Plex vs Jellyfin vs Emby: Here's how the three media servers really compare

Convenience will cost you with Plex, but the alternatives require more work.

In the era of streaming services, maintaining your own media library has become something of a niche. But if you've been looking for the best way to play your media library of movies and TV shows (all obtained 100% legally, we assume), you've probably heard about Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby. All three are media server solutions, allowing you to serve up content stored on one computer or server box to any of your other devices. In essence, they allow you to create your own, personal Netflix. However, dig a little deeper, and you'll quickly find that the similarities end. Each respective piece of software comes with its own pros and cons, and the choice can quickly become a confusing one.

At baseline, all three programs can easily let you stream media on your own network —for example, streaming a movie from your bedroom computer to your living room TV. But Plex is a paid service which can cost you in the long run if you want to use hardware transcoding or stream media outside your local network, such as while traveling or visiting a friend's house. Jellyfin is totally free, but also expects you to do some of the heavy lifting to configure it, which can make it confusing for users who've never done any networking before. Emby sits somewhere in the middle, offering paid tiers but allowing some DIY configurability.

To decide which service is right for you, you'll need to decide how comfortable you are trading freedom and privacy for ease of use. Here's how the three media servers really compare.

Plex's most well-known alternative is Jellyfin, and while it ultimately offers almost identical functionality, the way it gets there is radically different. Jellyfin is free and open-source software, meaning you cannot pay for it even if you want to (though you can donate to the volunteers who develop it or contribute to the project yourself). But with the nonexistent price tag comes a trade-off. On one hand, there's more privacy and freedom. You can configure Jellyfin however you like because you're doing so on your own hardware with no third party in the middle. On the other hand, there's an expectation that users do more of the technical legwork to configure Jellyfin on their hardware and network.

This can make the initial setup a bit of a headache for those who aren't well-versed in the basics of networking. You may not pay for the convenience of streaming media remotely, but you'll need to set up some kind of mesh network, secure tunnel, or dynamic DNS to get things working. If you're u