Jellyfin

To get hardware transcoding in Jellyfin you need a GPU that its bundled jellyfin-ffmpeg can drive: Intel Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC, AMD AMF, VA-API on Linux, Apple VideoToolbox on macOS, or Rockchip RKMPP. The project's hardware guide recommends an Intel chip with integrated graphics, such as an N100 or an i5-11400, with 8GB of RAM, and it steers you away from most Raspberry Pis. Unlike Plex, switching it on costs nothing.

#What Jellyfin is

Jellyfin calls itself "the Free Software Media System". It's a volunteer-built server that you run on your own hardware, and it streams your movies, shows, music, live TV and DVR recordings, books and photos to your devices. It also has SyncPlay for watching together remotely. The project is explicit that it does not run servers for users: there's no Jellyfin cloud account and no hosted tier. The code is GPL-2.0.

The latest release is 12.1, published 15 September 2026. The version jump is worth knowing about. Starting with 12.0 (8 September 2026), the project dropped the leading "10." from its version numbers, so the release after 10.11.x is 12.0. The 12.0 notes say three things you should read before upgrading:

• Direct upgrades from 10.10.7 and 10.11.x are supported. Anything older should go to 10.10.7 first.
• Remove third-party repository plugins before migrating.
• The release changes the database, so you can't roll back without a full restore. Take a full backup of the data directory first.

#Hardware transcoding requirements

This is what the official hardware guide recommends. Treat it as the floor for a good experience, not the bare minimum to boot.

Every build also gets the same shared items: a 100GB SSD for the OS, Jellyfin's files and the transcoding cache, gigabit Ethernet (the guide says Wi-Fi and Powerline are not recommended), and at least 20 Mbps of upload if you want remote access.

A few points in the guide are blunter than most forum advice:

• Does Jellyfin need a GPU? Not to run, but the guide says going without one is "NOT recommended". Software transcoding is heavy, and HDR-to-SDR tone-mapping makes it worse. The docs give an example: tone-mapping 4K 60fps Dolby Vision to 4K 60fps H.264 SDR needs a Ryzen 9 5950X just to stay faster than real time.
• AMD graphics are not recommended. The guide cites poor encoder quality and driver support, including on Linux. Its quality ranking for hardware encoders puts NVIDIA RTX 50 and Intel Arc B at the top and AMD H.264 at the bottom.
• Intel 7th to 10th gen iGPUs were dropped from the recommended list because Intel deprecated the toolkit for them. If you already own one, the docs say keep using it. If you're buying, look newer.
• Some low-end GPUs can't encode at all. The GT 1030 and RX 6400 are named.
• Old x86 CPUs: since 10.11, the CPU must support SSE4.1.

Two practical tips from the acceleration docs are worth pinning. First, use jellyfin-ffmpeg, the one that ships with the official .deb packages, Docker images and Windows installers. An FFmpeg from somewhere else gives you only partial acceleration. Second, avoid H.264 10-bit files: no Intel, NVIDIA or AMD GPU decodes them in hardware, so Jellyfin falls back to the CPU. The docs suggest re-encoding them to HEVC 10-bit.

Full acceleration, where every stage runs on the GPU, is supported on mainstream Intel and NVIDIA GPUs on Windows and Linux, AMD Polaris and newer on Linux, older AMD GPUs on Windows, Rockchip RK3588/3588S, and Intel and Apple Silicon on macOS 12 and later.

#Jellyfin on a Raspberry Pi

The official answer is "mostly no". The hardware guide lists most single-board computers, "including the Raspberry Pi, especially the Raspberry Pi 5", as potentially problematic because they "often lack proper support for hardware acceleration". Raspberry Pi isn't among the six validated acceleration methods either. The Pi 5's product brief lists a 4Kp60 HEVC decoder and no hardware video encoder.

Jellyfin still installs on a Pi, and its Docker image is published for arm64. If you go ahead anyway, plan for files and clients that don't need transcoding. For media servers that suit a Pi better, see the best self-hosted apps for a Raspberry Pi. If you want a board that can transcode, the guide points at RK3588-based boards or Intel N-series mini PCs.

#Platforms and install options

The server has official packages for Windows, macOS, Debian and Ubuntu, other Linux distributions, and Docker. On Docker Hub, the jellyfin/jellyfin image is built for amd64 and arm64. TrueNAS SCALE users install it from the TrueNAS app catalogue, which Jellyfin notes is not maintained by the Jellyfin team. FreeBSD and TrueNAS CORE are not supported because .NET doesn't officially run there. Unofficial builds exist, but support comes from that separate project.

#Clients

Official apps cover Android, iOS and iPadOS, Android TV and Fire TV, Roku, LG webOS, Samsung Tizen and Xbox, plus Jellyfin Media Player on the desktop and two Kodi add-ons. Swiftfin, a newer native Apple client, is listed as an official beta. One oddity: the Roku store listing may say a cable or satellite subscription is required. Jellyfin says none is needed for the server or any official client.

#Remote access

The hardware guide is clear that "Jellyfin Server is not designed to be exposed directly to the internet" and should stay behind a firewall or another secure setup. So watching away from home means you set up a VPN or a reverse proxy yourself. That's the real price of "free" compared with Plex. If your total upload is under 100 Mbps, the guide suggests capping Jellyfin at 70% of it in the dashboard so the rest of your connection stays usable.

#Is Jellyfin free?

Yes. There's no subscription, no paid tier and no hosted service. Hardware transcoding, downloads and remote streaming are all in the one free server. What you pay for is the hardware and the time it takes to set up remote access properly.

#Who it suits

Jellyfin suits anyone with an Intel iGPU box or a spare NVIDIA card who wants a media server with no subscription and no dependence on a company's cloud. It's a poorer fit if you want remote streaming that works without configuring a VPN or proxy, or if your only hardware is a Raspberry Pi.

If you're weighing the two, the side-by-side is in Jellyfin vs Plex. If you're leaving Plex over its remote-streaming charges, see Plex alternatives.