Plex is overhauling its apps with a redesign and under-the-hood upgrades

Well, Jellyfin is right over there, and it's FOSS too. Consider switching, it's pretty great.

The quality and features of JellyFin are nowhere close to Plex. I have used both for years.
- I'm in the same boat as you. I'd love to switch but the user experience of Jellyfin is still pretty bad outside the most basic cases. If you have a media center PC, it's fine, but if you want to be able to switch between several devices the way you can with Netflix, it's quite poor.
  
  Plex is slowly trending down and Jellyfin is slowly trending up. I hope Jellyfin outpaces Plex before the enshittification is complete, but it's a steep hill to climb.
- Not asking this to be combative, but as Jellyfin convert I'm curious what quality/features you are missing? Also what platform are you using mainly?
  
  I watch mostly using the Android app or Nvidia Shield, and the client does everything Plex did (in terms of just media watching - no DVR or other features ) without all the bloat the current Plex client brings.
- What about Emby tho?
- Quality is fine, sounds like user error. Features sure, but that's to be expected with a paid app.
Is there a jellyfin app on the Xbox? The ps5? Roku TV app store?

I think no so it's hard to switch if you have family using many different devices to watch plex.
- Roku TV app store
  
  Yes, and it works pretty well.
  
  But not so much with the consoles, though there is a UWP xbox app, but it's uh, not very good.
- No, No, and Yes -- Consoles are notoriously difficult to work with. Not for actual programming, no - Consoles are difficult to navigate POLITICALLY. Xbox, understandably doesn't like F/OSS software, and PS5 has tons of rules and regulations you must meet.
- Roku, yes. Xbox as well. PS5 no, but not for lack of trying. That's apparently on Sony.
- Idk, but there's one on my LG TV.
- You could install kodi and connect with jellyfin from there
- The UI for the Xbox app is rudimentary and a bit janky, but the performance is undeniably better than Plex. I have Plex and Jellyfin on the same machine, serving the same content, and Plex stutters often. It is especially bad when using subtitles. Jellyfin has no such issues.
- What type of device is the Xbox or PS5 hooked up to? If a TV ("smart TV") then there is a client for both Roku and Android TV. If they are using a monitor, could they use the web client? Or could they use the web client on either console (I never had an Xbox, and only PS was PS1 so I honestly have no idea)?
  
  I've only used the Android/Android TV/web client versions from the Jellyfin team, but all seemed solid these days. On Linux I've also used a number of 3rd party clients, and there are plenty of 3rd party clients for most non-console platforms.
I use JF. It's ok but still rough around the edges and if we count as JF the apps, I have to admit that the Android TV app is pretty bad, it's chokefull of very basic bugs, like crashing on start, and missing very basic features like delaying subtitles and the navigation is pretty bad, especially for TV show, navigating between series, episodes and home is a hot mess.
- crashing on start
  
  My main issue is that my TV occasionally decides to kill the network, which causes Jellyfin to crash on startup, clearing the server. It's annoying, but I think the bigger problem is the TV, not Jellyfin.
  
  I think the navigation is fine. I like the scroll by letter thing for movies on the right, and I don't have so many TV shows that it's an issue (maybe like 5-10 series? We don't watch a ton of serials), and my kids seem to navigate it just fine. I did spend some time naming everything properly, so maybe that's the difference? We rarely navigate though. My kids watch one show start to finish (however much time we give them), we generally watch one movie as a family and are done, and my SO uses it for exercise videos.
I tried Plex and it had all kinds of shit that could not be turned off
I jumped to linux and downloaded jellyfin... shit is too complicated I havent got time to get to terms with it
- Guy who runs Plex on a Ubuntu container on Proxmox.
- Are you using the LSIO docker image, or did you install it manually via the official website instructions?
- That's too bad, but it sounds more like you bit off too much rather than Jellyfin being bad. Once it's set up, it's fairly smooth, we just drop movies in a folder on the NAS, name them somewhat appropriately, and Jellyfin frequently recognizes it, though sometimes I'll need to help it out a bit. Setup wasn't much more complicated than other self-hosted stuff I run, but I'm also a full-time Linux user for some 15 years and a SW dev by trade, so I guess I'm blind to issues I take for granted.
I tried to switch from Emby to JF but I am grandfathered into free premium Emby and if I switch to JF I would have to pay for live TV guide.
Maybe in a decade, when it has a feature set close to Plex. Jelly fin is just a cheap knock off. No thanks.
- It's a FOSS alternative, and that's a pretty important feature for me. It has worked well so far for me.
- Can't go cheaper than free. They don't even sell your data
- Hauppage TV tuner DVR capability, apps for more TVs and i could kill off Plex, personally

I used plex for years and years with my lifetime license, but a few years ago I felt Plex was way too bloated and swapped to Jellyfin. I don't think about Plex now unless an article mentions it. There's no feature of functionality I notice that's missing, and I have a low tolerance for dealing with troubleshooting when I want to relax.

