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+--- Thread: Jellyfin vs Kodi client (/t-jellyfin-vs-kodi-client)
Jellyfin vs Kodi client - webhead1202 - 2025-04-18
Hey everyone,
I'm currently preparing to set up a home media server using Jellyfin. This will be my first time meaningfully working with a media server so my knowledge is surely limited and I'm trying to research and come up with a pretty solid plan before I really get started. The server will actually be hosted at my parent's house, not where I live, so I want to give my parents access to the media. They happen to be in the market for a new streaming box or similar solution anyway, so I'm trying to get a grasp on what streaming box and client set up will be best for them. From what I have gathered, the Android TV client for Jellyfin is not fully featured, and I've seen some people post complaints about even just the general smoothness of the experience. My parents aren't exactly the most tech savvy, nor do they exactly have a sharp enough eye to tell the difference between full quality vs transcoded media, so it isn't a huge deal, but I would like to come up the most robust solution I reasonably can for them. The media server will contain some 4k rips, as well as some lower quality ones. Ease of use is also a big priority here, as I mentioned my parents aren't super tech savvy.
My specific question at the moment is how the Kodi client differs from the Jellyfin client when using a Jellyfin server. From what I understand, Kodi is essentially just a media player (with some other features that I don't think are relevant to this conversation), so my question is does it actually solve any of the limitations of Jellyfin on Android TV, or do some people just prefer it for more subjective reasons like UI layout and things like that? Does it run better, does it help with handling Dolby Vision or HDR10+ content (which I've seen can be an issue on some of those Android TV boxes, but might just be an inherent limitation of the OS rather than the client?). I guess more broadly my question is just what does Kodi do that the Jellyfin client does not?
To reiterate, I am rather new to this and though I have been spending a lot of time doing research, I've been learning things sort of out of order. I'm sure there are holes and errors in my knowledge at the moment, so hopefully you'll bear with me. Thanks in advance!
RE: Jellyfin vs Kodi client - TheDreadPirate - 2025-04-18
I'm not sure what you're reading about the Android TV client, but, IMO, the Android TV client is our best non-PC client for video content viewing. A close 2nd is our Roku client.
The smoothness of the UI experience is very device dependent. The UI experience on my new-ish Google TV streamer is butter. The UI experience on my parent's Sony TV, with the built in Android TV capability, is stuttery due to TV manufacturers skimping on the SoC they use in their TVs.
Personally, I really don't like the UI for Kodi. Gave it a go a year or so ago, due to how fanatic Kodi users are, and I am not a fan.
For the non-tech savvy, stick with either an Android TV device or Roku device. I can highly recommend the Roku Ultra 4800X (or 4802X). I believe there are a couple newer ultras available.
Onn TV devices (Android TV) are great value for the capabilities. Amazon FireCUBES, not Firesticks, are good. Most Firesticks use an SoC with a bugged mediatek chipset that make them unable to play Dolby Vision profiles 7 and 8 and HDR10+ content. Though they can play plain HDR10 just fine and Dolby Vision profile 5. For the same reason, I also cannot recommend the Google TV Streamer since it uses the same family of bugged mediatek chipsets. While I own one and like it, I also convert all my HDR content to plain HDR10.
RE: Jellyfin vs Kodi client - webhead1202 - 2025-04-18
(2025-04-18, 09:36 PM)TheDreadPirate Wrote: I'm not sure what you're reading about the Android TV client, but, IMO, the Android TV client is our best non-PC client for video content viewing. A close 2nd is our Roku client.
The smoothness of the UI experience is very device dependent. The UI experience on my new-ish Google TV streamer is butter. The UI experience on my parent's Sony TV, with the built in Android TV capability, is stuttery due to TV manufacturers skimping on the SoC they use in their TVs.
Personally, I really don't like the UI for Kodi. Gave it a go a year or so ago, due to how fanatic Kodi users are, and I am not a fan.
For the non-tech savvy, stick with either an Android TV device or Roku device. I can highly recommend the Roku Ultra 4800X (or 4802X). I believe there are a couple newer ultras available.
Onn TV devices (Android TV) are great value for the capabilities. Amazon FireCUBES, not Firesticks, are good. Most Firesticks use an SoC with a bugged mediatek chipset that make them unable to play Dolby Vision profiles 7 and 8 and HDR10+ content. Though they can play plain HDR10 just fine and Dolby Vision profile 5. For the same reason, I also cannot recommend the Google TV Streamer since it uses the same family of bugged mediatek chipsets. While I own one and like it, I also convert all my HDR content to plain HDR10.
Thanks for this response! Maybe the issues I was seeing regarding HDR10+ and Dolby Vision were actually due to the chipset problems that you mentioned, and I conflated that with it being and Android TV problem. I did wonder if the sluggishness problems I'd seen mentioned were just hardware/network limitations as well, some of the threads I read had people who seemed to believe it was an issue with the client not the hardware, but it's entirely possible they were just wrong. Regardless, this is helpful in limiting what devices I should be looking at.
RE: Jellyfin vs Kodi client - pxr5 - 2025-04-19
For all things DV this spreadsheet can be quite useful. Personally I'm a Kodi fan and been using it since XBMC days. I run Kodi on a Firestick 4K Max and I find it pretty good and there isn't much it can't cope with - but again that spreadsheet is useful. I mainly use Jellyfin for remote access when I'm away from home.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15i0a84uiBtWiHZ5CXZZ7wygLFXwYOd84/edit?gid=845372636#gid=845372636
RE: Jellyfin vs Kodi client - webhead1202 - 2025-04-19
(2025-04-19, 03:15 PM)pxr5 Wrote: For all things DV this spreadsheet can be quite useful. Personally I'm a Kodi fan and been using it since XBMC days. I run Kodi on a Firestick 4K Max and I find it pretty good and there isn't much it can't cope with - but again that spreadsheet is useful. I mainly use Jellyfin for remote access when I'm away from home.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15i0a84uiBtWiHZ5CXZZ7wygLFXwYOd84/edit?gid=845372636#gid=845372636
That is quite comprehensive, looks like it'll be useful. Thank you!
RE: Jellyfin vs Kodi client - 34626 - 2025-04-19
I use LibreELEC on Raspberry pi 4 with argon one case (with m2 sata ssd) and the addon JellyCon - i then have the Jellyfin app on my smartphone and cast to LibreElec - Works great. If your parents TV has Kodi, then they can just use the JellyCon and cast from ther smartphones to the screen :-)