this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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Honest question, because I know multiple people who are not looking to jump ship since they already have the Plex Pass.

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[–] CallMeAl@piefed.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Reading this thread, it seems like two different groups of people are having two different conversations.

For me, self-hosting is just that, running my own stuff at home for myself (and my immediate family). My motivation is privacy and freedom. I want to use services that are free of commercial incentives against my interests whenever possible. That usually means self-hosting my services.

I've been a system and network engineer for most of my career and I like configuring and managing stuff. I like knowing how everything on my home network runs, where and what data is shared, etc.

As soon as people start talking about "my users need ..." I'm out. That sounds too much like what I do at work. I want to relax when I'm at home. Jellyfin is perfect for me to do that with my content without needing any of my data to go to any companies.

For everyone who wants to be an IPTV operator, Plex is the best choice right now. Jellyfin isn't really focused on that use case.

[–] claret@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I don't know if it's improved, but I was only put off by the memory footprint on windows. Plex was running more efficiently and does look more polished. This was also impart as I now use Channels for my live TV purposes as nothing else really comes close.

It's still installed and ready to go if I need to make the switch but I don't really have a big enough reason to do it. Too many other things to tinker with.

[–] zebidiah@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Jellyfin is awesome for local use, Plex is better at sharing libraries with friends and family and jellyfin is total ass for music

I run jellyfin

[–] tehciolo@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I stopped trying for the music side.

Right tool for the right job. Switched to navidrome and am consuming it mainly through subsonic clients, such as Symphonium and Feishin.

[–] imhungry@leminal.space 1 points 5 hours ago

For music you've got to add a background and make it a 'music video', then it works, but mostly it's for video

[–] squinky@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago

Last time I tried, there was no prebuilt client for Jellyfin on my Samsung TV. I had to put the TV in dev mode, cross compile and install their experimental code, and it honestly wasn’t that good a client.

I don’t use the paid features of Plex so I’m just holding my nose and keeping it until the alternatives become viable.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

As said in literally every thread here that ever mentions anything about Plex or jellyfin, biggest is remote library sharing.

No, I will not walk my in-laws through setting up a vpn gateway so their TV will connect to me

No, despite my extensive homelab setup, I am not going to set up a reverse proxy and go through the SSL/TLS cert bullshit and expose especially considering the security limitations the devs say likely will not be fixed

There's others, but those are the main ones for a bunch of us

[–] imhungry@leminal.space 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

With tailscale you either have to 1) download an app and click a button on every device you want to watch Jellyfin or 2) click a few buttons once, and then access your Jellyfin on the open internet forever with HTTPS

Plex is the most plug-in-play, I understand not wanting to go through setting it up, but you're not accurately portraying how difficult it actually is to access. It is not difficult to access, but you have to set everything up yourself.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] imhungry@leminal.space 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)
[–] JustAnotherPodunk@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I already paid when it was cheap. I'll stay and get my full dollars worth and then some. I paid for it, I'll use it. When it is unusable I'll bail. Anything else is stupid.

[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

I paid for it, I'll use it. When it is unusable I'll bail. Anything else is stupid.

What you are saying is called sunk cost fallacy. A notoriously common stupid way of thinking.

The logical way to think of this is: You already paid for Plex so both are free for you. Since both are free, just pick the better one.

[–] vic_rattlehead@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

notoriously common stupid way of thinking

Why are you being rude to somebody you're trying to convince to put in extra effort to switch services?

[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

You're right, but I don't care if they switch honestly. I used that wording because of the "anything else is stupid" statement, which just irked me when paired with the obvious fallacy.

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I wouldn't call it "stupid way of thinking". That sounds almost offensive, while it's just a common fallacy that affects most humans.

[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

It was just a reaction to the "anything else is stupid" statement paired with the fallacy. I wouldn't use that phrasing otherwise.

[–] MrNobody@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 13 hours ago

TL;DR... Lowest common denominator stops people setting up tailscale or the like, along with sunken cost fallacy.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 21 points 17 hours ago (5 children)

Problem is access outside your home for family and friends.

There are serious security gaps that make it a non starter to expose to the internet.

I've been using Jellyfin ever since they forked out of Envy, and honestly, it's the biggest complaint that I have. It is incredibly difficult to make it available to friends and family who are on various devices, networks, so on and so forth.

Whereas Plex "just works."

[–] karlhungus@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 hours ago

What security gaps in particular? I did have to reverse proxy to get it to https, are there additional security issues?

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[–] csm10495@sh.itjust.works 12 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Have lifetime already. No reason to jump. Generally it just works.

No need to have another project while Plex still works fine.

[–] JustAnotherPodunk@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

Same. Got it cheap. Untill they break lifetime. Why bail? I'm not compromising my own experience because someone else was too cheap, lazy or slow.

Is it messed up what they are doing? Yeah. But that's not my fault. Nor is someone missing out on the very clear signposts about what was going to happen. I'm not sacrificing my user experience and investment to justify someone else's missed opportunity or vendetta.

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