The original setup picked Jellyfin as the media server and the docker-compose post folded the whole fleet into one compose.yml — except Jellyfin: it runs on its own so it can reach the iGPU for hardware transcoding.

The compose

The official jellyfin/jellyfin image:

services:
  jellyfin:
    image: jellyfin/jellyfin
    container_name: jellyfin
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: host
    devices:
      # Intel QuickSync render node — hardware transcoding
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri
    volumes:
      # The data is a SQLite DB
      # Do not put this on Dropbox, NFS, SMB
      # As data corruption may occur!
      - /opt/jellyfin/config:/config
      - /opt/jellyfin/cache:/cache
      # :ro == read-only
      - /mnt/media:/data:ro
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Brussels

Hardware transcoding

The moment a client can’t handle the codec, container or bitrate (ex: a 4K HEVC file to a phone on mobile data), Jellyfin has to transcode, and doing that on the CPU will melt a core per stream. An Intel iGPU with QuickSync does it in hardware at a fraction of the power.

Two things make it work:

Pass the GPU in. devices: - /dev/dri:/dev/dri hands the container Intel’s render node. That’s it for Docker on bare metal. (If your Jellyfin lives in an LXC/VM the iGPU has to be passed through there first — that’s a rabbit hole of its own; the container line stays the same.)
Turn it on in Jellyfin. Dashboard → Playback → Hardware acceleration → VAAPI (or Intel QuickSync), device /dev/dri/renderD128, tick H264/HEVC/VP9. Force a transcode from a client and the playback info overlay should read “Transcode (hw)”; intel_gpu_top on the host will show the video engine lighting up.

The Companions

The ships that orbit Jellyfin.

Seerr - requests

Seerr Logo

seerr-team/seerr : Request app for friends and family

The front door you give friends and family: they search, click request, and it lands in Sonarr/Radarr (directly or after you approve).

Docker Compose

seerr:
  image: ghcr.io/seerr-team/seerr
  container_name: seerr
  user: "${PUID}:${PGID}"
  init: true
  environment:
    - TZ=${TZ}
  volumes:
    - ${CONFIG_PATH}/seerr:/app/config
  ports:
    - ${SEERR_PORT}:5055
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

Watch Analytics

There is the built-in Playback Reporting plugin for something lightweight and container-free. It’s very basic…

If you want more who watched what, when, and how much got transcoded stats, there is:

Jellystat

Jellystat Logo

CyferShepard/Jellystat : Statistics app for Jellyfin

Docker Compose

jellystat-db:
  image: postgres:16
  container_name: jellystat-db
  environment:
    - POSTGRES_USER=${JELLYSTAT_DB_USER}
    - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${JELLYSTAT_DB_PASSWORD}
  volumes:
    - ${CONFIG_PATH}/jellystat-db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

jellystat:
  image: cyfershepard/jellystat
  container_name: jellystat
  environment:
    - TZ=${TZ}
    - POSTGRES_USER=${JELLYSTAT_DB_USER}
    - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${JELLYSTAT_DB_PASSWORD}
    - POSTGRES_IP=jellystat-db
    - POSTGRES_PORT=5432
    - JWT_SECRET=${JELLYSTAT_JWT_SECRET}
  volumes:
    - ${CONFIG_PATH}/jellystat/backup:/app/backend/backup-data
  ports:
    - ${JELLYSTAT_PORT}:3000
  depends_on:
    - jellystat-db
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

Streamystats

fredrikburmester/streamystats : Streamystats is a statistics service for Jellyfin, providing analytics and data visualization.

A newer stats alternative to Jellystat. I installed it for the heck of it… I’ll get back here with conclusions sometime 😉

Docker Compose

streamystats-db:
  image: tensorchord/vchord-postgres:pg17-v0.4.1
  container_name: streamystats-db
  environment:
    - POSTGRES_USER=${STREAMYSTATS_DB_USER}
    - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${STREAMYSTATS_DB_PASSWORD}
    - POSTGRES_DB=streamystats
    - POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=scram-sha-256
    - POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS=--auth-host=scram-sha-256
  volumes:
    - ${CONFIG_PATH}/streamystats-db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
  healthcheck:
    test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ${STREAMYSTATS_DB_USER} -d streamystats"]
    interval: 10s
    timeout: 5s
    retries: 5
    start_period: 30s
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

streamystats-job-server:
  image: ghcr.io/fredrikburmester/streamystats-job-server
  container_name: streamystats-job-server
  environment:
    - NODE_ENV=production
    - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://${STREAMYSTATS_DB_USER}:${STREAMYSTATS_DB_PASSWORD}@streamystats-db:5432/streamystats
    - PORT=3005
    - HOST=0.0.0.0
  depends_on:
    - streamystats-db
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

streamystats:
  image: ghcr.io/fredrikburmester/streamystats-nextjs
  container_name: streamystats
  environment:
    - NODE_ENV=production
    - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://${STREAMYSTATS_DB_USER}:${STREAMYSTATS_DB_PASSWORD}@streamystats-db:5432/streamystats
    - JOB_SERVER_URL=http://streamystats-job-server:3005
    - HOSTNAME=0.0.0.0
    - SESSION_SECRET=${STREAMYSTATS_SESSION_SECRET}
    - NEXT_SERVER_ACTIONS_ENCRYPTION_KEY=${STREAMYSTATS_ENCRYPTION_KEY}
  depends_on:
    - streamystats-db
    - streamystats-job-server
  ports:
    - ${STREAMYSTATS_PORT}:3000
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

Wizarr - invitations & onboarding

wizarrrr/wizarr : Invite and onboard users to Jellyfin/Plex

I thought this was a bit silly but then I tried it and well… It’s actually pretty nice, instead of giving your mom a URL, create her login/password and do a whole lot of explaining, you just give her a link and she gets onboarded with a wizard where she gets explained what it is, how to get going, fill in her own login/password.

Docker Compose

wizarr:
  image: ghcr.io/wizarrrr/wizarr
  container_name: wizarr
  environment:
    - PUID=${PUID}
    - PGID=${PGID}
    - TZ=${TZ}
    # Set to true ONLY if you are using another auth provider (Authelia, Authentik, etc)
    - DISABLE_BUILTIN_AUTH=false
  volumes:
    - ${CONFIG_PATH}/wizarr:/data
  ports:
    - ${WIZARR_PORT}:5690
  restart: ${RESTART_POLICY}

It works for Plex, Emby, Jellyfin and also for:

advplyr/audiobookshelf : Self-hosted audiobook and podcast server