Jellyfin: Self-Hosted Media Server

Jellyfin is a volunteer-built media system that lets you manage and stream your personal media collection — movies, TV shows, music, books, and live TV — from your own server to any device. With over 48,000 GitHub stars, Jellyfin is the leading fully free and open-source alternative to Plex and Emby. There are no premium tiers, no tracking, and no central account required.

Self-hosting Jellyfin means your entire media library stays on your hardware, streamed directly to your devices without any third-party service sitting in the middle.

Key Features

• Stream movies, TV shows, music, audiobooks, and photos from a single unified interface
• Hardware-accelerated transcoding with Intel QSV, NVIDIA NVENC, and VAAPI support
• Live TV and DVR support with guide data from external providers
• Native client apps for Android, iOS, Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, and web browsers
• Multi-user support with parental controls, access restrictions, and per-user watch history
• Automatic metadata fetching from TMDB, TVDB, and MusicBrainz for rich library browsing
• Plugin system for subtitles, anime metadata, LDAP authentication, and more
• No telemetry, no accounts, no premium features locked behind a paywall

Why Self-Host Jellyfin?

True media ownership. Streaming services remove content without warning, raise prices, and restrict downloads. Self-hosted Jellyfin gives you permanent access to your media library — no licensing agreements, no geo-restrictions, no surprise removals.

Zero cost, zero tracking. Unlike Plex, which requires a Plex Pass for some features and phones home to Plex servers, Jellyfin is completely free with no telemetry. Your viewing habits, library contents, and server metadata are never shared with anyone.

Network-local streaming. Your media streams directly from your server to your devices over your local network or VPN. This means faster playback, no buffering from third-party CDNs, and the ability to stream high-bitrate content without internet bandwidth limitations.

Full transcoding control. Self-hosting gives you direct access to hardware transcoding configuration. Pass through your GPU for real-time transcoding, set bitrate limits per user, and optimize playback for any device and connection speed.

System Requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	2 vCPUs	4+ vCPUs
RAM	2 GB	4 GB
Storage	20 GB SSD + media	50 GB SSD + media
OS	Ubuntu 22.04+	Ubuntu 24.04

Jellyfin's resource needs depend heavily on transcoding. Direct-play streaming is lightweight, but real-time transcoding of 4K content requires significant CPU or GPU resources. For a household streaming library, 4 vCPUs and 4 GB RAM handles multiple concurrent streams.

Getting Started

The fastest way to deploy Jellyfin on your VPS is with Docker Compose through Dokploy. Our step-by-step deployment guide walks you through the full setup, including persistent storage, environment configuration, and SSL.

Deploy Jellyfin with Dokploy →

Alternatives

• Emby — Media server with a similar interface to Jellyfin but with premium features behind a paid license
• Navidrome — Lightweight open-source music server focused exclusively on audio streaming
• Stash — Self-hosted media organizer and player for managing personal video collections
• Dim — Modern media manager built in Rust with a clean web interface

FAQ

How is Jellyfin different from Plex? Jellyfin is fully free and open-source with no premium tier, no account requirement, and no telemetry. Plex requires a central Plex account, locks some features behind Plex Pass, and routes discovery through Plex servers. Jellyfin gives you complete control without any vendor dependency.

Can Jellyfin transcode 4K content? Yes, but real-time 4K transcoding is CPU-intensive. Hardware transcoding (Intel QSV, NVIDIA NVENC, or VAAPI) is strongly recommended for 4K. If your clients support direct play of your media formats, transcoding is avoided entirely and resource usage drops dramatically.

Does Jellyfin support multiple users? Yes. Jellyfin has full multi-user support with individual profiles, watch histories, parental controls, and per-library access permissions. Each user gets their own continue-watching queue and recommendations.

Can I access Jellyfin remotely? Yes. You can expose Jellyfin through a reverse proxy with SSL for secure remote access, or use a VPN to keep it on a private network. The web client and native apps work seamlessly over the internet with proper configuration.

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App data sourced from selfh.st open-source directory.