Right now, Jellyfin is still too buggy and feature-poor for my tastes. I can't imagine trying to convince my friends and family to use it instaed of Plex. Jellyfin shows a lot of promise though. Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm comfotable making the switch. I suppose Plex might force my hand before that.
- What is feature poor about it?
- Even my mother can use it.
  The only issues I encountered so far is playback on my chromecast dongle with the embedded player refusing to play nicely with some files/subtitles.
I abandoned jellyfin shortly into my self hosting setup. Plex just worked, with Jellyfin I spent an hour trying to figure out how to get it to serve an acceptable to Firefox codec and never succeeded. I'm sure with more effort I could have figured out what the magic combination was, but it wasn't obvious and I had too many other things to set up.
- How long ago was that and do you remember the codec?
- This was my exact experience as well.
  
  I'll keep an eye on it for sure and will most likely try to set it up again in another year or so. But right now, I have no time to fiddle to make things work.
Are jellyfin apps available on most devices yet?
- Jellyfin didn't have an app for my then 3-year old LG WebOS TV so, unfortunately, I couldn't use it.
  
  I know people are going to say I should just use a smart box connected to my TV instead of my TV's smart features, but there's a difference in usability that they're not acknowledging.
- Yes
- Not for xbox
They finally added intro skipping within the last month that works with the web client. Now we just have to wait for clients to update.
- How about iOS downloads for offline viewing? Server transcoding?
  
  I’m a lifetime plex user but this enshitification has been increasing a lot lately.

I just want to use my local library in peace

Fuck you, Subscribe.
- I grabbed Plex lifetime for peanuts a few years ago and pretty happy with it. They do Cyber Monday discounts as far as I remember.
Try Jellyfin!
It's a business. Hosting a service to keep connections up isn't free or trivial. It's cheap and easy to learn how to maintain though. Get jellyfin and a VPN and a tunnel.

There are some punctuation errors in your title. It should read:

Plex is "overhauling" its apps with a redesign and under-the-hood "upgrades"

Those who use Plex to access personal media will find that their libraries are in a ~~dedicated~~ [hidden] tab, while the Watchlist will take up prime real estate in the top navigation section. Plex says it also streamlined the user menu for quick access to things like your profile, friends and watch history.

So they're hiding the entire point of Plex deep in the menu and promoting things that make them money. Enshittification.

Precisely. I don't want or use any of those features. I've disabled all the streaming service and friend stuff, I don't ever use the watchlist, and I use Tautulli for watch history. I don't even really care about watch history either. I mostly set up Tautulli because I like self-hosting stuff.
At best this is a new layer of paint to add a new hidden layer of shit

Oh no....

There are so many little fixes and changes they have done over the years. I expect so many edge cases that they kindly took care of not being taken care of anymore.
My exact reaction when I read that headline!

Those who use Plex to access personal media will find that their libraries are in a dedicated tab, while the Watchlist will take up prime real estate in the top navigation section. Plex says it also streamlined the user menu for quick access to things like your profile, friends and watch history.

Wait, does this mean that personal media is in a single "tab" that we now have to navigate from the main page, instead of currently where the main page and personal libraries are broken out? That would be a pretty awful change.

Also, who cares about the friends and watch history? Does anyone use that?

The watchlist (assuming this is your "bookmark to watch" section, not the recent content section) is in "prime real estate" now, even though I never use it?

It sounds like - as with the last few major updates - they're building apps for the users they want, not the users they have.

another step in their enshitification journey
I just installed it out of curiosity. The watchlist is the page that has your up next stuff in the first line, then like new movies added to your movies library, new shows in your tv library, etc. The discover section is what you’re talking about, and it’s still on its own discrete section.
- Thank you for installing and reporting back.
I just tried the TestFlight preview. The main page was full of junk when I first loaded it, but I went to the library tab and set my personal libraries in the order I want and my main page is back to normal.
- Thanks, that's not too bad. I am used to spending 5-10 minutes at this point debloating/disabling junk on a new Plex install, I just hope it doesn't keep getting much worse.

Did a quick check of this in the iOS beta and there is no indication of additional enshitification as everyone fears.

The first tab is the home tab and the first few rows are from my library. I don't see any option to hide the random noise that comes after it.

The second tab is the library itself which has the normal rows of various groups, continue watching, recently released, etc.

There is also a tab for live tv, on demand and discover.

I'll probably only use discover because I use the watch list as one of many ways to feed my wanted lists.

I installed the beta. It’s not that bad. My server was the first thing I saw when I opened it. So it wasn’t pushing the other stuff.

It’s missing a bunch of little things tho, like checking the file properties for an episode or movie.

