Jellyfin
Stream your own films, shows and music to any device, with no licence server in the way.
What it is
Jellyfin is a media server. Point it at folders of films, series, music and books, and it organises them, fetches artwork and metadata, and streams them to browsers, phones, smart TVs and set-top boxes through official and community apps.
It is the community-governed fork of Emby and is free in the full sense: no premium tier, no unlock fee, no third-party account. Hardware transcoding works without a licence key, which was the specific thing that pushed its founders to fork in the first place.
It is the right choice for someone with a media collection and a spare machine, a NAS or a small server. Setup is a web wizard, and the hardest part is usually storage layout and transcoding rather than the software itself.
Why we recommend it
There is no premium tier at all
The features competitors put behind a one-off unlock or a subscription, such as hardware transcoding and live TV support, are simply part of Jellyfin. There is nothing to buy and no account to create.
The setup wizard gets you to a working library quickly
Install it, answer the wizard, point it at a folder. Metadata and artwork are fetched automatically, and you can be watching something the same evening.
Clients exist for nearly every screen
Official apps for Android, iOS, Android TV, Fire TV, Roku and the web, plus a long list of community clients for smart TVs and consoles. That breadth is what makes a media server usable by other people in the house.
Transcoding with no licence check
Hardware acceleration through VAAPI, NVENC, Quick Sync and VideoToolbox is built in, and the community maintains plugins for subtitles, metadata and integrations.
How it scores
These are our editorial ratings, not benchmark results. We score on how the project behaves in practice — how long it takes to get running, how good the documentation is, how responsive the maintainers are, and how well it holds up over time. The licence and star count above are read from GitHub and are a snapshot.
Pros and cons
Strengths
- Completely free, with no premium tier, licence key or account
- Hardware transcoding included, which competitors charge to unlock
- Clients for every major platform, including TVs and mobile
- Automatic metadata and artwork from the usual providers
- Large, independent community with a steady release cadence
Trade-offs
- Library organisation is strict: files that do not follow the expected naming and folder layout will be misidentified
- Transcoding on a weak CPU will stutter, so hardware acceleration or a client that can direct-play is effectively required for remote viewing
- Remote access needs port forwarding, a reverse proxy or a VPN, and the responsibility for securing it is yours
- Licensed GPL 2.0, so distributing a modified version carries copyleft obligations
How to get it
One-line install
Prefer the terminal? Copy a command and you are done.
docker run -d --name jellyfin --user 1000:1000 -p 8096:8096 -p 7359:7359/udp -v /path/to/config:/config -v /path/to/cache:/cache -v /path/to/media:/media --restart unless-stopped jellyfin/jellyfin:latest
Source and documentation
At a glance
| Category | Self-hosted |
|---|---|
| Licence | GPL 2.0 |
| Written in | C# |
| GitHub stars | 56,873 |
| Repository | jellyfin/jellyfin |
Licence and star count were read from the GitHub API when this page was generated and are a snapshot. Check the repository for the current figure and the authoritative licence text.
Other Self-hosted tools
We are not affiliated with Jellyfin or its maintainers. We list it because it is genuinely useful and genuinely free. If you plan to build a commercial product on top of it, read the licence on the repository first.