i gotta ask... why so many plex over kodi users?

For me, Plex or Jellyfin is great if I want to share my library with some friends or family, especially non-technical people. Kodi really needs tinkering and you need debrid subscriptions and requires more local maintenance. It's great for me but I wouldn't want to teach my family how to use Kodi and me having to fix it when it breaks.

oh definitely. i use emby for remote access, but the tvs in the house all run a local (to the nas) instance of kodi
- For local use it's handy that those Kodi instances share their database so watched state and crucially how far into the episode/movie you are. You can do a shared database with just Kodi but I don't think that's optimal. Jellyfin integrates so well and handles the database stuff much better imo so I just use that.
You don't need debrid for Kodi. There's a torrent streaming app.

But yeah Kodi is a lot to teach if you're talking about maintenance. I've also had some bugs on Ubuntu and Fedora.

I stay with Kodi because it's faster ime and looks better (not the default skin) and works better with a remote. But I also keep jelly fin installed and running from the same nas.

Kodi for home, jellyfin for phones and guest homes. Trakt on both to keep them in sync.
- Once I used Kodi with real-debrid, I don't want to go back to streaming torrents. It is much faster and much more reliable.
  
  My setup is a Shield TV Pro using Kodi with the Jellyfin plugin then use Umbrella for anything I don't have locally. Gave my family a Firestick with Jellyfin and then they can request through Jellyseerr which then feeds through to *arr stack. I don't mind if I have to fix my end but I don't want to fix theirs.
oh definitely, im still on Emby, but it definitely required for remote access/viewing.

Totally different software solutions aimed at different users, and many people use both.

Plex is a Server software that handles media management, libraries, users, etc etc.. and a range of player apps that have a somewhat beginner friendly layout requiring little to no setup

Personally, I run a large Plex server that provides content for my family across dozens of mixed devices in home and out of home, different users have access to different libraries and have different preferences. If needed it will automatically transcode content for remote users out of the home to fit my upload bandwidth and their available speed if they are on mobile. it keeps track of watched content and position for all users so they can move between devices seamlessly.

Kodi is an extensible media player frontend, it can play files from a remote server or NAS but there is no server management, it is just doing basic file access. there are addons for many common services and media sources but there is no user management, no transcoding, no sharing content with other clients etc etc. Having multiple kodi installs on multiple players requires each client to be configured more or less from scratch and no easy way to have multiple setups for different users with their own preferences, libraries and/or content restrictions. It is extremely powerful and configurable and has strong format support.

I have Kodi installed on one of my Nvidia Shield Pros but only use it for playback of surround music files (support for 5.1 flac on plex seems to be limited to audio within video containers for some reason) I find the interface (and all the skins I tried) extremely clunky for use as a music player, the way the remote works within the player itself is unintuitive and makes for an annoying experience restarting the track when you just want to move the playback a few seconds, a bit unfair of course as that isn't what it was made for but that's just my experience.

Same here. Plex just makes sharing with family so much simpler. My mom and dad can figure it out just as easily as my kids can and the amount of time I have to do tech support for anyone has been literal zero, which is a huge bonus for me, personally.

I prefer jellyfin myself

Ya Plex vs Kodi is really more an apples and oranges comparison. Should be Plex vs Jellyfin.

That said though, I did start off with Kodi as my own media center on a Raspberry Pi, but eventually discovered Jellyfin and have really enjoyed it. Kodi is great too, but I think Jellyfin is the more refined modern streaming equivalent akin to Netflix that's fully open source unlike Plex.

Plex is just more user friendly than Kodi. And the real question should be why Plex instead of Jellyfin, and my answer to that is:
I've already set up the Plex server and it works, I don't really want to go through the trouble of switching over if everything is working fine the way it is right now

Even though I'm big on FOSS, that seems like a completely reasonable take. Though I think Jellyfin integrates with Kodi much better. Last time I used Kodi + Plex, Plex was its own app inside Kodi. Meanwhile, with Jellyfin it just populates your regular Kodi with the media without you even noticing that the source is Jellyfin and not say your hdd.

Kodi is horrible on touch devices. I also don't want to have terabytes of files on every device I want to watch something on. Sure, there are workarounds, but I could also just use Jellyfin. Yeah I don't use Plex, I use Jellyfin.

