| Pros | Cons |
| Relatively easy to use/maintain | Cost (base $49 to $250 for lifetime updates) |
| Flexible storage options (Array/Pool options that are separate) | Finicky OS |
| Can have Media Server app setup within a few clicks | Not personally stable |
| Incredible community app support (uses Docker and Docker Hub for templates) | Slow storage if using array (uses a proprietary RAID system that does not favor performance) |
| Native community plugin support | Has issues sometimes with updates |
| Incredible community documentation (SpaceInvader One and Ibracorp) | Network config can be frustrating/unstable |
| Requires USB Flash drive for installation and license management | Slow development cycles (bugs don't get fixed often or at all) |
| Can virtualize VMs | Official documentation lacking |
| Can utilize self network shares | Backups not easy to setup |
| Network shares buggy/unstable | |
| Permissions with shares are difficult to navigate | |
| Relatively easy to lose data when rearranging drives in array | |
| Requires at least one drive setup in the array even if using only pools (can setup a USB drive to be used here) | |
| Troubleshooting difficult with base setup since logs are deleted upon reboot |
| Pros | Cons |
| Depending on what you want, can range from very easy to setup, to extremely complicated | App support has recently changed to Docker and may/may not be 100% stable |
| Cost (free) - Open Source | App setup on the more complicated end |
| The fastest OS in these options | Eats RAM (uses all available RAM as a cache for storage) |
| Allows for mirroring OS storage to ensure if a drive fails you can replace it before needing to recover from backup | Can be complicated to maintain especially if something goes wrong (not everything has GUI support). YOU WILL LEARN ZFS COMMANDS |
| Uses one of the fastest storage filesystems available | Storage filesystem is not flexible in terms of expansion |
| Focused on being a storage solution first and has an incredible amount of options for that including network shares | ONLY has the ability to use ZFS as a filesystem |
| Most stable file system | |
| Troubleshooting easy with most logs persisting after reboot | |
| Can virtualize VMs | |
| Backups easy to setup | |
| Incredible community documentation | |
| Incredible official documentation | |
| VERY stable OS |
| Pros | Cons |
| Cost (free) - Open Source | Setup from an existing Ubuntu/Debian OS |
| App setup seems very easy but full featured | Not a large amount of options for storage |
| Simple interface | May require Debian based Linux knowledge for support |
| Pros | Cons |
| Simplest network management (they have their own servers to broker external connections through to the hosted media server) | Cost ($5/mo for Plex Pass or $120 for lifetime) |
| Most management of libraries is set it and forget it (with proper media names) | Hardware acceleration for transcoding requires Plex Pass |
| IMO the most user friendly interface | Requires port forwarding on router to access externally (CGNAT becomes a major issue if ISP is using it) |
| Usable on a wider variety of players and media devices | Database management is a PITA, requires SQL knowledge to manage |
| Netflix like "Skip Intro" and "Skip Credits" | Database requires fast/stable storage (recommend to use some filesystem that protects against bit rot like BTRFS/ZFS and to utilize mirrored drives for redundancy/backups) |
| Mobile apps cost $5/ea per app store, per account (Google vs Apple) |
| Pros | Cons |
| Cost (free) - Open Source | Complex networking setup for external access |
| Management of libraries is relatively easy like Plex but not necessarily as set and forget | Requires specific domain/external IP address shared to users to access externally |
| Alright interface | Requires port forwarding on router to access externally (CGNAT becomes a major issue if ISP is using it) |
| Hardware acceleration for transcoding does not require paid service | |
| Offline media free to download |
| Pros | Cons |
| Management of libraries is relatively easy like Plex but not necessarily as set and forget | Cost ($5/mo for Emby Premiere or $120 for lifetime) |
| Alright interface | Complex networking setup for external access |
| Offline media requires Emby Premiere to download | Requires specific domain/external IP address shared to users to access externally |
| Netflix like "Skip Intro" and "Skip Credits" | Requires port forwarding on router to access externally (CGNAT becomes a major issue if ISP is using it) |
| Hardware acceleration for transcoding requires Emby Premiere |