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MediaBrowser / Emby

Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device.
https://emby.media
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Why Emby? #1253

Closed yonas closed 8 years ago

yonas commented 8 years ago

Hi, Emby looks very interesting, but I'm wondering what the advantages are for using Emby over Kodi, and vice-versa?

Why was Emby created? For eg. has the Kodi/XBMC source code become too complicated to work with? Is the Kodi team not accepting patches quickly enough?

karbowiak commented 8 years ago

Kodi is a media center, Emby is a media server - you can't compare them.

yonas commented 8 years ago

Ah, ok. I guess Emby is like Mediatomb circa 2015.

Raithlin commented 8 years ago

yonas, Kodi is mainly a front-end - the original concept being that you point it at a hard drive, and it grabs metadata and you play it. Excellent interface, but not as easy to work with when using multiple devices (although this is getting easier with later releases).

Emby is your centralised place for media. From your main server you can connect with almost any device with a client (or the web interface, which is amazing) - even Kodi has a very good add-on. I use Emby to sort and store my media (videos, pics, music, books), and I have Kodi in the living room, and can sync (offline) my phone for videos I want to watch myself, or later (away from my server, for example on a plane).I have friends that use the DLNA component to watch their media using either a PS3, or even DLNA-capable blu-ray players across their local network.

In short, Kodi and Emby work together, not in competition. Emby is quite simply a very capable media server/manager; Kodi an awesome media player.

yonas commented 8 years ago

Raithlin, I appreciate the explanation, thanks! I'm going to install Emby on my FreeBSD server :) Big kudos for having FreeBSD on https://emby.media/download . Makes me so proud.

Raithlin commented 8 years ago

Great stuf!! Be sure to follow the instructions at https://emby.media/downloads/emby-for-kodi/ and not simply grab the (old) addon on Kodi, should you choose to go that route. :)

yonas commented 8 years ago

Thanks, I've been using the Emby for Android app on my tablet, and it works great so far.