But it's really just mainly because I dislike the UX of Kodi.

You don’t need to have local copies of all your media with kodi. A NAS works just fine.
- Streaming a full 4k movie rip takes more bandwidth than most people would have available on the go. Plex/Jellyfin can offer transcoding on the server for such usecases.
- Yeah ik, I'm still not gonna use it anymore. Jellyfin is so much better for a lot of things.
Isn't Kodi a streaming host? Why terabytes of files?
- It isn't. It's a media center originally developed for the Xbox

The real question is why anyone would use Kodi/Plex/XBMC over Jellyfin

Because Plex makes it so much easier for me to share my stuff with my brother who doesn't live in the same house.
- Absolutely. For my non tech proficient family and friends, it’s easy for them to install an app on their streaming box/stick and send me the login code.
- How is different from jellyfin? 🤔
- Is it different from jellyfin in sharing?
Because my current TV is a Samsung so runs Tizen OS and thus doesn't have an official Jellyfin app.

(I bought it before I ever got into NAS stuff and it still works fine so I'll be damned if I buy another TV before this one stops working.)

Edit: A word.
Jellyfin is great and I follow its development and test it every now an then but it is nowhere near fully featured or well supported enough or me to transfer my family over to.

I will eventually, when it's ready.
Kodi has a nicer interface imo. Kodi as the player and Jellyfin as the "backend" is a great combo imo.
Kodi works way better for local network content in my experience
- In what way? Curious because I’ve never had any issues with plex on my local network.
kodi is more 'media center'..audio/video/static imaging...hell, plugins to gaming... jellyfin/emby is an excellent transcoding/end-user-streaming platform. i see them as complimentary to eachother

The real question is why people pay for Plex when Jellyfin is free and open source

Plex lifetime pass for 60 bucks in 2014
- I know they could close up shop tomorrow, but the one-time-purchase of plexpass beats any sort of ongoing subscription. It does a great job of finding subtitles, it doesn't care how shit my file/folder structure is, and the client is user friendly for the rest of the house.
  
  I prefer jellyfin, but I haven't taken the time to get my library in the right layout for jellyfin to display it right.
Been using Plex for 13+ years, have yet to pay a dime.
- So much for hardware transcoding eh? lol
You don't have to pay for Plex.
Because some people prefer plex and being a (optionally) paid product it will very likely receive more and better updates.

Well, I use plex, because I have used plex for a decade, and it just works.

That being said, if I were to use an alternative, Jellyfin is quite fantastic. I actually have a pod running it, just in the event that plex pulls a stupid move, causing me to lose faith in its platform.

But, that being said, I like the plex interface more then Jellyfin, and have grown accustomed to it.

Also, Kodi while powerful and extensible... just feels like a bear compared to Jellyfin.

They're for different things: Kodi is supposed to be used only on one system inside your network and is full of eye candy. It's roots are as a media app and dashboard for the original Xbox. It doesn't have any streaming functionality, it expects the media to be available locally (either physically attached or over a network share attached to the local system).

Plex was originally designed as a media server and has a Client-Server model to support multiple clients both inside and outside the network. It's more about functionality than looks. It was built from the ground up for streaming.

You can use the Kodi frontend with the Plex backend with a Kodi plugin called PlexForKodi. Same goes for Jellyfin.

I can use Plex on my PS5 and share it with my friends without having to do DevOps work.

those arent even the same thing

Because I paid for a lifetime sub like a decade ago and my parents and a few friends connect to my instance. I can't be arsed to move myself and everybody else to a new system when this shit just works.

I never had what I felt was good performance from Kodi. Of course it might have just been my configuration across the times I used it, but Kodi always felt laggy / slow.

I moved from plex to jellyfin, both of which feel more snappy

the emby/jellyfin scrapers are top notch

Much easier to set up and share with others. Kodi takes a lot of back end work to make it usable and I'm having a hell of a time getting consistent results to different devices from my NAS.

Plex took far less effort to do the same results but their paywall certainly justifies their ease of use

Strange. Kodi for me was a breeze to set up. Set up a file source, set the client to update library on start up, tweak your thumbnails and skin preferences, done.
- My difficulty lies in consistency across multiple devices, it's a process that i haven't been able to overcome easily and though i learned SQL my NAS is a bit closed though so I may upgrade that soon

My issue with Kodi is that each client had to scan the library and generate thumbnails etc. That should be the server's job which is why I chose Jellyfin. Nicer UI too and more responsive with apps in stores so I don't have to load it manually to fire sticks

This is true, it's just not that much of a hassle if you only have 1 or 2 clients. Anymore, and yeah I can appreciate Kodi setup can get messy.

