Meanwhile I made a post asking if plex is bad now and most people on it said "no it's great I paid for my lifetime pass years ago and its been the best!" Yeah, we know the truth now.
Jellyfin all the way.
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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I'd love to switch. I would do it right now, but the problem is that Jellyfin's security isn't better if you open it up to the internet. For example, I'd have to set up a VPN for my remote users for proper security, and most of my users are in other states, not technically inclined, and watch on their TVs. I'd have to at least support a raspberry pi for them, or some sort of site to site VPN, and if it goes down, I'll be expected to fix it. On top of that, if I do a simple raspberry pi based VPN, it would be made even more complicated since they'd want it to work with their smart TVs.
Again, I really want to switch. But Jellyfin needs to fix their security issues before I can. I'm also happy with the way Plex is reporting this, it's above the standard "your data is lost" notifications.
Edit: here's a link to the related GitHub issue I've been following: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
And @Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com has a great thread explaining more: https://lemmy.today/comment/18923504
Jellyfin is great... As long as you're the only one who needs to access the server. I've switched to using Jellyfin myself, but I still run Plex for others to access.
I've found that I get a smoother playback experience on Jellyfin, but even outside of potential security issues, there are a still couple of features I miss from Plex.
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My big complaint with Jellyfin is that their documentation showed a “fast forward” hotkey that convinced me to switch from Plex, and when I started it up it was a misnamed “jump forward five seconds” button instead.
It’s still better for my needs, but I remain angry.
Most of these require some form of random id to exploit, which leaves you either brute forcing ids or brute forcing a user account
I mean, that's fine, but it's still an issue and a risk that would cause me to want to use VPN for remote viewing. It doesn't seem like security is Jellyfin's priority at the moment, not that it's Plex's either, but it's not to a place where it's worth it to switch from a security standpoint, personally.
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If you hand wave those away then you can’t possibly have any issue with Plex.
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Plex can't catch breaks recently.
Self hosting does come with risks though. People should be on notice.
In general, for self-hosting, we hardly rely on remote service/server. The whole idea of self-hosting is to shun dependency on external service/server, and run everything on your own hardware and network. So that every aspect of the service is in your control. I don't think self-hosting comes with much risk, unless you make your service available on Internet.
Jellyfish cannot to setup to securely and safely be exposed to the Internet. It is only safe to access through a VPN. That rules it out as an option for sharing with friends, family, or even my own spouse. You call it phoning home to the mother ship; I call it paying Plex to manage user authentication for me. Until Jellyfin's security holes are patched and it becomes clear that the Jellyfin developers actually care about security, it stays locked down to my LAN. Setting up a VPN is difficult for the average user on a good day, impossible in some circumstances on even the best of days, and is not access I want to hand out (and support) to all the people I share my Plex with anyway.
https://tailscale.com/ This is essentially a mesh Wireguard Tunnel connectivity that ensures only you can access your service remotely.
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Well plex can't be run without it pinging the mother ship...
But I get your point. I don't open shit up for remote use.
Which is exactly why I never installed Plex and went straight to Jellyfin
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