At the moment, my house has a NAS set up (QNAP TS-453D) and Kodi streaming on our TV, with no special media software running on the NAS. Just Kodi accessing the shared files. I also various services set up (portainer, home assistant, transmission, etc) on the local network, but nothing is accessible from outside the network because I just wanted to keep things simple.
My girlfriend wants to be able to access our videos while travelling, however, and specifically asked if we could set up a Plex server. I’m not sure if it’d be worth the trouble to set up just for the occasions when we’re travelling (which is usually to see friends and family, but sometimes while doing that we want to watch movies from our NAS together - right now we just copy those movies to her laptop in advance).
I figure I could just set up a local VPN server (wireguard?) on the NAS so we can tunnel into the local network and use Kodi to play files that way. But, I’m curious, is there any advantage (or disadvantage) to using Plex remote play instead, or setting up Jellyfin? Would it be more/less secure? Easier/harder to set up? Provide better/worse video quality or performance? Anything else I should know?
Assuming your upload speed doesn’t bottleneck your connection you could use Kodi but I think jellyfin would be a better option to host. It can be used behind a VPN as you’re wanting to do or a reverse proxy if you don’t mind setting one up. Jellyfin also offers the option of transcoding your media should you be somewhere with a slower connection or are using a device with a lower resolution. It can be fickle at times but is overall a great self hosted service. Plex can do all of the same (some stuff better) but isn’t open source and is only partially self hosted. You have to login via Plex servers. While that sucks Plex is easier to remotely access as all you’ll need to do is forward a single port. Plex apps are also more widely available on various devices. Unfortunately to use Plex on Android or iOS you have to either have a subscription or pay a one time fee of $5.
I’ve been using Plex for roughly a decade now and will likely continue to do so since I’ve bought into it, however if I were in your position and just starting out I would go with Jellyfin. Plex is losing sight of it’s roots as a media server and continues to ignore prevalent issues all the while adding “features” no one asked for.
Lawrence Systems just put out a video explaining why file share speeds can suck over a VPN. Your Kodi setup would fall foul of this if I read your setup correctly.
So yeah, Plex/emby/jellyfin is the way to go. They’re literally designed for this kind of thing
I’ve moved to plex a while ago, bought the lifetime license and I do not regret it.
Plex can transcode your file if your internet connection isn’t good enough to stream in original quality, it’s very easy to setup, works on pretty much all devices and platforms, allows you to save movies upfront on your device (which I really appreciate for travels with my iPad), and brings many more features.
Also one big advantage over kodi for me was the app for my Samsung TV. I got rid of my Nvidia shield and only use my TV for all my streaming. There has been some hacky workarounds for older TVs to install kodi, but Plex just feels much more professional.
So I’m really happy about my Plex setup.
The only disadvantage I see is, that you need to somewhat trust plex. I’m not 100% sure which data lands at their server, but I assume that at least an encrypted library is stored on their server.
Your NAS is not likely to transcode your videos on the fly for you, so the biggest advantage of Jellyfin or Plex over Kodi for you is potentially its client app. If you’re only going to be playing the videos on your laptop, Kodi over VPN is fine and you’re not gaining much by setting up a Jellyfin/Plex server. But, if you’d like to play them on a smart TV or mobile device, Jellyfin or Plex will give you a nicer experience.