I switched to Jellyfin, but Plex's one real advantage keeps pulling me back

A first-hand account of switching from Plex to Jellyfin for a home media server, highlighting the key trade-off: Jellyfin offers full ownership, no subscription, and free hardware transcoding, but Plex's built-in remote streaming infrastructure is significantly easier to set up and more reliable on mobile connections. The author uses Tailscale as a workaround for remote access but notes family members must also install it. Additional friction points include manual subtitle management, plugin requirements for features Plex includes by default, and a less polished UI that leads to more support calls from family.