With PLEX blocking Hetzner Hosting, I'm thinking of Moving to Jellyfin, but I have some questions.

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.

39 comments

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.

Jellyfin is unable to do that. Your jellyfin instance is YOURS, there is no man in the middle like with Plex.

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/
- 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.

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.
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:
Privacy Focused
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.

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.

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.

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 block media. The connections are direct. Jellyfin db performance is noticeably slower than plex with 500k media items but it can still handle it

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

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.

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.

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:
  CPU - Intel Core i9-9900
  RAM - 128 GB
  Drives - 2x 10TB (RAID 1) + 1x 512 GB NVME SSD
  Running Ubuntu as the OS.
  $145 US Per Month:
  CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
  RAM128 GBDrives
  Drives - 2x 4TB SSD (RAID 1) + 1x 480 GB NVME SSD
  Usually runs some flavor of Linux.
  
  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.

39 comments