this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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No, Plex lets you invite friends to your server with a link they can click and sign up. Then they can type a code into their TV app or login to a browser and watch basically like a standard streaming setup they already probably have used.
Jellyfin is less familiar. Arguably not much more difficult but people aren't always rational. The unfamiliar is often intimidating.
Can't you just send your link to them over SMS, IM, or email? Is the main difference that you can do this from the UI?
I guess entering a code on the TV is pretty cool though. Maybe I'll poke around in the Jellyfin community to see what the interest is in such a feature, because it should be possible w/ minimal hosting costs.
Yeah, you have two options, as the server owner:
You can enter a user's email from the Plex UI to invite a user to your library. The user then gets an email asking them to sign up if they don't already have an account.
You can generate/send a link to join, any way you choose.
Once signed up, the user can accept the library invitation, then they login to the TV or other device. The code is used for the TV login process, like on other streaming platforms. But yeah, you could do an account-less version of this for Jellyfin, which I think laypeople would like.