The external RDBMS discussion

[Duvel]

Hi

Didn't find a dedicated discussion on the forum for this long-time demanded feature so I am launching this one

Where it started

• 2018 Github discussion https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/42
  
• 2019 Feature request https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/315/...r-back-end
  

Where we are (might have missed something)

• 2024 Refactor library.db into jellyfin.db and EFCore : https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/12798
  
• 2025 Add Postgres SQL support https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/13451
  
• 2025 [Feature] Database code refactor : https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/13589
  

Looks like things are on the good path but unless I missed an announcement or forum thread, we dont have much official info about it.

Would the team gladly share extensive info about how things are going, which RDBMS will be compatible (I only see postgress on the work, what about mariadb/mysql???), and why not a roadmap ?

Lets destroy SQLite :-)

Cheers

[Oddstr13]

EFCore transition has indeed been ongoing since 2019.
In bits and pieces, whenever contributors decided to spend their free time on it.
Ref. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/pull/452


All actual progress is publicly available as pull-requests on GitHub;
this is probably the best query to look for up to date info concerning the progress: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Ajelly...ted&o=desc


There are no strict roadmaps.
This is because the project as a whole is maintained and developed purely on a unpaid volunteer-only basis.

Work is done on areas people want to work on when they can and want to.

Nobody are getting told «Get feature A done by next Monday», at worst it's «It would've been nice to have that done by the next release, feature freeze is around DATE, otherwise it won't get in before the release after».

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I know this isn't the answer you want, but it is the best answer you're likely to get – at least until your desired feature has been fully developed and accepted into the master branch. At that point we'll be able to tell you approximately which year and month it'll be available in a release.

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As for important announcements, those are done on the blog https://jellyfin.org/posts/

There are two highly relevant recent blog posts;

• https://jellyfin.org/posts/efcore-refactoring-incoming/
  
• https://jellyfin.org/posts/efcore-refactoring/
  

PS: SQLite will likely always be the default, recommended database. Other database backends will be for advanced setups.