate
I almost exclusively used both through Android with Chromecast, and I must say, I've had way more trouble with Emby than Plex.
Also on smart TVs, the Plex apps just have way fewer issues in my experience.
Yes, I used to respond ever plex user try emby/jellyfin, not really knowing the difference
Looked into it and, it's going to turn out like plex again! Fuck them! Jellyfin all the way.
This always ends up happenning when you choose non copyleft software
I stopped using Plex shortly after they started forcing logging in with your online Plex account to connect to LAN only based server. The writing was on the wall all those years ago. Who wants to be locked out of their media when the internet is offline, completely defeated the point of self hosting local infrastructure
Jellyfin, while lacking a bit when I first migrated, has continued improved over the years and it has been joyful to use. Plus Jellyfin supported hardware transcoding before Plex did, which was a gripe I had with Plex at the time.
I stream from my server remotely and share with Family without hassle. I dunno where Plex is trying to go, glad I bailed long ago
They seem to be getting a lot of hate for this, but Plex is not FOSS... They have the roots but they currently have like 100 paid employees and are trying to make a business out of it. They have to do something to make money to pay people every month. My $75 10 years ago isn't going to do much for that... The fact that they've made it this far without folding is impressive.
This is the best ad campaign Jellyfin could have asked for.
Why do people use this when Jellyfin exists?
Because of the Wife Factor. Getting people to convert requires getting past a lot of social inertia. It requires you to first convince them that the convenience of streaming services isn’t actually worth paying for. Then it requires an elegant onboarding experience. Lastly, Plex simply makes remote access easy. Sure, you could fiddle with reverse proxies for Jellyfin. But that’s easy to mess up. Instead, it’s much smoother to simply sign into Plex.
I can talk my tech-illiterate “My google chrome desktop icon got moved, and now I don’t know how to check my email” mother-in-law through Plex’s sign-up process over the phone. In fact, I did. It’s familiar enough that anyone who has signed up for a streaming service can figure it out. I can’t do that with Jellyfin, because their eyes glaze over as soon as you start talking about custom server URLs or IP addresses. Hell, my MIL’s TV doesn’t even have a native Jellyfin app available on the App Store. If I wanted to install it for her, I would need to sideload it.
Jellyfin does a lot of things right. But by design, the setup process will never be as elegant as Plex’s, because that elegant system requires a centralized server to actually handle it. And centralized servers are exactly what Jellyfin was built to rebel against.
To be clear, I run both concurrently; Jellyfin for myself, and Plex for friends/family. I got the lifetime Plex Pass license a decade ago, and it has more than paid for itself since then. But it sounds like a bunch of my friends and family may end up switching to Jellyfin if they don’t want to deal with the PlexPass subscription.
I think its a great idea to run the two concurrently. I didn’t see the point but given how plex is evolving i think its time to start getting familiar with jellyfin.
Setting jellyfin up is for the technically inclined, i'll agree there, but once deployed I don't really see where Plex fundamentally excels over Jellyfin when it comes to "the wife factor"?
You open the app, app shows library, you click on desired media item, desired media item plays. What am i missing?
The app isn't available on as many platforms. The original comment claimed the TV their MIL uses doesn't have a Jellyfin app and would require side loading. I would argue that's a pretty big barrier for most people.
So far I've had no problems using jellyfin on basicly anything that exists in my house which includes a Apple TV, Xbox SX and a Xiaomi TV Box S.
But I can see there's probably no Tizen app for things like Samsung TV's.
The audacity of this company to increase prices when: A) downloads are locked behind the paywall but havent worked in years (probably close to a decade at this point) B) they focus all the development time on bringing bullshit to the platform (live tv, rentals, other streaming app searches, etc)
Requiring a subscription for remote access is actually fucking insane, they don't have any bandwidth costs associated with that other than authentication so ???
This will drive people to Jellyfin, and watch how fast Plex drops into irrelevance when all the selfhosters move away. Plex is (now was) the #1 thing to that both myself and others in this community would recommend to someone looking to get into selfhosting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not anymore, wonder how much the revenue will drop?
Requiring a subscription for remote access is actually fucking insane, they don't have any bandwidth costs associated with that other than authentication so ???
They have provided a free relay service for years that makes it possible to access a server even if there are things in the way like CGNAT. That service had a low bandwidth limit but undoubtedly cost them money, so yes. But yes, they should have just moved that feature entirely to Plex pass (there is already a higher bandwidth limit for Plex pass users)
I could only get my downloads to work adding some conf line to my unbound DNS settings I saw on reddit.
Jellyfin is on my list.
I’ve been using Plex many years. I abandoned it about 1-2 years ago when they began their enshittification journey. Now I see they are continuing to double down on being assholes.
They do not need any more resources to allow people to use what already exists. Most people run their own servers, and, they track all that by the way. Hence why people moved away from it.
Don’t give them your money. Let them rot. They fucked their user base who built them.