Are you looking for a better way to enjoy content from your Jellyfin server? There are tons of clients to choose from made by passionate volunteers, and each brings a unique experience. These are my favorite.
To put this list together, I investigated several Jellyfin client recommendations, and I found one that applied to each of my use-cases: watching movies and TV shows on my computer, TV, and phone; and listening to music on my computer and my phone.
Finamp
A Plexamp experience without Plex
Finamp is the Jellyfin client in this list I have the most experience with, having enjoyed my Jellyfin server for several months with it. In particular, I like using the redesign that’s currently in beta because it supports lyrics, offline mode for when I want to save data, and instant mixes.
The newest versions incorporate various “radio” modes that I really like. It’s also inspired me to get more serious about properly tagging music with genre info. That way, apps like Finamp can make better recommendations with my music. The app overall feels a lot more modern than any other Jellyfin music client I’ve tried for Android.
As I said earlier, I recommend the beta redesign, which at the moment you won’t get from the Play Store. Instead, you have to download the Android APK from the Finamp GitHub release page or sign up for the Test Flight on iPhone.
This third-party app turned Jellyfin into my favorite music player
Spotify who?
Fladder
For getting popcorn in my computer keyboard
When I want to watch movies on my PC, my go-to Jellyfin client has become Fladder. It’s an app written in Flutter that looks and feels modern, and it includes advanced features like Seerr support, intro and commercial skipping, concurrent downloads, and highly configurable subtitle rendering.
I especially like how the timeline works on Fladder. It shows you, in an intuitive way, not just the chapter breaks but also the intro and credits. It can also show trickplay images if you have them enabled, but it defaults to chapter thumbnails when you don’t, which I thought was neat.
My only complaint so far with Fladder is that Collection artwork for some reason is cropped to a square even though most provided artwork uses a poster-like aspect ratio. So browsing my movie Collection library doesn’t look quite right.
You can head to the Fladder release page to download the client for your operating system, and you can also find the mobile version of Fladder on the Play Store. You don’t even have to install Fladder to try it out, though. You can use the Fladder web app instead.
Feishin
Spotify-like experience on a desktop
I spent years at my computer using the desktop version of Spotify, so I was excited to come across Feishin which has a similar layout to Spotify’s and includes several familiar features. For example, Auto DJ, which can start playing similar tracks at the end of a queue, it’s able to display lyrics, and it supports scrobbling if you have a scrobble service plugin on your server. Plus, if you happen to run an OpenSubsonic or Navidrome server, you can use Feishin to stream music from them too.
What makes Feishin great is how extensively customizable it is. You can tweak the layout in all kinds of ways, and the queuing functions can be finetuned to your liking. Want five songs suggested at the end every queue? How about twenty? Or none? You can craft the perfect music experience.
I also like how when I open Feishin, it gives me listening recommendations similar to how Spotify does when I open its desktop app. Sure, Feishin isn’t using a special algorithm, but random recommendations are better than nothing.
As a bonus, Feishin is available as an AppImage, and being a Linux user, that makes it exceptionally easy for me to install and start using it on just about any desktop.
Regardless, you can install the app on your desktop by visiting the Feishin release page. You can also try the Feishin web app, if you prefer listening in-browser.
Void
Watch on Android with all the fixings
Void can replace the standard Jellyfin app on Android. It adds a lot of small quality of life functionality like featured content on the home screen, an intuitive connection dashboard, and support for Seerr servers.
What I especially like about Void is how easy it makes finding content to watch. When you hit the search button, it not only gives you a search bar but also several shortcut buttons to genre listings. When you do search, you can filter types of content and also by download status.
Void is relatively new, having its first alpha release only this past August. For that reason, you can’t yet install Void from the Play Store or even F-Droid. Instead, you have to get the APK from the Void GitHub release page.
5 Reasons to Run Plex and Jellyfin Together
I prefer Plex, but Jellyfin has some compelling features.
Wholphin
A more modern streaming experience for Android TV
On my Chromecast streamer, I’ve been using Wholphin for Android TV, and it feels a lot more sleek than the standard Jellyfin app. While it’s intended to imitate the Plex app, Wholphin reminds me of HBO Max, but of course without the ads and the invasive telemetry.
Wholphin supports multiple playback engines including ExoPlayer, Media3, and MPV. It also allows for in-app subtitle downloading. It can display trickplay images (those thumbnail-like images you see as you’re scrolling through a video timeline), and you also get several controls over how the Continue Watching and Next Up categories are displayed.
One note about its current status: it doesn’t support music yet, so if you’re used to listening to music with the standard Jellyfin app on your TV, you can’t do that. It is on the app’s development roadmap, though.
You can get Wholphin from both the Play Store and the Amazon App Store.
If you’re looking for other ways to enhance your Jellyfin experience, check out how to add intro skipping to a Jellyfin server, or how to get a “Spotify Wrapped” for Jellyfin music.
