Nabukodonosor 16 Posted May 24 Posted May 24 I mean, I was watching a video the other day about the new Plex lifetime price increase and in the comments you could see people recommending other self-hosted services to be used. 98 out of 100 people recommended Jellyfin. I mean, Jellyfin is an Emby fork...how come it gained such a traction and Emby is stuck at the bottom?
howllor 33 Posted May 24 Posted May 24 (edited) Yeah i think the fact that its fully free and open source is probably the reason. I keep being quite unimpressed with their apps, generally unpolished, and it's actually harder to navigate than emby IMHO. I keep going back and trying Jellyfin once in a while, but the settings pages and admin pages and everything is just like, not near enough? If that makes sense. Several of my users rely on the web apps, and they'd have a hard time using the default jellyfin But yeh the argument I see the most about why someone should pick emby is "why pay for premium for something you get for free with Jellyfin", plus general suspicion about it not being open source, there's people being like "you never know, they might start enshittifying it and going the Plex route at any point" Edited May 24 by howllor 2
yocker 1614 Posted May 24 Posted May 24 10 minutes ago, Nabukodonosor said: Come on. Emby is practicaly free too. 119$ is still a lot of money for most. People will put up with a lot if it's free. 2
Nabukodonosor 16 Posted May 24 Author Posted May 24 I don't pay $119. I don't need Premiere. I paid couple of unlock licences for my devices and that's it.
yocker 1614 Posted May 24 Posted May 24 2 minutes ago, Nabukodonosor said: I don't pay $119. I don't need Premiere. I paid couple of unlock licences for my devices and that's it. That's still money that people can save if they use Jellyfin. Fact of the matter is, Jellyfin is so popular because it's free and works. It might be much more rough and unpolished than Emby but it still works for what most people want and if it can be gotten for free then that's what most people will get. 1 2
RanmaCanada 544 Posted May 24 Posted May 24 Jellyfin is more popular as pirates hate to pay for stuff. Period. The fact it's open source means nothing. Jellyfin is extremely fragmented and still based on Luke's ancient code. Remember, Jellyfin was created because someone didn't like the fact there was a nag screen to pay for an open source product. They created Emby Unlocked and went forward and forked what is now Jellyfin. It's an inferior product that works well enough that people are willing to put up with its issues as it costs them zero dollars, yet costs them time and frustration. 5 3 1
SikSlayer 254 Posted May 24 Posted May 24 2 hours ago, RanmaCanada said: Jellyfin is more popular as pirates hate to pay for stuff. Period. The fact it's open source means nothing. Jellyfin is extremely fragmented and still based on Luke's ancient code. Remember, Jellyfin was created because someone didn't like the fact there was a nag screen to pay for an open source product. They created Emby Unlocked and went forward and forked what is now Jellyfin. It's an inferior product that works well enough that people are willing to put up with its issues as it costs them zero dollars, yet costs them time and frustration.
scb99 249 Posted May 25 Posted May 25 20 hours ago, RanmaCanada said: Jellyfin is more popular as pirates hate to pay for stuff. Period. The fact it's open source means nothing. Jellyfin is extremely fragmented and still based on Luke's ancient code. Remember, Jellyfin was created because someone didn't like the fact there was a nag screen to pay for an open source product. They created Emby Unlocked and went forward and forked what is now Jellyfin. It's an inferior product that works well enough that people are willing to put up with its issues as it costs them zero dollars, yet costs them time and frustration. For me it's unusable at the moment, but I do watch it on Github and I think it's going in some right directions. In a couple of years it might be viable.
tedfroop21 97 Posted May 25 Posted May 25 2 hours ago, scb99 said: For me it's unusable at the moment, but I do watch it on Github and I think it's going in some right directions. In a couple of years it might be viable. I doubt it. They way its being built is like having a classroom full of kids make a clay sculpture. No one has a plan for what the end product will look like, and it ends up a misshapen lump. It is being directed but at some point it begins to be pulled in too many directions. As it is it uses a ton of system resources vs. Emby. That will not likely change for the good, but instead will continue to become more and more bloated and require more computing power to run. 3
scb99 249 Posted May 25 Posted May 25 I like the move to make it DB independent using EFcore, for example. A lot of their current problems are because this has been done somewhat chaotically and is all a bit half baked. They have an upcoming version 12 which looks to have a lot of sensible changes especially to the db. I guess I’ll take another look in 6 months or so.
