When comparing Spotify vs Jellyfin, the Slant community recommends Spotify for most people. In the question“What are the best apps that support Android Auto?” Spotify is ranked 1st while Jellyfin is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Spotify is:
Spotify has over 20 million songs and arguably the largest collection out of its competitors and usually has the fastest access to new music. The Spotify desktop client allows local music files to be imported with the option of syncing with a mobile device which largely mitigates the issue of missing artists.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Huge collection of music and fast access to newly released songs
Spotify has over 20 million songs and arguably the largest collection out of its competitors and usually has the fastest access to new music.
The Spotify desktop client allows local music files to be imported with the option of syncing with a mobile device which largely mitigates the issue of missing artists.
Pro Related artists
Helps to find new authors based on your previous picks
Pro Client's functionality can be extended via third-party apps
Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm.
Pro Curated playlists
Public playlists on Spotify created by other people are great for finding new music.
Pro Has a free version
A free, ad-supported account allows streaming from an extensive library of music.
Pro Weekly Discover playlist uses a great algorithm
A playlist generated by Spotify based on your listening habits and released every Monday. The algorithm used by this playlist is great and stands out from its competitors.
Pro Open source
Pro Completely private
Doesn't phone home.
Pro Easy to set up
Setting up tv series and movies take little effort to set-up.
Pro No hidden costs
It's FOSS and doesn't require you to spend money to do anything.
Pro Good emby fork
It is a fully open source fork of emby.
Pro Portable version
This version runs on systems with a .NET Core runtime.
Pro Less intensive/more flexible options for transcoding
More control over transcoding and seems to transcode far better on lower spec hardware (eg SBC) than other packages (eg Plex).
Pro Standalone, no third party servers
If you stream outside of your local network, there are no third party servers involved.
Pro Direct streaming
If you stream outside of your home network, it is a direct connection with no third party servers involved.
Cons
Con Free account have lots of ads
If you hate commercials, you would buy Premium or go on using something else.
Con Discovery is terrible
The discovery algorithm is poor and does not learn fast enough. Not obvious how to train it.
Con Poor audio quality
There's a high range of bitrates and most of vary from average to bad.
Con Streaming outside of your home is complicated
Unless you enable unPnP which is a security risk, you have to manually port forward or setup a remote server yourself. And unless you know what you're doing, you might open your network to potential hackers. Make sure to read up on reverse proxies or how to set up a vpn with Jellyfin.
Con Some poor clients
The AndroidTV-client is terrible.
Con No free services
It has no free with ads services like Plex.
Con Less features than Emby
Con Slow web interface
For large media libraries, on lower spec hardware (eg SBC), images can take some time to initially load when changing pages/sections (v10.6.4).