Plex Vs Emby

[eagle470]

I've been a long time Plex Pass holder. I've looked at moving to Jellyfin, but have never been happy with the level of security with a  self run reverse proxy/ssl combo. This is mostly because I don't know enough to be confident I can make it or keep it secure.

 

I was looking around and re-discovered emby. I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on Emby and why or why not to use it. Really I'm interested in the reasons it seems to be a less suggested tool. Seems like it's basically Plex from 2015, which is pretty much what I want.

[Michael_P]

Jellyfin is really just "free" Emby, so there's that. 

 

Security practices don't change, it's still a self-hosted server after all (Plex is too...)

 

FWIW, I block all of Emby's sites at my firewall for the way they pivoted Media Browser to monitize Emby, still salty about that

Edited October 6, 2022 by Michael_P

[ich777]

1 hour ago, eagle470 said:

I was looking around and re-discovered emby. I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on Emby and why or why not to use it. Really I'm interested in the reasons it seems to be a less suggested tool. Seems like it's basically Plex from 2015, which is pretty much what I want.

I'm a long time Emby user and I'm really happy with it and it is of course my daily driver but I also have to say that I run Jellyfin as a cold spare along side with Emby.

 

For me Emby does the job fine where Jellyfin is a little bit behind in terms of features that I use.

 

7 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

Jellyfin is really just "free" Emby, so there's that. 

I have to disagree about that, the feature set is a little different in terms of functionality.

 

For example Jellyfin has now a watch together function which Emby does not offer.

Jellyfin on the other hand is a bit behind in terms of Music/Podcasts/Audio Books and LiveTV (if you are into that), from my experience the Jellyfin app, at least in terms for Audio and Live TV playback is really not that good as the Emby app.

 

It is of course true that they are somewhat similar because Jellyfin is just a Fork from Emby but they seem to go in both different directions.

From what I can tell the Emby support is really quick on their forums if something is not working or if you need some help.

[Michael_P]

5 minutes ago, ich777 said:

I have to disagree about that, the feature set is a little different in terms of functionality.

 

I should have been clearer about them both being pretty much the same as far as self-hosting. Still wouldn't touch Emby with a 20' pole  

[ich777]

2 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

Still wouldn't touch Emby with a 20' pole  

I'm pretty satisfied with Emby in the configuration that I have over here.

Self hosting yes and no, because Jellyfin is purely self hosted from what I know and Emby has something called Emby Pass or something like that where you can connect to your server similar to Plex I think <- I also don't use that feature and host it rather myself...

 

Both Jellyfin and Emby have their advantages and disadvantages, I tried to switch over one time entirely to Jellyfin but some features/functionalities where still missing and if you watch the GitHub issue tracker it can take a long time so that your specific Issue or Feature Requests gets implemented but that's also true for Emby...

 

I also own a Plex Pass but I'm not that familiar with it and Live TV with not recommended cards is pretty much useless unless you are comfortable with installing one or two other Docker containers to get it working.

 

Please keep in mind that is only my opinion on that and what you want to use is always up to the user

 

@eagle470 also remember you can buy a 1-month Emby subscription if you want to test all three applications with all features and if it fits your needs.

I have set up a reverse proxy through SWAG with a Fail2Ban Jail and Fail2Ban will ban if someone makes three wrong attempts to log in.

[eagle470]

6 minutes ago, ich777 said:

I have set up a reverse proxy through SWAG with a Fail2Ban Jail and Fail2Ban will ban if someone makes three wrong attempts to log in.

I tried to do this and never could get jellyfin/swag configured right. I tried for several months this last spring. Maybe I'll make another go at it.

I think my issue was I couldn't get the name right for the jellyfin container or it was that I didn't want to use the private network, since most of my watching is done locally.

 

I have a bonus coming up so I'll give emby a whirl for a month and see how I like it compared to Plex. 

[Michael_P]

1 minute ago, ich777 said:

I'm pretty satisfied with Emby in the configuration that I have over here.

 

My beef with them is for how they handled the pivot from Media Browser to Emby. For the uninitiated, Media Browser was a plugin for Windows Media Center that was a front end for any content you had locally (or on the LAN), I used it for accessing my Music Video and Concert content along with My Movies for movies and TV. Media Browser had theme support, and I found 1 that suited my need to browse my content perfectly - it was literally the ONLY ONE that showed it the way I wanted. Worked great until one day the devs decided they were moving to a monetized model and re-named it Emby, Media Browser updated automatically, without asking, and boom, now the 1 theme I used was now behind a paywall.... 

 

I'm not a cheapskate, if it was a paid theme from the get-go I would have paid for it (their "store" offered paid themes, too). But to pull the rug out from under me, well I'm petty and don't forget these kinds of things.

[ConnerVT]

My experience and opinion on the death of Media Browser is much like yours.  The switch over to Emby was handled very poorly.

 

I ended up switching over to Plex, then buying a lifetime pass during one of their infrequent anniversary sales.  I never looked back, so can't compare 2022 Emby to 2022 Plex.

 

Plex can have its issues.  They tend to shoot themself in the foot as they offer new features then, at the same time, break existing ones.  My solution is to not quickly jump to update to the latest/greatest version.  I update only when there is a true need for me to do so, and be ready to roll back if needed.