Plex vs Jellyfin: Which Self-Hosted Media Server Should You Choose?

You have a hard drive full of movies, TV shows, and music. You want to stream them to your TV, phone, and laptop — ideally from anywhere. The two dominant options for self-hosted media are Plex and Jellyfin, and they take fundamentally different approaches to the same problem.

Plex is a polished, commercially-backed media server that works like a streaming service you run yourself. Jellyfin is a fully open source, community-driven alternative with no accounts, no telemetry, and no paywalled features. Both can organize your library, transcode video on the fly, and serve content to clients on every major platform.

This guide breaks down where each one excels, where each one falls short, and which one you should choose for your setup.

Feature Comparison at a Glance

Plex: The Polished Veteran

Plex has been around since 2009 and it shows — in the best and worst ways. The client apps are slick, the setup experience is smooth, and features like automatic library matching, intro skipping, and Sonic Analysis for music playlists are genuinely impressive.

What Plex does well

Client quality across every platform. Plex has native apps for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, smart TVs (Samsung, LG, Vizio), game consoles (PlayStation, Xbox), and the web. These apps are well-designed, responsive, and regularly updated. If you share your server with family or friends who are not technical, Plex's clients make the experience feel like Netflix.

Remote access without networking knowledge. Plex's relay service means you can stream from home to anywhere without touching your router settings. It works out of the box. There are bandwidth limitations on the relay (2 Mbps without Plex Pass), but for many users it eliminates the biggest pain point of self-hosted media.

Plexamp. If music is a significant part of your library, Plexamp is the best self-hosted music player available. Period. Sonic Analysis creates smart playlists based on audio characteristics, loudness leveling works well, and the app supports gapless playback, crossfade, and offline downloads. It rivals commercial music streaming apps.

Intro and credit skipping. Plex can detect TV show intros and credits automatically and offer skip buttons, similar to Netflix. It works surprisingly well once the analysis is complete.

Where Plex falls short

Mandatory account and cloud dependency. You cannot use Plex without creating a Plex account and authenticating through their servers. If Plex's authentication servers go down — and this has happened — you cannot access your own media on your own server. There are workarounds (allowlisting local IPs), but the default behavior ties your local media to a cloud service.

Increasing ads and bloat. Plex has added free ad-supported movies, "Discover" content, a streaming guide, and live TV channels from third-party sources. These features are not about your media — they are about Plex generating advertising revenue. You can hide most of this, but each update seems to add more, and the defaults push you toward content you did not add to your library.

Paywalled features. Hardware transcoding, offline sync, Live TV/DVR, lyrics, and intro skipping all require Plex Pass. At $5/month or $120 for a lifetime pass, this is not unreasonable for what you get, but it means the free tier is a limited experience.

Telemetry. Plex collects viewing data by default. You can opt out of some of it in settings, but the extent of data collection is not fully transparent, and the product's business model depends on understanding user behavior.

Docker Compose: Plex

services:
  plex:
    image: plexinc/pms-docker:latest
    container_name: plex
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      TZ: "America/Los_Angeles"
      PLEX_CLAIM: "<your-claim-token>"  # Get from https://plex.tv/claim
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - /path/to/movies:/data/movies
      - /path/to/tv:/data/tv
      - /path/to/music:/data/music
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri  # Intel Quick Sync (requires Plex Pass)
    restart: unless-stopped

Note the PLEX_CLAIM token — you must obtain this from Plex's website and use it within four minutes. This is part of the mandatory account system.

After starting the container, visit http://your-server:32400/web to complete setup.

Jellyfin: The Open Source Contender

Jellyfin is a fork of Emby (which went proprietary in 2018) and is maintained entirely by volunteers. There is no company behind it, no premium tier, and no cloud services. Everything runs on your hardware.

What Jellyfin does well

Truly self-hosted. No accounts with any external service. No phoning home. No authentication that depends on someone else's infrastructure. Jellyfin starts, runs, and serves your media entirely on your local network. If the internet goes down, your local streaming still works without any configuration.

Free hardware transcoding. This is the single biggest practical advantage. Plex charges $5/month (or $120 lifetime) for hardware-accelerated transcoding. Jellyfin includes Intel Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC, AMD AMF, and VA-API support at no cost. If you transcode regularly, this alone justifies choosing Jellyfin.

