Why I folded on Jellyfin after weeks of trying to ditch Plex

Published Nov 14, 2026, 4:00 PM EST Sydney Butler is a technology writer with over 20 years of experience as a freelance PC technician and system builder and over a decade as a professional writer. He's worked for more than a decade in user education. On How-To Geek, he writes commerce content, guides, opinions, and specializes in editing hardware and cutting edge technology articles. Sydney started working as a freelance computer technician around the age of 13, before which he was in charge of running the computer center for his school. (He also ran LAN gaming tournaments when the teachers weren't looking!) His interests include VR, PC, Mac, gaming, 3D printing, consumer electronics, the web, and privacy. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Research Psychology with a minor in media and technology studies. His masters dissertation examined the potential for social media to spread misinformation. Outside of How-To Geek, he hosted the Online Tech Tips YouTube Channel, and wrote for Online Tech Tips, Switching to Mac, and Helpdesk Geek. Sydney also wrote for Expert Reviews UK. He also has bylines at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, Tom's Hardware, MakeTechEasier, and Laptop Mag. I've been a Plex guy from the very start of my self-hosted media journey (unless you count network shares and DLNA), but all my colleagues keep going on about Jellyfin and how great it is. I totally buy into the appeal of an open-source media server that doesn't track you, doesn't push algorithmic content, and has no account registration requirements. These things matter. But the big question for me was whether they mattered more than the actual difference in user experiences between the two options. So, I tried using Jellyfin for a few weeks, and in the end I folded like a paper bag. I guess I'm just not enough of an idealist. I kept having to think about which app I was using The lack of consistency is an issue I've heard the idea that Jellyfin doesn't have enough clients for all the platforms that people want to use it on, but between the official Jellyfin client list and all the third-party community options, I don't think that's true. Certainly, for every device I wanted to stream on from my Jellyfin server, there was a client I could use. But the consistency of the experience across clients is less uniform than with Plex. The Plex app on my Android phone and iPad looks and operates identically to the desktop app and web interface. Sure, there are third-party clients for Plex. In fact, I use one called 240-MP with my Sony Trinitron CRT, which also happens to work with Jellyfin. However, most people never need to use them, and the official clients for Plex are unified and consistent in a way Jellyfin does seem to be from my experience. It's kind of an unpleasant place to be That's just, like, my opinion, man Obviously, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I think the standard Jellyfin client look is too utilitarian and austere. Even though I provided the media, and it's running on a dusty old mini-PC, Plex looks and feels like a real-deal, big-boy streaming service. Jellyfin sort of makes me feel like I'm going back to plugging a USB drive into the back of my TV — but with better thumbnails. You need plugins for everything I know the pieces fit OK, not literally everything, but it sure feels like it. My colleague, Ismar Hrnjicevic, thinks that Jellyfin's best feature is its plugins, but it's one of the reasons I'm not sticking with it. Simply allowing for a plugin framework is, of course, generally a good thing. My beef with Jellyfin here has more to do with how many of the app's features exist as plugins, and aren't a core part of the main program. For example, the Intro Skipper plugin gives you a similar experience to the automatic intro and credit skipping feature in Plex. Yes, sadly, Plex paywalls this behind a Plex Pass subscription, but at least I don't have to install and configure a plugin to get this to work. As an aside, hardware-accelerated transcoding, although it's a free and core feature of Jellyfin, is not just plug-and-play like it is on Plex; as you can see from the official guide, I'm always wary of falling into that common geek trap where the thing that's actually your hobby isn't what you think. It happens with 3D printing and mechanical keyboards, for example. Here the hobby ends up being wrenching on the printer or modifying a keyboard, not creating useful things or being more productive. I want to watch my content; I don't want my hobby to be setting up and maintaining media servers. Especially not if it means finding, maintaining, and managing several disparate third-party plugins. I need to stick around for Plexamp It turns out I like local music hosting too Credit: Plex I've recently started collecting CDs again as if it were the 2000s, but, of course, most of the devices that I actually use to listen to music have no way of playing CDs directly. Which is why I rip those discs to my Plex server, and then listen to the music using Plexamp. Now, I am aware that there's a separate piece of open-source software called Finamp that serves the same purpose. However, apart from the fact that I have my Plexamp setup just the way I like it, I've also started using the Caldera player app on my living room TV. This offers me amazing ambient visualizations to go with the music, and it only works with Plexamp. So if someone could jump on a Jellyfin-compatible clone of Caldera, that would be great. I'll leave them both installed anyway The great thing about Plex and Jellyfin is that they will happily live side-by-side on the same server, pointed at the same media files. There's no real performance penalty unless your media server really doesn't have enough memory to handle both apps at once. So, while I don't intend to subject myself to Jellyfin as my daily streaming solution, I'll still use it if there's ever a specific reason for it.