Alternatives to Plex (Jellyfin?)

[droplink]

HI Folks,
Plex is starting to wear me down.

Plex keeps pushing their own content into my media center (not happy with adding a "live TV" in the list, Plex is now pushing "Trending" into all my folders as a tab) and the developers will not listen to even the most basic feature requests (changing the default tab from "Recommended" to "Library" - something that people have been requesting for years now etc.)

So, is there a decent alternative?
Jellyfin has been mentioned a good few times when googling, so perhaps that is the best?

The requirements is that the media center runs on a QNAP NAS and has native iPhone/iPad/Apple TV apps.

Apart from lots of movies and TV shows, I also has a small collection of documentaries and live sports recordings that I like to keep sorted.
Its not so important to me if the software has a super accurate lookup service, if I can adjust the library myself and I can keep the settings/sortings into the future.

 

[BaggieBoy]

Infuse works great for me.

 

[oneMadRssn]

So, is there a decent alternative?
Jellyfin has been mentioned a good few times when googling, so perhaps that is the best?

Jellyfin and Emby are the most common alternatives. Channels is another alternative to consider. Check out a comparison below:

https://github.com/Protektor-Desura/Archon/wiki/Compare-Media-Servers

The main issue is Plex is the best by far when it comes to hardware transcoding. If you rely on HDR 4k to SDR 1080p transcodes and tonemapping (which I do), Plex is the only one that delivers near flawless results. Also, while everyone's native apps are pretty cruddy, Plex seems to have the least cruddy native app in my view (once you disable all the BS).

Infuse works great for me.

Infuse is a client app, a really good client app, but it is not an alternative to Plex which is a whole media server package.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Channels is freakin' great- the most used app on all of the AppleTVs in my household. Between it for live TV (cable & over the air) and the often-overlooked Computers app for ripped media (movies, tv shows, music, photos, etc)...

...all other AppleTV apps pale in comparison based upon usage... including the streamers.

Since Plex leans on the same Silicon Dust hardware, a hop to Channels should be easy. Channels doesn't push purchases of anything... though they do have a high value DVR upgrade for recording anything you want to watch with as much storage as you have available, without time limits on when you can get around to watching the recordings.

 

[droplink]

Jellyfin and Emby are the most common alternatives. Channels is another alternative to consider. Check out a comparison below:

https://github.com/Protektor-Desura/Archon/wiki/Compare-Media-Servers

The main issue is Plex is the best by far when it comes to hardware transcoding. If you rely on HDR 4k to SDR 1080p transcodes and tonemapping (which I do), Plex is the only one that delivers near flawless results. Also, while everyone's native apps are pretty cruddy, Plex seems to have the least cruddy native app in my view (once you disable all the BS).



Infuse is a client app, a really good client app, but it is not an alternative to Plex which is a whole media server package.

Thanks!
I think I will try to install Jellyfin and and run it in parrell to Plex as a test.
While good, the table linked is out of date. Jellyfin has a Qnap client, though you have to compile it yourself. (I will see how that goes!)
Plex may have the smoothest / least cruddy experience, but it seems to be getting worse all the time.

 

[QuentinWilson]

I'm not defending Plex here in any way because I'm also quite annoyed with the things they are adding that nobody really wants. But so far I have been able to turn all of that stuff off (most of it is in "Online Media Sources" in the settings menu). Is that not the case for you (if so, maybe that's country specific)?

I'm using Infuse as the player app on my Apple TV, but I have it connected to PMS for my library, not directly to the media sources. That combination has always worked perfectly for me and I'm not seeing anything but my own media, as it should be.

 

[oneMadRssn]

But so far I have been able to turn all of that stuff off (most of it is in "Online Media Sources" in the settings menu).

I use Plex, but the annoying part here is this setting is account specific. So anytime I invite a family member to access my Plex server, I also have to tell them how to disable all the extra crud on their account. This makes initial setup and sharing quite unpleasant, and it means that it doesn't just work as we expect it to right out of the box for most new users.

 

[pacmania1982]

I used to use Boxee but that disappeared so I moved over to Plex. For a good number of years I was happy with it but the constant push lately to introduce streaming stuff and change what shows on the left has irritated me no end. In our camper van, I use JellyFin on my MBA but can't at home as there is no JellyFin client for my TV, so we're stuck with Plex. The sooner I can get rid of it the better!! JellyFin FTW!

 

[oneMadRssn]

I use JellyFin on my MBA but can't at home as there is no JellyFin client for my TV, so we're stuck with Plex.

Native clients is one of Jellyfin's primary weaknesses I think. Even where there are decent native clients, they lack basic features that I consider table stakes. Like downloading media for later offline playback. This is a must-have, and most Jellyfin clients can't do it.

 

[Cave Man]

I'm not defending Plex here in any way because I'm also quite annoyed with the things they are adding that nobody really wants. But so far I have been able to turn all of that stuff off (most of it is in "Online Media Sources" in the settings menu). Is that not the case for you (if so, maybe that's country specific)?

We’re using the Plex app on our LG TV and there’s no way to get rid of the Plex crap. It is so annoying but the TV has great upscaling. It also cannot pass through DTS audio so I have to use Handbrake to convert it to AC3 and it can only do 5.1. The Plex crew has gone over to the dark side as far as I’m concerned. And I started using Plex when it was first forked fro XMBC.

 

[oneMadRssn]

We’re using the Plex app on our LG TV and there’s no way to get rid of the Plex crap.

I think if you login using a desktop browser (app.plex.tv) and go into the settings to disable all the Plex crap (settings>online media sources), then it will become disabled on the TV app too.