No ads, no upsells, no "Discover" tab. Jellyfin shows your library and nothing else. There is no push to watch ad-supported movies, no streaming guide filled with content you did not ask for, and no premium tier being marketed to you on every settings page.

Privacy by default. Zero telemetry. No data collection. No analytics. Your viewing habits stay on your server.

Active community development. Jellyfin has an active contributor base and the project is improving steadily. The 10.9 and 10.10 releases brought significant improvements to client apps, hardware transcoding, and the web interface.

Where Jellyfin falls short

Client apps are inconsistent. The web player and Android app are solid. The Android TV app works well. But the iOS app, while functional, is less polished than Plex. Apple TV support exists through third-party apps like Swiftfin and Infuse (paid), but there is no first-party Apple TV app with the same level of refinement as Plex. For Roku, you are relying on a community-maintained app.

Remote access requires setup. There is no relay service. You need to configure a reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, or Traefik), set up a domain or dynamic DNS, and handle port forwarding or a tunnel. This is straightforward if you are comfortable with networking, but it is a real barrier for people who are not.

Music is adequate, not great. Jellyfin handles music libraries and has a built-in music player. It works. But it is not Plexamp. There are no smart playlists based on audio analysis, and the mobile music experience is not as refined. Third-party clients like Finamp help, but the overall music experience is a step behind Plex.

No intro skipping (yet). The feature is in development and partially available through plugins, but it is not a built-in, polished experience like Plex offers.

Docker Compose: Jellyfin

services:
  jellyfin:
    image: jellyfin/jellyfin:latest
    container_name: jellyfin
    ports:
      - "8096:8096"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ./cache:/cache
      - /path/to/movies:/data/movies:ro
      - /path/to/tv:/data/tv:ro
      - /path/to/music:/data/music:ro
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri  # Intel Quick Sync (free, no subscription)
    environment:
      TZ: "America/Los_Angeles"
    restart: unless-stopped

Start it and visit http://your-server:8096 to run through the setup wizard. No external account or claim token needed.

Head-to-Head Comparison

Transcoding

Both handle transcoding well, but the economics are different. Plex locks hardware transcoding behind Plex Pass. Jellyfin gives it to you for free. Software transcoding is available on both without restrictions, but software transcoding is CPU-intensive and limits you to one or two simultaneous streams on most hardware.

If you have an Intel CPU with Quick Sync (7th generation or newer), hardware transcoding on either platform can handle a dozen simultaneous 1080p streams with minimal CPU usage. Jellyfin's VAAPI and QSV implementations have improved significantly and are now comparable to Plex's.

For NVIDIA GPUs, both support NVENC. Jellyfin natively supports tone mapping for HDR-to-SDR conversion via hardware, which is important if you have HDR content and clients that do not support it.

Remote Access

Plex wins here for simplicity. Enable remote access in settings, and it works. Plex's servers broker the connection, and if direct connections are not possible, the relay handles it (at reduced quality without Plex Pass).

Jellyfin requires you to set up remote access yourself. The typical approach is:

1. A reverse proxy like Caddy for HTTPS
2. A domain name pointing to your home IP (or dynamic DNS)
3. Port forwarding on your router, or a Cloudflare Tunnel / Tailscale to avoid exposing ports

This is a one-time setup that takes 15-30 minutes, but it requires networking knowledge that many users do not have.

Library Management

Both use metadata agents to fetch movie/TV information, posters, and descriptions. Both benefit from the same folder naming conventions:

Movies/
  Movie Name (Year)/
    Movie Name (Year).mkv
TV Shows/
  Show Name (Year)/
    Season 01/
      Show Name - S01E01 - Episode Title.mkv

Plex's metadata matching has a slight edge in accuracy for edge cases, and its "Match" and "Fix Match" workflow is more polished. Jellyfin's metadata handling is good and has improved significantly, but occasionally requires manual correction for less common titles.

Live TV and DVR

Both support Live TV via HDHomeRun tuners and IPTV sources, and both can record live TV to your library. Plex requires Plex Pass for this feature. Jellyfin includes it for free.

