Dan J’s Website

Considering Jellyfin 🪼

I've been a long-time user of Plex, and a happy one. I have a lifetime Plex Pass from back before it was a subscription. There are great client apps for Plex, like Prologue for managing and listening to your audiobook library.

And yet... Plex is closed-source, and some things about it have been turning me off a little, lately. The other day I got a push notification from the Plex app on my phone, helpfully advising me of a limited time deal on a Plex Pass. This sucks for two reasons: first, like I said, this offer is not relevant to me as I have a lifetime pass. Second, when apps use push notifications to advertise, I turn off their permission to send notifications, which makes the app less useful. This is not as big a deal for Plex (exactly what do I need my media player to notify me about when I'm not using it, anyway?) as for, say, a messaging app where push notifications provide a lot of the app's utility (glaring at you, MySudo). But still.

Then there's the way Plex tries to provide content from other places than my own media library. That's not a bad thing, but I find myself just wanting to manage a media library without encroaching voices from outside—I'd like to use an app that feels like a tool to get a job done, not a SaaS product where its creators are constantly sticking their opinions in—"We think you should look at / think about this now!" No. "Insufficient Sources of Entertainment" is not a problem I have, or anyone else has, in 2025. Stop bugging me.

While I'm not gung-ho to get away from Plex at the moment, I am considering alternatives. Jellyfin seems like a frontrunner, here are the links I've gathered so far:

Considering Jellyfin 🪼

Reference Links

General

Music