Laughs in stremio

Fr fr.

There was a point where a lot of people bought into Plex because it was cheap for what amounts to a lifetime subscription. Plus people don't like change.

Dunno, I use Emby

I tried that for a few days and it worked great until something broke.
- Mine works great
Just so you know that's mostly a worse/feature locked jellyfin. Jellyfin was forked from emby as emby-unlocked when they started doing stupid shit in the name of monetization.
- I'm aware of that but it happens to be supported and easy to set up on the seatbacks that I use

I think they're best suited for different use cases tbh.

Plex makes it great to handoff and resume media on multiple devices, has native apps for everything (from Linux, to PS3, to Firestick, to XB1, literally you name it), makes it easy to share media with friends and family, has excellent media file name recognition, and lastly has Plexamp (which for me is an extra deal maker).

Recently visited a friend's house, and after logging into my Plex on their TV I could instantly resume whatever I was watching at home, as easily as I would have for a Netflix account.

If you do all your media consumption on a single device, or have no need to organise different libraries of media... then something like Plex/Emby/Jellyfin could be overkill - Kodi would be awesome in that case

Edit: typo

Exactly. I used XBMC and then Kodi for years until I got a smartphone and a laptop and wanted to keep my watched list synced across multiple devices. It was way too complicated with Kodi; it was never designed for that. That’s when I switched over to Plex.

Aside from that use case, though, Kodi is an incredibly powerful and impressive piece of software.
Kodi has a plugin called "plexkodiconnect" that uses plex as the media backend for kodi front ends. It basically replaces the kodi media db, giving you updates/sync/resume/intro skip/etc the same way plex does. Plex runs on a server as normal, and can be used however you normally use it as well. Youre still able to use plex apps on whatever devices you like.

You get the best of both worlds with some light setup.
Kodis had that for ages if you can run a small Maria or mysql server to host the databases. Plex makes that process easier for sure, but Kodi can do it.
I think Jellyfin is only an overkill if you don't value privacy

They're two different apps for two different purposes IMO. Kodi is better if you do a lot of local watching and are a tinkerer-type of person who enjoys the setup/troubleshooting process. Plex absolutely blows it out of the water in terms of ease of setup and remote streaming.

This isn't even to mention PlexAmp, which makes up probably 80% of my total Plex streaming, anyway. Again, I think PlexAmp is 10x better than any comparable Kodi mobile app.

I’ll cast my vote: Kodi is far superior to Plex. People are just too lazy to learn something. I have a library larger than Netflix and Kodi makes browsing it very simple.

For multi device jellyfin or Plex(which is terrible now compared to before) is way better, sure you can make Kodi do it but it's never been good at that

I have a multimedia server with jellyfin and even the dumbest clients can play off it some way.
- To each their own. I run a NAS as the main source of data in my network and the files are encoded as h.265 2160p 10bit. I don’t need another transcode step because my systems are all capable of decoding h.265 10bit in real time. To force my NAS to do another transcode would be stupid, IMO.

I was an original xbmc user (original, as in chipped Xbox Classic original - I still have it). I switched to Plex earlier this year. Why? Consistent user experience across multiple devices (three Chromecast GTVs, plus phones, tablets, and laptops), plus centrally managed user profiles for the five people in my house.

Sure - I probably could've done a lot of heavy lifting with scripts and plugins to make Kodi kind of achieve the same thing, but Plex Just Works.

Surprised there is so much support for Plex...considering what this group is about, and Plex being in bed with the media conglomerates.

Emby or Jellyfin...

Jellyfin app is bad on android TV and being in bed with media conglomerates doesn't get in the way on plex imo. Open up my plex and there are no ads and the only two categories are TV and movies which I put there. I WILL switch to jelly, when their TV app gets more features.
My gripe with Jellyfin is that there isn't a functional app for my shitbox Toshiba Amazon TV. I'm open to alternatives but that's a must for me. Plex is also fairly user friendly which is important for sharing my library with my relatives.
- Why not just attach a non shitty device over HDMI and use that?
  