This overhaul might live up to their pitch. I hope it does.

yeah, same. i hope it works out! doesn’t seem like it’s going to affect my library & might be easier for newer users. idk why everyone is so up in arms about it.

they should call this new update jellyfin

Lmao, JF is not better than Plex.
- Hard disagree.Plex inserts itself I to everything, and dear god is it slow by comparison.
- Well, it's free, and it's private. Everything else about it is serviceable

Anyone that has tried the new version, does plex still make it really difficult to view your library by folder/file rather than by meta data?

I use jellyfin because I can get a folder view.

I don't think it ever did?

Been using Plex 5 years now and all I had to do was click the view drop-down and select "folder view" instead of "collection view" and boom, done
I've just tried it and it does have a folder view for each library.
Yeah I can't see a file / folder view on the new client. Not that I saw one on the old android client either.

Must admit the new app is more responsive than the old version on my P7P however having "new on XYZ" service that I don't have is a shit addition to the new client.

A bunch of talk about UI and art, nothing about the unified code base. Will it stop sucking on Samsung TVs?

I've liked the sound of Plex forever but after it taking years for the wife to finally be comfortable finding her way around Kodi I couldn't really try it.

Just last week I fancied a tinker & I'd heard Plex has potentially begun to enshittify so I ended up putting Jellyfin on our htpc just to test it. As well as all the usual groups, it was simple to create additional collections for stuff only the wife wants to see rather than things we'll watch together. Within a day or so she's already flying round it so we've pretty much moved to Jellyfin. It doesnt seem to like IR remote control like Kodi does which is a shame & I'm struggling a little with the live TV aspect which was also very straightforward on Kodi but I havent looked too closely into it yet.

Overall very impressed with Jellyfin.

i use threadfin for managing m3u for jellyfin, if that's how you're doing live tv. as for the remote, I was looking into one of these FLIRC USB receivers recently... if i do it i'll let you know how well it worked
- You made me do it, ive ordered one. Having spent money I guess that means we're all in on Jellyfin now ...but if its no good I'll be sending the boys round for a full refund lol.
  
  Will keep you posted, might save you some money if you can hold out, cheers
- Thanks for the info, I'll look a little deeper into the live TV side of Jellyfin. Ive not heard of FLIRC USB before. Very interesting, I'd love to know how that goes, thank you

Good. Plex on Android is hot garbage

Link to the Plex blog announcement.

And a link to the Plex forum post.

What about TV and big-screen devices?

The initial preview release is focused on the mobile experience for users. We plan to share a similarly updated TV experience soon. Stay tuned!

None of the people I've added as friends ever use Plex. Feels stupid to have that in the UX, and I'm not even sharing what I'm watching with them.

I feel you. I have close to 30 friends on plex, but only like 5 people use it regularly, another 4 sporadically ... and most others either have never watched anything or just like seconds (probably just testing if it worked).

It's not the easiest platform to adopt, especially if you just have an account to connect to a friends library and don't know how to do the inital setup (hiding all the free crap). Most of my regular viewers are family members ... and I setup their homescreen for them.
It's such a stupid feature

If it's shit I'll jump to Jellyfin

It would need to physically slap you through the screen to be worse than it already is. How is anyone still using it? inertia? there's literally no way anyone started using it after the subscription was added right?
- I paid for a lifetime subscription 6 years ago... would definitely say I got my $80 worth.
  
  Only complaint is that the streaming my own media files doesnt work great with my VPN, but I so rarely need that, so I havent spent much effort trying to figure it out. It's on my list of things to do though.
It's 2024 friend. There are no such things as good upgrades. Enshitification dominates every damn time.

Looks like I'll have to give jellyfin a go. I've been pleased with plex and haven't yet had a good reason to transition (what can jellyfin do better than plex? )

If this turns out as bad as it seems then I'll probably finally be leaving my lifetime Plex pass behind for jellyfin once it rolls out to the Android TV app.

finally is all I can say

Friendly reminder that Plex didn't even use SSL until about a month after I wrote a POC exploiting login tokens.

Though I'm not sure why an overhaul is considered a bad thing.

In this thread posted by Jesus himself: EleventhHour having a mental breakdown fighting everybody yo explain how Plex is better than everything else.
I don’t even have a take on this, it’s just funny.

It is very funny, but also kind of sad. It's just stupid elitism over what ... the way you host your personal, probably pirated, media? I don't understand why people take it so seriously. It's such a 1st world problem.
- Dang, removed by mod. I got here too late to see it :(

Thanks for sharing - it’s obviously not filled with all the features yet, like no Picture in Picture, but I like it.

Only basic-ass bitches prefer Plex over Kodi or JellyFin.

Why do people still use Plex

client supports more platforms
I tried Jellyfin but I use the live TV section extensively and something about their implementation of the programming guide worked badly.
It runs well and runs on Synology

There is no reason not to

Plex is overhauling its apps with a redesign and under-the-hood upgrades

What about TV and big-screen devices?