RanmaCanada 544 Posted May 25 Posted May 25 7 hours ago, scb99 said: I like the move to make it DB independent using EFcore, for example. A lot of their current problems are because this has been done somewhat chaotically and is all a bit half baked. They have an upcoming version 12 which looks to have a lot of sensible changes especially to the db. I guess I’ll take another look in 6 months or so. Of course it's going to be half baked when you have 1400+ contributors..It's a case of too many cooks spoils the broth. Luke alone has 13424 commits in their git, which is almost 50% of all commits. They are still riding on his coat tails almost a decade later. 3
twitchstick 7 Posted May 26 Posted May 26 I have Emby Premier, Plex Pass, and Jellyfin. I like Emby but Jellyfin has come a long way. There are some really good clients that work just fine now on my apple devices and my shield. I know how to navigate remote access so that’s never been a problem. I’m using Tailscale anyway.
WilhelmStroker 111 Posted May 26 Posted May 26 I have all 3 as well, and use Emby pretty much full time. Jellyfin has definitely come a long way but the current version has some horrible performance issues with large music and mixed content libraries. An older build works fine but a number of clients no longer work with that particular build. It's not ideal. I also like that the ecosystem seems pretty active with lots of clients and tools/plugins being developed. I'd love to see those for emby too. 1
Nabukodonosor 16 Posted May 30 Author Posted May 30 Ok, it's free and people like free, but this still doesn't explain completely why Jellyfin is this much popular than Emby. For example, in Music Assistant app, you can add Plex as a music provider, but you can also add Jellyfin. Not Emby. This has nothing to do with money. I think Emby should work on their marketing a little bit. Also, Jellyfin has many more plugins to choose for, and some of them are very good.
Luke 42555 Posted May 30 Posted May 30 We recently built music assistant support and submitted it to them, so I would think it should show up there soon. 3
unisoft 359 Posted May 31 Posted May 31 (edited) On 24/05/2026 at 17:21, RanmaCanada said: Jellyfin is more popular as pirates hate to pay for stuff. Period. The fact it's open source means nothing. Jellyfin is extremely fragmented and still based on Luke's ancient code. Remember, Jellyfin was created because someone didn't like the fact there was a nag screen to pay for an open source product. They created Emby Unlocked and went forward and forked what is now Jellyfin. It's an inferior product that works well enough that people are willing to put up with its issues as it costs them zero dollars, yet costs them time and frustration. Whilst I agree with what you write, Emby is not without frustration: Changes in GA releases not documented in release notes release notes not available for weeks Bugs like composers appearing in Artist lists where artists should appear Mistakes on GA release like current LG App where basics like home screen doesn't scroll horizontal properly on webos24 (B4) and vertical scrolling issue with Music Video library on webos25 (G5) (both TV mode in Emby) The long drawn development of Apple TV client that is still in Beta after years Changes to folder structures and ignore files etc not documented in release notes Changes to size of cover art or aspect ratio changed (i.e. no longer resized to fit) not documented in release notes Bugs in XML parser that originally couldn't handle dates properly Network detection speed for REMOTE does not work properly and you have to set a static value to get streaming to direct play properly without transcoding Live TV - slow, still doesn't like some UK MPEG2 DVB-T channels (tested on clean install even). These were just some off the top of my head over past few years, so Emby is very not frustration free. You have it working and a release comes along and that's the end of that, at the moment this is the biggest issue especially with LG app right now, bug since January and still not resolved. Edited May 31 by unisoft 1
seanbuff 1372 Posted May 31 Posted May 31 21 hours ago, Nabukodonosor said: For example, in Music Assistant app, you can add Plex as a music provider, but you can also add Jellyfin. Not Emby. Looks like you might be running an old version of Music Assistant. 1 1
Nabukodonosor 16 Posted May 31 Author Posted May 31 29 minutes ago, unisoft said: Whilst I agree with what you write, Emby is not without frustration: Changes in GA releases not documented in release notes release notes not available for weeks Bugs like composers appearing in Artist lists where artists should appear Mistakes on GA release like current LG App where basics like home screen doesn't scroll horizontal properly on webos24 (B4) and vertical scrolling issue with Music Video library on webos25 (G5) (both TV mode in Emby) The long drawn development of Apple TV client that is still in Beta after years Changes to folder structures and ignore files etc not documented in release notes Changes to size of cover art or aspect ratio changed (i.e. no longer resized to fit) not documented in release notes Bugs in XML parser that originally couldn't handle dates properly Network detection speed for REMOTE does not work properly and you have to set a static value to get streaming to direct play properly without transcoding Live TV - slow, still doesn't like some UK MPEG2 DVB-T channels (tested on clean install even). These were just some off the top of my head over past few years, so Emby is very not frustration free. You have it working and a release comes along and that's the end of that, at the moment this is the biggest issue especially with LG app right now, bug since January and still not resolved. I agree. Let me add this one. It's been months since posted, but no solution on the horizon.
