head to head · open source
Jellyfin vs ansible-nas
Jellyfin has 57,244 GitHub stars, 5,523 forks, 684 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ansible-nas has 3,780 stars, 513 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Jellyfin leads on adoption by 1,414% (57,244 vs 3,780 stars). Jellyfin is written in C# under GPL-2.0; ansible-nas is written in Jinja under MIT. Jellyfin has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ansible-nas 14%. Jellyfin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Jellyfin | ansible-nas | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | C# | Jinja |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-02-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 513 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jellyfin if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ansible-nas if
- You want the ansible-nas feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Jinja
- You evaluated both and ansible-nas fits your workflow better
About Jellyfin
Jellyfin is a free and open source media server that lets an individual or an organisation manage and stream their own movies, music, and other media from a dedicated server to end user devices through multiple client apps.
read the full Jellyfin overview →
About ansible-nas
Ansible NAS is an open source Ansible playbook for building a home server or network attached storage replacement on a stock Ubuntu system. It lives in the self hosted homelab ecosystem, where users combine Ansible automation, Docker containers, and Ubuntu Server to run personal services on hardware they own.
read the full ansible-nas overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jellyfin or ansible-nas more popular?
Jellyfin has 57,244 GitHub stars and ansible-nas has 3,780. Jellyfin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jellyfin and ansible-nas free?
Both are open source. Jellyfin is licensed under GPL-2.0 and ansible-nas under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Jellyfin and ansible-nas?
Jellyfin is written in C# and ansible-nas in Jinja. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Jellyfin or ansible-nas?
Choose Jellyfin if you want the larger community (57,244 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose ansible-nas if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.