Plex or Jellyfin for my Raspberry Pi?

friends don't let friends use plex.

its paywalling yourself

Conversely, letting friends use your Jellyfin is complicated.
- reverse proxy that shit
- eh, maybe. for me it was opening a port and adding a dns record. took me all of 4 minutes
  im kinda lucky in that my isp uses 'sticky' ips so while its not static, ive had the same ip for 5 years
- Tailscale and share the jellyfin node with friends. No need to have ports open or any DNS stuff. Clients are available for all systems.

Jellyfin all the way. But I wouldn't run it on a pi, I would look for something beefier.

Yeah, unless one happens to have one of the beefier Raspi 4 or Raspi 5 variants (which, of course, would be an overpriced choice if their sole purpose is to be a home server). To give specific recommendation for cost-effective beefier home server hardware: Used Thin Clients. For example, Dell T530 Wyse (or T520, or T540, or the 6x0 series).
- Only issue I had with my thin client node is the ethernet port sucked, dropped packets semi-consistently got a 2.5gb ethernet usb adapter to replace it and things have been noticeably better
I never needed transcoding. So jellyfin ran on my Raspi4 for a couple of years. Never faced any issues to be honest. Major issue was hard disk getting disconnected, but then again I had faulty SATA to USB connectors.
I ran it on a RPi4 years ago, but it didn’t perform well enough. It performs fine on an old laptop, but not so much in a Pi from my experience. Can’t speak to the RPi5, though.
- Yeah mine is an rpi3 and I wouldn't even consider running jellyfin on it

I haven't heard of any learning curve with Jellyfin. It seems easy to set up, and the apps are about as user friendly as you can get (especially the third party ones)

Only learning curve is naming. Jellyfin seems less forgiving about filenames and folder structure than Plex was.
- On the other hand, jellyfin's identify feature works better than plex's did for me, and it lets you rename stuff very easily whereas Plex needed you to find the exact piece of media in a database.
  My mom asked me to rip a set of weirdo bootleg tai chi DVDs years ago, back when I used Plex, but I couldn't figure out how to get them to show up in the library because, again, weirdo bootleg media and I have no idea where she got them. But I switched to jellyfin last year and on a whim decided to mess with them, and getting them to show up in my jellyfin library was basically automatic
  Edit, another fun example of fucking with Plex's identify feature just came to mind. For some reason it kept deciding that random movies were actually some movie named "A Fish Called Wanda." I'd never heard of it before, the movies it would misidentify were entirely random as far as I could tell, and no amount of fuckery would get it to identify the movie correctly. It would decide that, say, The Matrix was actually AFCW, I'd remove the files for The Matrix, and it would decide something else was AFCW. Eventually I got fed up and downloaded an actual copy of AFCW, but it still refused to play the correct files if I navigated to AFCW in my library. Never did figure that one out.
Speaking of third party apps, here's some recommendations:
Android: Findroid
Works absolutely great, it's very rare that I even find a bug.
iOS: Swiftfin
I don't use iOS but this is the one I installed on my friend's phones.
Linux (and maybe Windows): Delfin
This is a GTK 4 app for Linux and maybe it has a Windows build too but I didn't check. It's not perfect, there's bugs here and there but it mostly works fine. The developer isn't very active (which is understandable), so it would be nice if someone, who has the time for it, would help out.
Here's also the official page with Jellyfin clients: https://jellyfin.org/downloads/clients/all
It doesn't seem to include Delfin though.
- Finamp was pretty good, but offline mode and playback had some quirks/struggles for me. Maybe its cuz im on graphineOS. The true winner for me on my pixel8 is symphonium. Its a one time purchase, with a free mode... absolute knockout. Zero bugs, great, easy UI, smart playlists, scrobble integration for discovery, etc etc etcccc
- Why should I download an app instead of using the web interface?

Plex vs Jellyfin is a lot like Windows vs Linux in my view.

There are things in Plex you can point to that you think keep you from moving. I point to things in Plex I am glad I left behind.

How steep is the learning curve there? Should I just go with Plex and keep it simple?

You've got it the wrong way round. Jellyfin is simple. I've never understood Plex.

Honestly I found plex a lot simpler to set up when I started out.
In Jellyfin I had to wrangle the settings a lot when trying to set up hardware encoding since my streams kept crashing due to some codecs not being dupported by my CPU.

The main difference between Plex and Jellyfin is the network setup. Plex takes care of that for you, while you have to set it up your self with Jellyfin. Another difference is that Plex can combine content from multiple servers ( I think. I'm not a plex user, so I don't know for sure), while it will always be seperate servers in jellyfin.

Jellyfin will always have my heart though, because it's open source and not here to make money. Plex also have a reputation to show ads and other stuff from streaming services.

The networking aspect is basically the only thing stopping me from switching from Plex to Jellyfin. I got Jellyfin running and accessing my server myself, while on my home network is easy. However, when it comes to accessing outside of my network, it gets complicated, and when it comes to other people accessing my server it gets more complicated, and then accessing my own server and friends' servers it gets even more complicated.
With Plex, all of that is super easy. I can watch stuff from my own server and my friends' servers on any device, including a web browser, and I can tell my mom, for example, "install Plex on your Roku and tell me what email address you use to log in" and boom, she has access to my library.

Jellyfin is A-ok for the tech illiterate. I actually think it might be easier to navigate and use because it's a bit more simple than Plex.

For a perfect FOSS route? Jellyfin. It isn’t difficult to use at all for a normie — just select and play. Even my mom uses it.

