I use Hetzner as a seedbox and then have PLEX as my media server ran on the same hardware. It’s worked perfectly fine for years. But recently PLEX says they will be blocking Hetzner hosting in the next few weeks. I’ve been considering moving to Jellyfin for a while, but I’m worried they will do the same thing in future.
Does anyone know if that’s a real possibility?
Also, if I setup a VPN and just download stuff I torrent from my seedbox to a local PLEX server, would I be in any more risk of legal issues then I am now?
Am I looking at this completely wrong, and I should do something completely different?
To clarify what I am thinking of doing:
Keep my Hetzner as my seedbox and continue to download using my IPTorrents account. Setup a Local Plex or Jellyfin server and download from my seedbox to that local server that will be ran behind a VPN.
UPDATE: So this past weekend I did some testing and JellyFin is now my new Media Streaming software on my server. Going to take some time to learn how it works compared to PLEX, but so far things have been nearly 1 to 1. Thanks everyone for the help, I’m very grateful.
But recently PLEX says they will be blocking Hetzner hosting in the next few weeks. I’ve been considering moving to Jellyfin for a while, but I’m worried they will do the same thing in future.
Jellyfin: Completely autonomous of anything outside.
Plex: Authenticates with Plex servers so you need an external account
Jellyfin is a fully self-sufficient software not calling outside.
Jellyfin has no tracking, phone-home, or central servers collecting your data. We believe in keeping our software open and transparent. We’re also not in the media business, so the only media you see is your own.
If Jellyfin would do such stupid thing, somebody would fork it to a new project
in fact this did already happened in the past: Jellyfin was forked of Emby after they changed their license
I’ve been considering moving to Jellyfin for a while, but I’m worried they will do the same thing in future.
Currently would not be possible. Jellyfin does not have the sort of centralized accounts/logins that Plex does e.g. you’re not asking Jellyfin devs for permission to log into your own server. That’s just a Plex thing.
If you’re asking could they add that “feature” in the future? Highly unlikely but I guess anything is possible. Were that to happen most likely the code would get forked into a new project.
PS - Jellyfin itself is a fork from Emby back when those devs decided to close their source. Myself & tons of other people dropped Emby at that point & migrated to Jellyfin. https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/about/
Plex is so bizarre. I consider myself a tech-savvy person, but I can’t wrap my head around the concept of “I host Example App on my servers. I host, maintain, and pay for the instance of Example App and servers myself. I also pay for a license for Example App. But Example Company controls my instance.” It’s so foreign to everything you can host yourself. It’s such an unfair commercial practice that I can’t for the life of me explain how such a model can survive. Self-hosting is about regaining control in my books. Yet Plex over here thinks they can not only shove down the maintenance burden and costs of everything down my throat, but also control access to my data. The solution to Plex’s retarded ToS violation situation is for Plex to say shit happens, how about we stop controlling everything you do with Plex to such an excessive degree that the media mafia can accuse us of empowering piracy instead of… the person who hosts pirated media on their server? Plex’s biggest business liability is Plex’s own business practices. They’re practically begging the media mafia to sue them.
I thought the phone home was to make it easy to have different devices talk to each other. It’s similar for a lot of IoT products. If properly set up, they don’t need to phone home and can find each other with the setting ayku input. However, many users are less technical and automating this through a central service makes it easier. Most companies also use this to scoop up personal info too, unfortunately.
they’re trying to double as a streaming platform (like roku channel, tubi, etc) for mass-market media. that creates a conflict between the big studios licensing that content to them and the platform’s common historical use case. they may have to choose ‘one or the other’, and i would not be surprised if further ‘actions’ are taken by plex to curb (or outright remove support for) media ‘sharing’.
Or neither option: Launch a streaming platform. No, don’t morph smth everyone loves into a streaming platform. Plex’s marketing for their streaming vision is so piss poor that the only people who know about it use Plex for a use case that clashes with this new vision.
I haven’t had a chance to do the research yet, so pardon a dumb question that might have an easy answer. With the setup I’ve described, would JellyFin just be a drop in replacement or would I need to drastically change things to get the same basic work flow?
Offhand it sounds like it could be a drop in replacement for you. But there are a lot of other variables you’d need to consider e.g. if you require specific app/TV support & don’t like the current Jellyfin offerings.
Maybe others can clarify or you can post with any specific requirements/questions in the Jellyfin forums or the lemmy communities !jellyfin@lemmy.world / !jellyfin@lemmy.ml
That aside you could always just try it out & see how you like it.
Ultimately, I think that is what I am doing, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask someone with experience with the software already just in case there was an obviouls big red stop sign I was missing. Looks like I have other plans this weekend then playing more Stanfield or Baluder’s Gate 3. Thanks for the help and info.
Jellyfin can’t block media. The connections are direct. Jellyfin db performance is noticeably slower than plex with 500k media items but it can still handle it
I have 2 servers through Hetzner, both I got from the auction side of the site.
My lower end server is what I use to run my seed box and up till now PLEX. I use the Higher end server to run some work projects and for experimenting with.
Thanks! I just found out about the auction option through this post. I’m curious, given the price per month, wouldn’t it be better to self host with similar hardware? Higher upfront cost but lower over time I’d think?