ebr 16442 Posted May 31 Posted May 31 3 hours ago, Nabukodonosor said: I agree. Let me add this one. It's been months since posted, but no solution on the horizon Hi. That's because no one in development or testing is able to reproduce it and only a very few users have reported this happening. So, whatever it is, is very specific to some sort of environment. Unfortunately, we cannot fix what we cannot find - but we'll keep trying. 3
RanmaCanada 544 Posted May 31 Posted May 31 8 hours ago, unisoft said: Whilst I agree with what you write, Emby is not without frustration: Changes in GA releases not documented in release notes release notes not available for weeks Bugs like composers appearing in Artist lists where artists should appear Mistakes on GA release like current LG App where basics like home screen doesn't scroll horizontal properly on webos24 (B4) and vertical scrolling issue with Music Video library on webos25 (G5) (both TV mode in Emby) The long drawn development of Apple TV client that is still in Beta after years Changes to folder structures and ignore files etc not documented in release notes Changes to size of cover art or aspect ratio changed (i.e. no longer resized to fit) not documented in release notes Bugs in XML parser that originally couldn't handle dates properly Network detection speed for REMOTE does not work properly and you have to set a static value to get streaming to direct play properly without transcoding Live TV - slow, still doesn't like some UK MPEG2 DVB-T channels (tested on clean install even). These were just some off the top of my head over past few years, so Emby is very not frustration free. You have it working and a release comes along and that's the end of that, at the moment this is the biggest issue especially with LG app right now, bug since January and still not resolved. As EBR mentioned, some of these bugs can't be replicated, and therefore can't be solved. As for the crApple TV issues, it's a horrible device to program for to the point even Jellyfin abandoned their app for it. Network detection speed does work, but if your ISP are a$$sholes and throttle the every loving hell out of your connection, like Shaw/Rogers does here in Canada, it won't matter as all you're going to get is 3-4mbit even if you have it set to wide open.
Smitty018210 160 Posted May 31 Posted May 31 (edited) 9 hours ago, unisoft said: Whilst I agree with what you write, Emby is not without frustration: Changes in GA releases not documented in release notes release notes not available for weeks Bugs like composers appearing in Artist lists where artists should appear Mistakes on GA release like current LG App where basics like home screen doesn't scroll horizontal properly on webos24 (B4) and vertical scrolling issue with Music Video library on webos25 (G5) (both TV mode in Emby) The long drawn development of Apple TV client that is still in Beta after years Changes to folder structures and ignore files etc not documented in release notes Changes to size of cover art or aspect ratio changed (i.e. no longer resized to fit) not documented in release notes Bugs in XML parser that originally couldn't handle dates properly Network detection speed for REMOTE does not work properly and you have to set a static value to get streaming to direct play properly without transcoding Live TV - slow, still doesn't like some UK MPEG2 DVB-T channels (tested on clean install even). These were just some off the top of my head over past few years, so Emby is very not frustration free. You have it working and a release comes along and that's the end of that, at the moment this is the biggest issue especially with LG app right now, bug since January and still not resolved. Yeah, Emby is not without its frustration. There are a number of things that I truly do not like about the product and drive me up the wall almost every time I use it. I've tried Jellfin and didn't like the fit any better honesty. I've been around since the old forum (media browser days) years and years go, and never saw the point in trying Plex. I've installed/tried Kodi and played around with it, but again it just wasn't the right fit for me. I always circle back around to Emby despite my frustration with it. Edited May 31 by Smitty018210 1
TMCsw 275 Posted May 31 Posted May 31 (edited) 9 hours ago, unisoft said: Changes in GA What is "GA"? Gamblers Anonymous? Edited May 31 by TMCsw
adminExitium 368 Posted June 1 Posted June 1 Based on the context, I would assume "General Availability" i.e. a non-beta.
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