But I wouldn’t put either on a raspberry Pi if you have media in formats like AV1 and/or in 4k and gonna play it on screens older than 5 years old. Transcoding will be extremely sluggish even on the newer Pis. Instead get a 11th gen (intel), ryzen 6000 (amd) cpus or newer OR rtx 40 series or newer GPU (dedicated gpu is faster with 4k). You can get powerful hardware if you plan to expand your self hosted stack.

I got a N100 mini PC with 16 GB RAM 6 months back thinking I will be running only Jellyfin, Vaultwarden, Nginx Proxy Manager, Pihole, arr stack and Firefly iii. Now I have Immich, Paperless-ngx, Yamtrack, Baikal, Authentik, Calibre Web — around 40 containers. So my RAM is at 70% usage at this point. I learnt my lesson that self-hosting is a rabbit hole and I should have gotten beefier hardware.

I agree. Jellyfin is great. After dropping my beloved Pi and switching to a refurbished Dell Wyse 5070 with DietPi every headache is gone. Again: Use DIETPI!

I haven't really used Plex a whole lot but I have found Jellyfin from a user perspective to be extremely easy to use. The quick connect codes are one of my favorite features.

I have only recently started with self hosting and after some minor frustration, i am in love!!! Plex isnt just worse cuz its paywalling your own files, its install, support and ui are pretty trash, imo. The one advantage i saw was that it was easy to share w folks. If your jellyfin is going to be secure AND accessible, thats more work to do.

Keep in mind jellyfin does NOT recommend using a pi, bc it struggles w transcoding etc. That said, my first go was an rpi5. I used this guide and it was pretty brainless.... ezpz: Indian tech guru to the rescue!

Beware, uptime w the pi is pretty bad... had to restart server all the time, and some devices would not stream properly. It did work, mostly though, and it was a great intro for me since i just had it lying around.

Have fun!

I wish I'd have gone with Jellyfin when I migrated from Plex. I'm on Emby, it has a few features that I like that are not available in Jellyfin.

I am experimenting with Jellyfish this month and really enjoying it.
I have a lifetime pass from Plex from a long time ago so it's my fallback now. And because of that I wasn't sure if I should try Emby since ... Well you have to pay. And I already have Plex.
But I'm curious ... Because it feels like everyone who uses Emby is very happy with it and swears by it. And generally they all feel like Jellyfin is generally inferior to it.
Seems like Emby is a better Jellyfin that you have to pay for if you want all those premier features (I would).
Also, what's to stop Emby from turning into Plex?
The media import is nice. That's why I haven't switched either.
I'm on an older Synology diskstation (418play) and I found Emby was better packaged to use on that platform. On a Pi I might have gone for Jellyfin instead.

Plex is an enterprise solution, if you need your tech illiterate grandma to access the media it's easier to pay them. If it's just a local network or you're okay with going down a rabbit hole of setup, then Jellyfin does everything and does it better IMO (Plex requires you to be online to login before it shows you your local data, plus you're sharing information on what media files you have to Plex).

I personally have been using Jellyfin for years, and my only complain is that the LG app is slow and I get some videos that stuck for a few seconds in it (probably some codec thing, that I could fix by transcoding the media but I haven't been bothered enough to figure it out)

Kinda hijacking this a little: what do the cool kids use on a "normal" TV as a client to watch Jellyfin?

Chromecast? A PI plugged into the HDMI port?

This hasn't been on my radar, but with Winter coming (John Snow) I'm thinking this might be something to look into...

My wife is pretty normal. She uses the Jellyfin client on our Fire Sticks, Roku Soundbar, and TV.
She has no idea what Jellyfin is really. Just another Netflix or Prime in her mind.
- Good analogy... that's really answered the question I wanted to ask
I'm not a cool kid, but I gave up on fighting "smart" TVs and use the jellyfin app on them.
I don't like it, but I also don't like a separate hardware client for each screen either. Plus my wife likes Tubi, ads and all.
I use a smart tv that has it's internet access blocked by mac address. Simply sideloaded the jellyfin app and since tv and server are on the same network they can still communicate :3
My Chromecast has been going strong over multiple years and multiple TVs.
I use an HTPC, only because I had a gaming computer I wasn't using laying around.
I've been meaning to switch over to Bazzite, but haven't gotten around to it.
- Yeah, I have MythTV setup in a passively cooled box in the corner of the lounge... works fine...
  But, I'm considering oprions for the rest of the family, both local (other rooms) and remote, so rather than reinvent wheels...

You can always run both and see which you prefer. I use jellyfin for me because the devices I use have clients that work really well. Older TVs for family members weren't as simple and I couldn't be bothered to figure it out so they use Plex.

IDK about the RPi5 but earlier models don't do well with transcoding. You'll want to make sure to convert all of your videos to a format widely compatible with your clients. H264 is usually compatible with any device of the last 10ish years.

While jellyfin itself is very simple, you might run in to problems if you want to use it while not on your home network. For this you're either wanna use a VPN (or tailscale) or use something like nginx to give your server a web address, while you get this for free if you use plex.

Giving yourself a public address might be easier for the person trying to access jellyfin, but it it comes with a bunch of security considerations and you probably (definetly) want to do some research on the inns and outs of that. I would recommend tailscale but either way it's gonna be some extra fiddling, unless you already have something like that set up.

I remember an announcement that the feature enabling remote viewing (outside of network) has/will become a paid function on Plex. But I haven't followed it so don't know all details

Kodi is my preferred choice