Plex kept making it harder to stream my media, so I replaced it with its open-source rival

Streaming media is so easy these days, but it can get pretty expensive. Albums, films, and shows can also sometimes disappear with very little notice, which just kind of sucks when you're trying to listen to or watch your favorite things. There's a reason dedicated media servers exist. And I'm a media hoarder, so I take this sort of thing seriously.

Plex is one of the big names in the field, but it has a whole host of problems, from ease of use to transcoding issues to paywalled features. Running a media server is fun and practical, but Plex just hasn't been working for me, so I decided to switch to a different one: Jellyfin.

Why switch media servers now? Why switch to Jellyfin rather than, say, Kodi? Why not just go old-school and load up my files locally? Let's find out.

Plex stopped working for me as a media server

Bloat, paywalls, and ads get on my nerves

My son got me into using Plex about three years ago. We liked it because it hooked up to his NAS and we could stream our files easily. Then, he moved to another state, and I sort of stopped using it due to its clunky interface, insistence on streaming other media w/ads, and how it stopped being user-friendly.

Plex is too bloated and doesn't always work properly. It also tends to track usage habits, which is a big opt-out for me. I've also noticed it running very sluggishly as of late. When you combine that with the paid tiers and ads, it just doesn't make sense to stick with it in my mind and has riled up quite a few other (former) Plex users on the internet.

Then there's the subject of transcoding. Transcoding is a digital-to-digital format conversion. It can take a file from one format that may not stream as well or with good quality and allow it to be played back on any device. Plex locks hardware transcoding behind a paywall , but Jellyfin doesn't. That makes a difference if you're like me and have collected audio in various formats and qualities from years of archiving.

Trust me, the old radio show from 1977 that transferred from a reel-to-reel tape onto a CD and then into WAV format isn't going to sound the same as a crispy FLAC or Ogg Vorbis file I picked up from Bandcampyesterday.

Jellyfin is an open-source alternative that just makes sense for my needs

It's free, community-driven, and easy to setup

Jellyfin or Kodi seemed like easy, open-source stopgap solutions for times when I don't have enough storage space to play things back locally or time to move things around. I like to listen to podcasts, radio shows, and albums (I'm really not a TV or movies person), so I just wanted something simple with plenty of control and configuration options available.

Kodi seemed like a good choice, but honestly it offered more of a "full media experience" instead of a simple interface for playing back hosted audio files. I have a lot of CDs that I've backed up over the years, along with plenty of podcasts and radio shows that I've archived over the years. Kodi was overkill for my needs, but Jellyfin hit that sweet spot.

Also, Jellyfin has a cool name, so I decided to give it a shot (yes, this is really one of my reasons). The server was remarkably easy to set up. I grabbed it directly from the repository via my Linux terminal, then headed on over to my server's browser location and started setting it up. It took about five minutes to add to my Tunesfolder. Since I set it up on Linux Mint, I also had to add jellyfin as a user for that particular folder. Keep that in mind if you plan to set up your server outside of Windows.

Also, be sure to select only the folder containing your media as a scannable folder. You don't want the entire contents of your home or media folders being part of the server (unless you, in which case, go nuts, but don't say we didn't warn ya).

Once you've imported everything, you have to expose your server to the internet so it can be used with other devices. To do that, Jellyfin provides instructions on how to do this safely . Please follow them carefully and precisely to avoid potential problems!

My collection is rather large, so until I get a fresh opportunity to pick up a new NAS (or convert a laptop to one), I decided to experiment with a small sample to test out the server. I loaded a few shows, audiobooks, and my favorite Ozric Tentacles album ( Strangeitude ) to check things out.

It looked and sounded fantastic on a laptop I had stationed in my kitchen, on an Amazon Fire tablet, and on a cheap Motorola phone. It all worked remarkably well. After playing the entire album, I checked out a few snippets from other files: FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3.

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Sometimes, simpler is better

I had fun with this little experiment and plan to continue exploring it further, eventually setting up a dedicated NAS for my entire collection. Jellyfin has an active community , great documentation, and opportunities to contribute, so I can see myself returning to it often.

As much fun as I had setting up a Jellyfin server, I still sometimes feel like I still want to go back to my roots. Jellyfin is definitely better for folks who want a big media server. But if you're anything like me, you might just want a dedicated player and big SD card.