Streaming services remove titles you were watching, change the price, and log every minute you spend. Jellyfin turns your own collection into your own streaming service: the files you already own, on your server, playable on any device, with no telemetry about your viewing.
What you get
- Movies, TV, music and photos, streamed to phones, TVs, browsers and consoles
- No paywalls: it is free software with no premium tier
- No profiling of what you watch, because nobody else is in the loop
- Offshore, no KYC, crypto billing
Get it running
Size for the library and the transcoding
Disk is the obvious constraint, and CPU is the quiet one: transcoding on the fly is demanding without a GPU. Give it a VPS with real cores, or keep your files in formats your devices play directly.
Install it in one click
Install Jellyfin from the catalog with a hostname such as tv.example.com. HTTPS is issued automatically. See how one-click installs work.
Complete the setup and add your library
Finish the first-run setup with a strong admin password straight away, then place your files under the media directory on the VPS and let it scan.
Connect your devices
Install a Jellyfin client on the devices you use, point it at your hostname, and your library is available wherever you are.
A media server sitting on a fresh install with the setup wizard open is an invitation. Complete it immediately, set a strong admin password, and only then share the address with the people who should have it.
Jellyfin is for your own collection: discs you ripped, files you bought, recordings and material you created. Running it offshore means your viewing is not logged by a streaming company, not that redistributing other people’s copyrighted work becomes acceptable. Publicly sharing content you do not have the rights to is outside our acceptable use policy.
There is rarely a reason for a personal library to be reachable by the whole internet. Restrict who can log in, keep registration closed, and consider a Tor address instead of a public hostname. See how to publish a Tor .onion site.
Start now
Spin up an offshore VPS and install Jellyfin from the catalog, or read the documentation.