Yeah, if you’re 100% local, that’s basically the ideal use case for Jellyfin. Plex really shines when it comes to remote access. But if you never use that, then there’s very little reason to use it over Jellyfin.

Yup, just spin up a second Docker image for your porn Jellyfin server. Copy your transcoding settings over from the existing image, and point the new image at different media folders.

It literally gives you a gigantic “hey we want to sell your data. Do you want to allow that” prompt when you open it. They didn’t even make the “no, don’t sell my data” button grey and tiny like so many cookie prompts do. Plex went out of their way to put it up front and center, instead of quietly burying it in an obscure opt-out. There are plenty of perfectly valid complaints about Plex… But if a company wants to sell my data, (and here’s a spoiler warning: They all want to) this is how it should be handled.

And a Samsung TV app. There’s an entire branch of Samsung TVs that require side loading to get a Jellyfin app installed.

Didn’t even need to dig. As soon as I opened Plex in my browser, it gave me a giant full screen “hey we want to sell your data. Do you consent” page. I disagree with data sale in general, but at least they didn’t go out of their way to bury the opt out. In fact, they actually went out of their way to present the notification in a way that was impossible to miss. If you’re capable of reading, you’ll know what the popup is for.

Yeah, being a novice in the FOSS scene can be extremely frustrating sometimes. It can very easily start feeling like you’re reading documentation for a plumbus, where every single sentence seems to introduce a new term you’re unfamiliar with. And it often assumes you’re already intimately familiar with how these new terms work. So even just reading the documentation for one specific thing often means having fifty different tabs open, as you also have to read documentation about a ton of dependencies or terms.

Yeah, the sad reality is that Plex’s setup experience is much smoother. And when you’re trying to convert people, the single largest obstacle is often social inertia. So lowering the barriers to entry is extremely important. My mother-in-law would need to sideload the Jellyfin app onto her TV, but Plex is available right on its app store.

Luckily, you can run both side by side. Jellyfin for me and my more tech-literate friends, Plex for those who don’t know/don’t care to learn.

My guess is that it also included things like the 12 year old hosting a Minecraft server for their friends. Which, to be clear, is a totally valid self-hosting use case.