539
4 reasons Plex is turning into the thing it replaced
(www.androidauthority.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2025
539 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
77502 readers
2812 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Does jellyfin have an easy way for remote streaming? I have a couple dozen people on my Plex server, most not very tech savvy, so setting up tailscale and running remote that way isn't an option. I have a Plex pass so I haven't been screwed by Plex yet, so I'm not rushing to get out, but I could see myself running both.
Yes-ish, it's harder for you than the users. But you will have to secure a URL and they will have to remember that URL. Also there's some security issues with some unsecured endpoints on Jellyfin. That said I have mine out there exposed to the net and am comfortable enough with it.
I already have to expose my Plex Media Server with a Tailscsle funnel (for IPv4 only) for IPv6 I use my Synology NAS reverse proxy which can be accessed globally.
I have been maining this setup for years now that I forgot if I can access my PMS outside without either those solutions lol (I am GGNATED but IPv6 works fine as stated).
The main thing here is that I don't need my users to do anything, they just open the app and access it, no need to remember IPs/URLs or install VPNs to my server... Is that possible with Jellyfin as well?
Yes you can do the same thing for Jellyfin. I use Synology ddns and setup subdomain in reverse proxy to jellyfin port. For tailscale, I previously use this but needs to add the jellyfin port after the tailscale IP.
No, there's not centralized host server to connect your users with your server. They need a fixed IP or URL to access your server from outside your network.
So how do they access from, let's say a Smart TV/Android TV device?
Jellyfin apps ask you for three things in order to login: URL, username, password.
I have mine behind a caddy reverse proxy that forces https. I think that handles most sniffing concerns
You could just get a domain and set up a reverse proxy. Or use Cloudflare tunnels.
All possible, but currently I have lifetime Plex pass and just need to share with people I want to share with. No extra config. Once Jellyfin can do that or something similar, I'll look at jumping ship. Until then, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Once Jellyfin does that then it'll be time to look at jumping ship to something else, because that'll be the indication that Jellyfin is going down the same road as Plex.
Fair enough. I doubt Jellyfin will ever offer something like that. Its designed to be completely self hosted and not rely on a central server, which I dont see changing.
The first one, yes. That's what I do. But IIRC hosting media via cloudflare tunnels goes against the TOC and they reserve the right to ban users over it
They changed their TOC a while ago, the only thing they have in there now is boiler plate stuff about not hosting pirated content.
https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/terms/
You agree not to, and not to allow third parties to use the Services to ... post, transmit, store or link to any files, materials, data, text, audio, video, images or other content that infringe on any person’s intellectual property rights or that are otherwise unlawful;I just set up a cache rule to ignore my jellyfin subdomain and they won't ever care about me and my half dozen users.
no, tailscale is still the easiest option.
Bummer... unfortunately, that's a deal breaker for me to completely drop Plex. Maybe someday.
Can you fly out to my MIL every time her router breaks and fix it for her?
Edit: holy shit, your edits are insane
I swear every single Plex related thread has the same Jellyfin fanatics coming in. Same energy as “my MIL has trouble with her computer” “just install Linux bro!” comments.
Still better than the army of Plex fanboys that all claim to have dozens of senior citizens streaming from their Plex server.
I don't have dozens, but I have 3. Those three are close family members. Do you think people don't invite their parents or inlaws to their Plex server?
Clearly people do, but I think they represent a vocal minority of Plex's overall userbase. The expectation that a free project with no revenue stream should provide an ongoing service that's going to cost them money and seems to be what Plex is using to squeeze its users always strikes me as disingenuous. There are ways to enable remote access with Jellyfin, but you have to do it yourself because nobody's paying them to run those servers.
Yeah that's totally how it works. 👍
e: lots of 🤡 in here
So I don't get it, I have mine up with a domain without tsilscale.. The clients are quite happy wherever. I don't even see that much "crawling" traffic that goes to the domain, most just hit the server by ip and get a static 401 page that the "default" site is hard coded to give out.
At some point, somewhere on the internet, someone authoritatively claimed that tailscale is the one and only acceptable solution to getting your jellyfin server outside your LAN and it just kind of took root. nginx has worked perfectly fine for me.
I set mine up with HAProxy for TLS offloading and ACME for the server cert. Restrict your access to just your country/region by GeoIP and you are pretty good to go.
I moved away from plex as well. I do have remote access but had to set up Tailscale on the accounts that access it. It’s a bit of a hassle initially but works well.