Incase you haven't heard it enough, jellyfin is free and not anymore difficult to set up. If I can figure it out then you're probably well capable of it.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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Unless something has changed, it doesn't have the remote streaming capabilities of Plex. Not saying one can't remote stream, but it's not as simple as installing a client and logging in. It requires network config and security, VPNs, and each client to setup stuff too. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that though.
Plex has been enshitifying but I'm on the lifetime pass so for me things are free and just work still.
I think that for now you are still good to go with Plex. One suggestion, though: take a look at all your server and admin toggles. There are things that you may prefer to be off that are defaulted to opt-in.
I don't have a working server at the moment so I can't check the latest stuff for myself, but the last time I was able to, I found some stuff I could opt out of with just a click, mostly involving the Plaex Network and keeping my user accounts strictly local.
Like many people stating you just need to setup VPN, I use wire guard everything works perfectly. Sure it is more complex than Plex, but there are tutorials everywhere.
It's more about my clients than for me. I've used tailscale with good success for other applications, but that's mostly something I don't want to need to explain to 10-20 people.
A VPN has never been required. You can always just configure a port forward and/or firewall on your router.
https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/post-install/networking/
It's not particularly difficult, and it's fully documented.
And the jellyfin developers have said that several of the security concerns around doing this will likely never be resolved.
Also if you want HTTPS, and goodlordits2026ofcourseyoudo, this is absolutely not as easy as opening a port.
Fair enough! I run my own kubernetes cluster at home, that has JF as a service 😅
So I may be slightly out of touch
I have that and more but won't set this up
You're right in that its fully documented, but it seems your understanding differs from the documentation. Your provided link explicitly says, "Opening a port directly to the Internet is therefore insecure and not recommended."
There is still no feature parity. I even have Emby lifetime but still switched back to Plex, because it is unfortunately so much better.
Jellyfin lacks a good head engineer, which is why it will always be subpar to Plex and also Emby
I think I deleted Plex$ I think 4 or 5 years ago and never looked back. Jellyfin is 1:1 replacement for me. I plugged it to my certbot Letsencrypt certificates, did ip forward on exit of my wireguard tunnel connected to my domain and can play my stuff anywhere. It runs fine on old thin client qith ancient quad-core AMD GX cpu. No transcoding acceleration, but I have net fast everywhere I go, so I don't need it.
The only thing keeping me with Plex (bought lifetime like 10 years ago) is that I serve content to elderly family members in two different countries other than the one I live in.
Otherwise I'd be Jellyfin all the way!
You can do this with Jellyfin too, there's lots of guides online on how to set it up. Requires a bit of self-hosting knowledge, but if you're reading this there's a good chance you have that.
Great; how do I setup Tailscale on my Roku streaming box since I shouldn’t open Jellyfin ports to the Internet?
And Jellyfin downloads start spiking.
Huh, coincidence I guess.
And this right here is exactly why I chose Jellyfin. If it's owned by a company it will just get worse over time.
It was definitely worth it for the $40 I paid a long time ago. I used it a little longer than desired because Jellyfin's DVR support wasn't always there. It is now and i haven't used Plex in over a year.
IMHO, Jellyfin needs a bit better UI, but Plex is actively making theirs worse, so...
I think i paid $75 or $90 probably a decade ago or more now and think it was worth it, and still use it, but $750 is just nuts. At this price, they clearly don't want anyone actually buying it but without having to face the backlash of outright removing the option altogether. I would imagine one of their next steps will be to remove or restrict people like me who bought it long ago. We'll probably get locked to a specific version that comes out right before some major update that fixes long held issues that people have complained about for years.
I would switch to Jellyfin but Plex makes sharing secure and easy and it is full of great features for the price I paid long ago. I also have a lifetime pass with Emby that I bought during a dark period of Plex but they also went closed source (which spawned Jellyfin into existence) and always felt much less refined than Plex in most areas.
And that's how you get a major piracy community around your product.
I think you can setup Jellyfin for Kodi.
You can. It syncs the Jellyfin database into the Kodi one so you browse with Kodi but the content comes from Jellyfin. Works pretty great really.
I paid like 75 euros for it a long time ago
I have an old lifetime pass. Should I sell it?
I’ll give you $5
Wow, I paid €118 for it in 2022, but then stopped using it around 2024 or early 2025 when it started to enshittify.
In general though, I think lifetime subscriptions for services that cost a company money are a shitty business model. Its like a pyramid scheme.
Bought one like 12 years ago. Not using plex anymore for over 8 years because closed source bullshit.