this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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I've been using Jellyfin for about 4 months as a home media server on an old laptop I installed Debian on and... I have nothing to add to the conversation, I just wanted to brag about that because it works really well and I was afraid I would fuck it up.
Anyway, Plex no good.
I had Plex long enough to try to watch a movie from outside my house and realize I had to pay to do it. Luckily swapping to Jellyfin on unraid was just uninstalling Plex and using the same folders
You can get around this by extending your network with a VPN. I know that's an extra config, but a lot of people who are setting up home labs are already doing this anyway.
How does jellyfin offer remote streaming without a VPN?
It has User accounts and have people access with a login through port forwarding. myIPaddress:8383 effectively, which directs to my movie NAS
I tried to do a VPN with Tailscale and just couldn't wrap my head around it.
So, it sounds like it doesn't offer a remote streaming service like Plex then. You just publicly expose or use a VPN like you can with Plex.