Just curious because I’m thinking about switching up my setup, self hosting Plex currently but lack the bandwidth that I’d likely get if I moved to a hetzner server.
Oh yeah, would be lower cost over time for sure. For me though, internet is kind of crap in my area and the work server gets a ton of access from coworkers. And my sister in another state watches movies and tv shows on my Plex. Both these server get over 1.2 gbps up and down. There is also no cost if I have a hardware failure. There are pros and cons for sure, like I’ve been wanting to do some stuff that could really benefit from a GPU but not really an option with the auction stuff.
Awesome. Yeah that would be one of my concerns for what I have now. My internet service is some pretty terrible residential internet so my upload speeds are absolute garbage here but I have some good hardware for Plex/jellyfin.
How’s transcoding on the hetzner server? Any issues there at all? In any case thanks for all the info!
99% of stuff worked fine, but when I had issues it was a random error about server being under powered which wasn’t true at all lol. Someone on a forum suggested using the official windows app from the store and once I moved to that for client side access, never got the error again.
Keep in mind though, if you plan to do Plex from Hetzner, after Oct 2nd it won’t work anymore. But others here have suggested JellyFin instead. I’ll be testing that out this weekend, and if all is good moving over from Plex all together.
Yeah I’ve been wanting to make the full jump to jellyfin anyway. The only thing holding me back really was some extra services I was using that were Plex only. Posterr for example, but jellyfin is on the roadmap and I can just roll my own version until then. The mobile clients have at least gotten pretty good as well for JF.
If you are concerned about privacy, don’t use Plex or any other software which use central servers to collect your data. They can literally see where you click on the screen, let alone what kind of hosting you use. Jellyfin on the other hand is open source and don’t phone home. Also if a software is free, it doesn’t mean it was easy to create it in the first place. So please consider donation or support the project.
The other option is Emby. It’s based on the same code, and is just another division of the same project. You pay for it, but it gets tons of support and more features as a result. Both projects have pros and cons but I’m leaning further to Emby than Jellyfin myself.
Jellyfin can’t do the same thing. Well they might be able maybe. Everyone logs on through plex servers and Plex has the IP address of all the servers. Jellyfin everything is local so no central servers to control who logins from where.
In 99% of cases, jellyfin can act as a drop in replacement for Plex.
Since it’s open source, you can easily set it up via docker and test it out, if it fulfills your needs.
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not really a striesand effect but I’d never heard of hetzner until plex blocked them and now im heavily considering moving my library over
Check out the auctions, they tend to have some pretty great deals.
It’s not like Hetzner is a small player in the European datacenter VPS market. :p
Jellyfin: Completely autonomous of anything outside.
Plex: Authenticates with Plex servers so you need an external account
Jellyfin is a fully self-sufficient software not calling outside.
From the jellyfin core team (see point 2): https://www.reddit.com/r/jellyfin/comments/e6tfbi/jellyfin_and_privacy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
From their website literally on the homepage:
If Jellyfin would do such stupid thing, somebody would fork it to a new project
in fact this did already happened in the past: Jellyfin was forked of Emby after they changed their license
Jellyfin is unable to do that because they don’t have centralised auth like Plex does.
Not like it could be implemented.
But the the community would (as OP said) fork the project.
There’s absolutely zero way that is going to get pulled into the actual Jellyfin project, hence a fork is unnecessary.
It’s unreasonable to take responsibility for apps a user runs on their server.
But when you all of a sudden see a heap of Plex IP addresses hitting your provider with mass media sharing rings you’ve got problems.
Jellyfin however is just serving HTTP/S. Thats it. You can’t ban Nginx or Apache.
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Currently would not be possible. Jellyfin does not have the sort of centralized accounts/logins that Plex does e.g. you’re not asking Jellyfin devs for permission to log into your own server. That’s just a Plex thing.
If you’re asking could they add that “feature” in the future? Highly unlikely but I guess anything is possible. Were that to happen most likely the code would get forked into a new project.
PS - Jellyfin itself is a fork from Emby back when those devs decided to close their source. Myself & tons of other people dropped Emby at that point & migrated to Jellyfin. https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/about/
Plex is so bizarre. I consider myself a tech-savvy person, but I can’t wrap my head around the concept of “I host Example App on my servers. I host, maintain, and pay for the instance of Example App and servers myself. I also pay for a license for Example App. But Example Company controls my instance.” It’s so foreign to everything you can host yourself. It’s such an unfair commercial practice that I can’t for the life of me explain how such a model can survive. Self-hosting is about regaining control in my books. Yet Plex over here thinks they can not only shove down the maintenance burden and costs of everything down my throat, but also control access to my data. The solution to Plex’s retarded ToS violation situation is for Plex to say shit happens, how about we stop controlling everything you do with Plex to such an excessive degree that the media mafia can accuse us of empowering piracy instead of… the person who hosts pirated media on their server? Plex’s biggest business liability is Plex’s own business practices. They’re practically begging the media mafia to sue them.
