Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

I used XBMC/Kodi for about 10 years until I tried Plex about a year ago. Kodi's filesystem-centric view on media feels outdated in a world where almost all software is using intelligent search and filtering along with natively supported media info imports. This stuff is possible with Kodi too, but the plugin interface feels dated too. I also found it to be a resource hog on embedded devices.

But Plex has its flaws too. It swings the needle too far in the direction of Netflix-y for my liking, which is why I recently tried Jellyfin.

Jellyfin is a perfect medium between the two approaches in my experience of using it for a few months. I'd recommend any Kodi users who are wary of Plex to try it out.

i should have mentioned, i used emby (switching to jellyfin) for remote devices.. i just use kodi for local tv instances in the house.

To be honest it's entirely because Plex was what I first discovered and setup, and I liked it enough to pay for a pass

Plex is superior because of one app: Plexamp

I wanted subtitles on Chromecast and Plex was the only thing that could do it without burning them in (at the time, maybe jellyfish can do this now)

Imma be a weirdo here: I use Emby.

I mean... emby or jellyfin would be a better replacement for Plex.

But why not those? I bought a lifetime Plex Pass for $30 or something ages ago when the competition was garbage, so I already have a smoothly working setup for Plex. No reason to force my kids, their grandparents, etc, to a new interface for very little upside. Plex just works. I have tried the others and they're okay, but nothing compelling enough to force the change.

Used Kodi for a long time (even had an XBMC) and switched when it became more of a chore keeping Kodi updated across multiple devices than it was worth - along with wanting to play easier across more devices.

It's unfortunate, but just the UI customization that I loved Kodi for couldn't keep me on it over the lack of reasonable server/client architecture, minimal headless scraper capability (you can do it, but it sucks), and the general attitude of the forums getting very...angry/pissy?

PS5 Client. Deal maker in my case.

Kodi with trakt for me

I've been using Kodi (LibreELEC) on an RPi as a media center for the tv. It is extensible with IPTV etc which makes it great as a standalone device.

For myself I'm using Jellyfin on multiple devices without having to manage metadata and configuration seperately. It's all on my homeserver.

tl;dr
Different use cases.

Why is the hype for kodi? Its just a (not good) media player