Jellyfin's guide data comes from free sources (Schedules Direct requires a small subscription, but XML TV guides are free). Plex uses its own guide data, which is generally more reliable but locked behind the paywall.

For casual Live TV use, both work. For serious DVR use, neither replaces a dedicated solution like Channels DVR, but both are serviceable.

Music Support

Plex with Plexamp is the clear winner for music. Plexamp offers:

• Smart playlists based on audio analysis (mood, tempo, energy)
• Loudness leveling across tracks
• Gapless playback and crossfade
• Offline downloads for mobile
• A polished, dedicated music app experience

Jellyfin plays music and organizes your library with metadata from MusicBrainz. The web player works, and third-party apps like Finamp provide a decent mobile experience. But the music feature set is significantly less sophisticated than what Plexamp offers.

If music is your primary use case, Plex (with Plex Pass for Plexamp) is the better choice.

Hardware Requirements

Both servers run on surprisingly modest hardware. The key variable is whether you need to transcode.

These requirements are the same for both Plex and Jellyfin. Neither is meaningfully more resource-hungry than the other. The difference is that Jellyfin lets you use hardware transcoding without paying extra.

A popular starting setup is an Intel NUC or a mini PC with a recent Intel CPU (for Quick Sync) and an external USB drive or NAS for storage. Total cost: $150-300 for hardware that handles most home media needs.

Migration: Switching Between Them

Plex to Jellyfin

If you are considering switching from Plex to Jellyfin:

1. Your media files do not need to move. Both read from the same directory structure. Point Jellyfin at the same media folders.
2. Metadata will be re-fetched. Jellyfin will re-scan your library and pull metadata from TMDb and other sources. This takes time for large libraries but is automatic.
3. Watch history does not transfer directly. There are community tools (like jf-plex-export) that can migrate watch status, but expect some manual cleanup.
4. User accounts need to be recreated. Jellyfin uses its own local user system.
5. Playlists do not transfer. You will need to recreate them.

Jellyfin to Plex

The reverse migration is similar:

1. Point Plex at the same media directories.
2. Metadata is re-fetched automatically.
3. Watch history can be partially migrated using community tools like Tautulli exports.
4. You will need to create Plex accounts for all users.

Running Both

You can run both simultaneously, pointed at the same media library (with both set to read-only access to the media files). This is a reasonable approach for testing: try Jellyfin while keeping Plex running, and switch over once you are satisfied. The only cost is the RAM and CPU for running both servers, which is minimal if nobody is actively transcoding on both at the same time.

The Verdict

Choose Plex if:

• You share with non-technical family and friends. Plex's clients and remote access make it feel like a real streaming service. Grandparents and roommates can use it without help.
• Music is important to you. Plexamp is outstanding, and nothing in the Jellyfin ecosystem matches it.
• You want everything to work out of the box. Remote access, client apps, metadata — Plex requires less tinkering.
• You are willing to pay for polish. Plex Pass at $120 lifetime is a fair price for the features you get. If you value your time over absolute cost optimization, Plex is less hassle.

Choose Jellyfin if:

• You want full ownership and control. No external accounts, no cloud dependency, no telemetry. Your server, your data, your rules.
• You do not want to pay for transcoding. Free hardware transcoding is a significant advantage, especially if you have multiple users or clients that need format conversion.
• Privacy matters to you. Jellyfin collects nothing. It does not know who you are, what you watch, or when you watch it.
• You are comfortable with basic self-hosting. If you can set up a reverse proxy and a Docker container, Jellyfin's rough edges will not bother you.
• You object to the direction Plex is heading. The ad-supported content, the data collection, the steady feature-gating — if this trajectory concerns you, Jellyfin is the exit ramp.

The honest bottom line

For a purely local setup where you watch on your own network, Jellyfin is the better choice for most self-hosters. It does everything you need, it is free, and it respects your privacy. The client apps are good enough, the transcoding is just as capable, and you never have to worry about a company deciding your media server needs more ads.

For a setup that serves non-technical users remotely, or where music is a primary use case, Plex with Plex Pass is still the more complete package. The client polish, the remote relay, and Plexamp are genuine advantages that Jellyfin has not fully matched yet.

The good news is that both read from the same media library format. You can try one, and switching to the other costs you nothing but time.