  Lots of people do that, the Nvidia shield is one I hear a lot about

i heard about Plex first. I'm familiar with the ecosystem and they haven't tried to fuck me badly enough to leave (they haven't tried to fuck me at all)

Watch status syncing and the need to configure each device kinda sucks on Kodi. Great app nonetheless

i should have mentioned, i used emby (switching to jellyfin) for remote devices.. i just use kodi for local tv instances in the house.

From what I know Plex is the simplest solution between my qnap TS-230 and LG CX Oled. Kodi doesn't run on LG OS. This way I don't need any additional device. Without transcoding the TS-230 allows smooth 4k HDR playback even with bitrates up to around 100Mbit/s above that it gets stuttery. But I must say I can't really tell the difference above ~60Mbit/s.

But I love being corrected.

Plex is smoother in my Nvidia Shield TV Pro, Kodi does better with anime, as it doesn't want to transcode for stupid reasons though.

Because Kodi is just confusing. When I got my first Android TV, I was reading about Plex and Kodi everywhere. So I tried both. I never even figured out how to make Kodi do a similar thing to what I had with Plex.

Granted, Plex sucks nowadays and I'll be migrating somwhere else, but it definitely isn't going to be Kodi - it was confusing and ugly.

If you’re looking for what to migrate to. highly recommend Jellyfin
- That's my current plan, but thanks!
Granted, Plex sucks nowadays

In what way(s)?
- You need an online connection for your local media to work. Currently my Internet connection is kinda fucked up and I haven't had time to fix it, long story short, the device where Plex server runs doesn't have access to the internet. And I can't manage my local media because of that. I can play them using local accounts, but I cannot do anything using the main account.
I just use nova on my tv, it works better than kodi. And it actually works

I used XBMC/Kodi for about 10 years until I tried Plex about a year ago. Kodi's filesystem-centric view on media feels outdated in a world where almost all software is using intelligent search and filtering along with natively supported media info imports. This stuff is possible with Kodi too, but the plugin interface feels dated too. I also found it to be a resource hog on embedded devices.

But Plex has its flaws too. It swings the needle too far in the direction of Netflix-y for my liking, which is why I recently tried Jellyfin.

Jellyfin is a perfect medium between the two approaches in my experience of using it for a few months. I'd recommend any Kodi users who are wary of Plex to try it out.

i like a more backwards compatible, safety first setup, so the file/folder structure lends itself to this.

IE, all my media is stored in a standardized way... and included in those physical files are all metadata...in NFOs and in the mkv containers where applicable.

Then, the databases are built on top of that. if anything ever goes wrong in the more complex layers, you can quickly rebuild from source files.

you then also have multiple sources of metadata access for subsequent systems (jellyfin).
- I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. Most data hoarders / homelabbers I know, myself included are using radarr/sonarr etc. to do the cataloguing and metadata selection, with any necessary encoding automation on top. This also leads to a uniform folder and file structure for all of your media and metadata.
  
  I just don't find this that useful when browsing and watching from a television or tablet, so I don't use Kodi to that end.
  
  It's certainly useful for backups and migrations but we don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater where Kodi is concerned.

I switched to Plex because it was easier and I don't use it much anyway. It completely fulfills my needs and it always works - the only issues I've ever had were with the PC my server was hosted on. I've yet to run into any issues that would make me look into switching like I have with other software/platforms I've abandoned

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Kodi interface. To each their own.

You are aware that there are tons of themes that change it drastically, right? Kodi is highly configurable.
- If your default UI is shit, people aren't going to stick around long enough to figure out how to tweak it.
- There are not tons of themes. There's like 5 of them for any major release. Not even the same ones usually. Sometimes new devs resurect an old theme, and port it to the current release.
  
  It has been years of struggle to keep it looking decent. I'm especially fond of Arctic Zephyr. It's not really a single theme, but a framework that allows you to make your own UI, without typing a single line of code. Multiple forks has emerged and died over time, and now I'm just ignoring the osmc update prompt until some brave soul embarks on a journey to properly port it again.
  
  Also, kodi and plex are different things. Jellyfin would be an alternative to plex.
- Sure, but the basic mechanics don't change much and I don't want to take time with it. I want something that just works the way I like.

