Migrating to Jellyfin from Plex

What is Jellyfin?

Jellyfin is basically like Plex, but it isn't run a corporation. Instead, it is software that is developed by a group of dedicated volunteers publicly and published for free. For me, running the server, it means that things are more complicated than Plex, because I have to host some of that infrastructure myself. However, for you, things can stay mostly the same as they were before, it's just that you will use a different app than before and the UI will be a bit different. Most importantly, because I am a benevolent ruler, access to my Jellyfin server will be free of charge, unlike Plex (after April 29th, 2025).

How do I sign up?

Unlike Plex, Jellyfin doesn't allow just anybody to load up somebody's server and create an account (thankfully). So, to have an account with access to my server, I actually need to make an account for you. So, simply reach out to me and ask for access. I will create your account, make sure that your watch history from Plex is imported correctly, and then hand it over to you. I recommend that you change your account password afterwards since I will be using pretty simple passwords as placeholders. Also, since this is all hosted on my infrastructure, I recommend that you don't use a password that you have used for other things. The hash for your password is stored locally on my server, so if it were ever compromised, it would risk leaking out.

So, to summarize:

1. Reach out to me, letting me know you want a jellyfinJellyfin account
2. I will create your account and make sure that your Plex watch history is imported correctly (if you want this)
3. I will provide you the login information using a placeholder password that you should change after you log in
4. Enjoy!

Let's go into some more details if you have any problems with these steps...

Logging in for the First Time

I host my jellyfin server at jf.wjs018.xyz. So, when I give you your login credentials, go to that site and you should see a log in screen:

Use the credentials I provided to you to log in. If everything worked, you should be greeted with the main interface of Jellyfin. The first thing you should do is change your password. To do that, you first want to hit the person icon in the upper right of the window :

From here, select "Profile" from the menu:

Then, you will be able to change your password.

What's Different in Jellyfin?

There are a couple differences I have found from using Jellyfin compared to Plex:

• Not as many clients - Jellyfin, being something developed by the community instead of a corporation, doesn't have the clout/marketing team to convince other corporations to allow Jellyfin apps in their store. For example, Sony has not allowed a Jellyfin app for the Playstation and not all Smart TV brands have a native app. Options to get around this would be to cast Jellyfin from one of the mobile apps or from a browser window. Alternatively, Roku, Android TV, and Fire sticks all have native Jellyfin clients. Here is Jellyfin's page showing their supported clients.
• No music - To be frank, looking over my Plex logs, it doesn't look like any of you use the music I have in Plex anyway. So, I don't think that losing the music library is a huge deal. Let me know if this is something you want though as there are plenty of music servers that I can host if you want them. In all honesty, Jellyfin can do music, but the support/experience is just not as good.
• Download away - Jellyfin allows you to download media files to your device if you want so that you can watch them even without an active internet connection. So, go crazy!
• Subtitle Options - If you are an avid watcher of subtitled media, then some titles might display a little weirdly as Jellyfin tries to offload subtitle rendering to your viewing device instead of doing it on the server. However, my server can handle it, so here is something you can do if you encounter weird subtitles:
  • Click the person icon in the upper right to bring up the menu
  • Click "Subtitles"
  • Change the "Burn Subtitles" dropdown to "All" or "All Complex Formats"
  • You might need to do this for each device you watch with as the setting is specific per device