I thought the phone home was to make it easy to have different devices talk to each other. It’s similar for a lot of IoT products. If properly set up, they don’t need to phone home and can find each other with the setting ayku input. However, many users are less technical and automating this through a central service makes it easier. Most companies also use this to scoop up personal info too, unfortunately.
they’re trying to double as a streaming platform (like roku channel, tubi, etc) for mass-market media. that creates a conflict between the big studios licensing that content to them and the platform’s common historical use case. they may have to choose ‘one or the other’, and i would not be surprised if further ‘actions’ are taken by plex to curb (or outright remove support for) media ‘sharing’.
Or neither option: Launch a streaming platform. No, don’t morph smth everyone loves into a streaming platform. Plex’s marketing for their streaming vision is so piss poor that the only people who know about it use Plex for a use case that clashes with this new vision.
I haven’t had a chance to do the research yet, so pardon a dumb question that might have an easy answer. With the setup I’ve described, would JellyFin just be a drop in replacement or would I need to drastically change things to get the same basic work flow?
Offhand it sounds like it could be a drop in replacement for you. But there are a lot of other variables you’d need to consider e.g. if you require specific app/TV support & don’t like the current Jellyfin offerings.
Maybe others can clarify or you can post with any specific requirements/questions in the Jellyfin forums or the lemmy communities !jellyfin@lemmy.world / !jellyfin@lemmy.ml
That aside you could always just try it out & see how you like it.
Ultimately, I think that is what I am doing, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask someone with experience with the software already just in case there was an obviouls big red stop sign I was missing. Looks like I have other plans this weekend then playing more Stanfield or Baluder’s Gate 3. Thanks for the help and info.
Jellyfin can’t block media. The connections are direct. Jellyfin db performance is noticeably slower than plex with 500k media items but it can still handle it
Geez. Hetzner is super affordable.
Anyway, as others have mentioned, Jellyfin is not a centralized service so that is not something they can do.
Even more so if you check out the auctions they have.
I’m curious on how you have your setup and which tier you have? I currently have a basic tier virtual server with them for a few microservices
I have 2 servers through Hetzner, both I got from the auction side of the site.
My lower end server is what I use to run my seed box and up till now PLEX. I use the Higher end server to run some work projects and for experimenting with.
$75 US Per Month:
$145 US Per Month:
Thanks! I just found out about the auction option through this post. I’m curious, given the price per month, wouldn’t it be better to self host with similar hardware? Higher upfront cost but lower over time I’d think?
Just curious because I’m thinking about switching up my setup, self hosting Plex currently but lack the bandwidth that I’d likely get if I moved to a hetzner server.
Oh yeah, would be lower cost over time for sure. For me though, internet is kind of crap in my area and the work server gets a ton of access from coworkers. And my sister in another state watches movies and tv shows on my Plex. Both these server get over 1.2 gbps up and down. There is also no cost if I have a hardware failure. There are pros and cons for sure, like I’ve been wanting to do some stuff that could really benefit from a GPU but not really an option with the auction stuff.
Awesome. Yeah that would be one of my concerns for what I have now. My internet service is some pretty terrible residential internet so my upload speeds are absolute garbage here but I have some good hardware for Plex/jellyfin.
How’s transcoding on the hetzner server? Any issues there at all? In any case thanks for all the info!
99% of stuff worked fine, but when I had issues it was a random error about server being under powered which wasn’t true at all lol. Someone on a forum suggested using the official windows app from the store and once I moved to that for client side access, never got the error again.
Keep in mind though, if you plan to do Plex from Hetzner, after Oct 2nd it won’t work anymore. But others here have suggested JellyFin instead. I’ll be testing that out this weekend, and if all is good moving over from Plex all together.
Yeah I’ve been wanting to make the full jump to jellyfin anyway. The only thing holding me back really was some extra services I was using that were Plex only. Posterr for example, but jellyfin is on the roadmap and I can just roll my own version until then. The mobile clients have at least gotten pretty good as well for JF.
What’s posterr?
Well, good luck, and I hope if you try it out, Hetzner works out for you as well as it has for me.
Why would Plex block a specific hosting provider!?
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Large amount of people selling access to pirated stuff on hetzner servers using plex.
Well, fuck.
I guess “that’s why we can’t have nice things” apply here.
If you are concerned about privacy, don’t use Plex or any other software which use central servers to collect your data. They can literally see where you click on the screen, let alone what kind of hosting you use. Jellyfin on the other hand is open source and don’t phone home. Also if a software is free, it doesn’t mean it was easy to create it in the first place. So please consider donation or support the project.
The other option is Emby. It’s based on the same code, and is just another division of the same project. You pay for it, but it gets tons of support and more features as a result. Both projects have pros and cons but I’m leaning further to Emby than Jellyfin myself.
Jellyfin can’t do the same thing. Well they might be able maybe. Everyone logs on through plex servers and Plex has the IP address of all the servers. Jellyfin everything is local so no central servers to control who logins from where.
Jellyfin is unable to do that. Your jellyfin instance is YOURS, there is no man in the middle like with Plex.
In 99% of cases, jellyfin can act as a drop in replacement for Plex. Since it’s open source, you can easily set it up via docker and test it out, if it fulfills your needs.