Plex is superior because of one app: Plexamp

I didn't know about this. I just installed it.

Question. How can I access my library with this but not the main plex app? I've never been able to get video remotely with my VPN. And even on the main app music isn't available. But it works in plexamp.
- Plexamp is for music only

I wanted subtitles on Chromecast and Plex was the only thing that could do it without burning them in (at the time, maybe jellyfish can do this now)

PS5 Client. Deal maker in my case.

Why is the hype for kodi? Its just a (not good) media player

I mean... emby or jellyfin would be a better replacement for Plex.

But why not those? I bought a lifetime Plex Pass for $30 or something ages ago when the competition was garbage, so I already have a smoothly working setup for Plex. No reason to force my kids, their grandparents, etc, to a new interface for very little upside. Plex just works. I have tried the others and they're okay, but nothing compelling enough to force the change.

Imma be a weirdo here: I use Emby.

Kodi with trakt for me

I've been using Kodi (LibreELEC) on an RPi as a media center for the tv. It is extensible with IPTV etc which makes it great as a standalone device.

For myself I'm using Jellyfin on multiple devices without having to manage metadata and configuration seperately. It's all on my homeserver.

tl;dr
Different use cases.

Used Kodi for a long time (even had an XBMC) and switched when it became more of a chore keeping Kodi updated across multiple devices than it was worth - along with wanting to play easier across more devices.

It's unfortunate, but just the UI customization that I loved Kodi for couldn't keep me on it over the lack of reasonable server/client architecture, minimal headless scraper capability (you can do it, but it sucks), and the general attitude of the forums getting very...angry/pissy?

One of the things that really put me off Kodi (as a long time user as well, I also had an XBMC xbox) was the mentality of "it shouldn't be easy, there shouldn't be any setup wizards. It needs to be difficult to configure and get working because we're l33t haxors!" in so many kodi forums and affiliated people. They wanted it to be hard to set up and use because it made them feel smart, it was absolutely ridiculous.

As soon as Plex got their UI to a design I liked I jumped ship and haven't looked back.
ha, yeah those kodi forums are somethin else.

for ease of use, ive separated kodi from the scraping (mediaelch!), forcing it to go local for initial data load.

ive only really forced updates in kodi for necessity, which is almost never.

youre right, the lack of client/server architecture sucks donkey balls. forced me to jump through a lot of hoops to get a default, auto configuring install for house machines.

i wish kodi would just incorporate something like jellyfin natively... they work so well together anyway.

Plex is just easier, especially when using multiple devices to watch content and/or sharing content with friends and family. I used to be all in on kodi over Plex, but Plex improved and improved and improved and is a better product imo.

I just setup a htpc and am using kodi for client of jellyfin, because for some reason the jellyfin desktop app will not register any controller inputs and I haven't found a remote control solution that works.

For those who want something like Plex used to be (self hosted, simple, fast, beautiful, no bullshit spam), definitely check out Emby. I’ve been using it for years and it’s fantastic!

Can I force Emby to play the original files? I never want any transcoding but this seems like a mandatory thing
- Could be an issue with the device are you trying to playback on, and the source media format?
  
  Smart TVs and web browsers are generally not great devices for media playback, most TVs do not support Dolby Digital, EAC audio for example in third party apps (which would cause transcoding). Other smart TVs may not be able to display the subtitles, again causing server transcoding.
  
  IMO to avoid transcoding on hardware that can handle it, typically look at Android devices, games consoles, a Shield or a regular computer

Have you tried to install add-on or scraper to Kodi? On mobile or remote bases device. Please let me know how many steps it take to that, and also when you find a scraper , how long it actually stays up

My Kodi has a built in scraper, and the few addon's I need have been hassle free to install. 0 complaints.
Kodi is extremely fussy about file names for automatic scraping. If you follow the naming standards, which is easy if you using something like sonarr, the built in scanner will work fine.
kodi is not a metadata management tool, ive been using MediaElch for that

I start up the plex server service on my win10 main machine to stream videos inhouse to my xbox plex app manually on demand. I kill the service whenever it is not needed. I provide video files manually without any automation and torrenting. I actually don't know if this simple use case can be solved as easy as plex with kodi.

I just use plain ftp server, streaming clients always give me problems, today work tomorrow not