Hello! I never used *arr stack, and was interested into it, but one thing is stopping me. I see a lot of articles like how it is Netflix (or any other ONLINE theater) replacement, but as I see it is not online. I see two big factors that stops me from trying seerr + jellyfin (and other stuff in between):
- You have two switch between those apps to search and then watch.
- You can’t watch media before it’s completely downloaded.
I imagine sitting on coach, searching for show. Then you want to watch some, and then you have to wait half an hour for full episode (or even season?) to download. And then you can realize that you not into it and have to repeat all the steps above. Is my expectation correct? Please don’t consider this as negative opinion. Just want to know what to expect. I remember an app called “popcorn time” that does not have that flaws.
UPD: Thanks for replies guys! I read it all. I will deploy the stack some day, but right now I will keep my current setup (which is qbittorent-nox, some public web jackett instance local for my country, and just simple smb shared folder). I also have some selfhosted debris alternative torrserver for times I don’t have enough space to download full show.
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Since I started using Jellyfin and arr, searching and watching have become separate activities. Gone is the experience where I discover something and am watching it immediately. And, search/discovery is done on separate apps than where I watch. So my behaviour has changed. I think ahead. I keep any eye out for what people are watching and download what seems good to me. The payoff is I’m not limited to what’s on any particular platform and I don’t pay subscription fees.
I think this is the last hurdle with the arr setup: discoverability. Plex has tried to jam in something, but it’s far from good. They’re never going to produce a pirate watchlist, so it would have to fall to Jellyfin. What people are seeking is the Netflix experience of “curated” content, spoonfed, and instantly watchable.
For the record I do the same as you. I think the intentionality is a healthy barrier to mindless browsing and consumption, but once people are hooked, it’s hard to wean them off.
Depending on your download speed, you can manually download a TV show episode in seconds to minutes. By the time you watch that episode, at least the next one will be ready. It is quite rare to have to do this though, me and my family mostly add shows on Seer when we find them (recommendations, adverts, etc) and by the time we’ve sat down to watch it’ll be ready.
I did the whole lists thing others have mentioned but to be honest, we found there was too much choice, lots of crap and quickly ran out of space. Taking an active role in choosing shows and films works better for us and I’ll have a short list at any time to watch.
I’d love to have internet fast enough that “seconds to minutes” were a reality.
Anyone has a good tutorial on how to setup a complete are stack with docker on Linux?
Already one that quickly explains what arr does what would be helpful. I know there is radarr, sonarr, bazarr and loads more and I have no idea which system does what or how to connect them.
I’ve found tutorials about individual pieces, but those are of little help
And then the biggest one: I have jellyfin, I’d like to use it over the internet, bit I need to have that obviously VERY safe. How to do that? I know of a popular reverse proxy for those things (name escapes me for a sec) but again, the tutorials I’ve found were lacking at best.
I’m looking for something where I can write a bunch of docker files and start it all up from scratch on Linux, is that possible?
You can go with this tutorial - https://trash-guides.info/
docker images are available for the arr stack at https://www.linuxserver.io/our-images
- radarr - movies
- sonarr - tv series / anime
- prowlarr - searches torrent
- bazarr - to download subtitles
radarr and sonarr asks prowlarr to search torrents
then radarr and sonarr asks qbittorrent to download the torrents
jellyfin grabs metadata and shows them for you. if you have seerr installed it manages searches with radarr and sonarr.
if you want truly unmanaged setup. setup trakt and import watchlist in radarr and sonarr. Whenever you add to watchlist in trakt it automatically gets downloaded in radarr/sonarr.
I can recommend Yet Another Media Server the only down side is that you won’t really learn how to use and manage containers (docker or podman). But this solution is quick and easy it also helps setup a qbittorent container with a VPN. For downloading Linux ISOs. ;D
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This was such a great starting point for me! I second this recommendation.
I used this to learn and build a “proof of concept” on an old raspberry pi before buying anything new.
For internet access Plex is by far the easiest. You can use Jellyfin but it can be a lot more effort and can be brittle. Tailscale might be a solution but if you want to share with friends it would mean giving them access to your Tailscale network. Then you’ve got reverse proxies like Nginx Reverse Proxy. This would require buying a domain and configuring something like Cloudflare too, plus port forwarding on your router. Tailscale offers a publically accessible domain now which is similar but you cannot configure the TLD. Still, you’re opening an internet accessible port for a FOSS application and this is far less secure unless you know what you’re doing.
I don’t have any links on hand, but there a post either in this community or [email protected] that explains how to setup a full arr stack in docker. I’ll see if I can find it in the morning.
Here’s a quick and dirty explanation for your other questions. Sonarr and radarr manage your media. Sonarr handles TV, radarr handles movies. That is the only difference. Without a download client (e.g. qBittorrent) they don’t do anything. Jellyfin is how the downloaded (qBittorrent) and managed (*arrs) media gets played on your screen.
I’m foggy on the details, but jellyfin has specific vulnerabilities that make it not recommended to expose publicly. If you must watch remotely, set up a VPN. If you don’t to manually setup wireguard you can use tailscale, which itself uses wireguard, but it does the hard part for you
The whole point of the arrs is to download things in advance. Many users set up Import Lists… There are also apps like Boxarr.
Netflix’s model is to provide the cheapest, low-quality media you can bear to watch. The kind of browsing you are describing is your distressed search to find something watchable. If you populate a server with good TV or at least TV that interests you, you won’t want to hop between media like that.
Any reason not using Streamio?
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Yeah it is, because you can just set it up to automatically download whatever you want if that’s what you prefer. You can just set up lists to watch for content that matches certain criteria. I’m sure there is even one that would mirror Netflix.
Check out lookmovie2.to
At least for me your argument is invalid.
- I installed Wholphin on my TV and it’s both a jellyfin and an (experimental) jellyseer client
- Here in Europe I have fast internet, so downloading the whole file is not really a problem. Also I configured my arr stack to prefer a certain size (on the smaller side) for each resolution.
- I remapped my Netflix button to Wholphin
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage Plex Brand of media server package VPN Virtual Private Network
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.
[Thread #158 for this comm, first seen 12th Mar 2026, 09:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Good bot
You can’t watch media before it’s completely downloaded.
This is not true for just about any use case.
If you use *arr, you’ll likely use Plex or Jellyfin for a media server. That server will do progressive streaming. Netflix by contrast does dynamic adaptive progressive streaming.
Progressive streaming means that playback will start once your client has downloaded and buffered enough of the selected content from the server. The amount is typically a fairly small portion of the stream, like 10 seconds or so, though the specifics are left to the server and client configs.
Dynamic adaptive progressive streaming has a multiplicty of streams optimized for different devices, formats, and quality levels. This might be a few hundred copies of the same video asset, but in a few different codecs, a few different color encodings (ie HDR, SDR), and a quality ladder of maybe 10 steps ranging from low quality SD to moderate quality UHD (like maybe 300kbps at the low end, and 40Mbps at the high end. And these will be cached around the world for delivery efficiency. On playback, the client (player) will constantly test your network throughput in the background, and “seamlessly” adjust stream quality during playback to give you the best stream your network and client can support without stopping to rebuffer.
For example, if you’re on a 4K/HDR TV with Atmos sound, and great network throughput, you’ll get the highest quality HDR streams and Atmos audio. Conversely, if you’re on mobile that doesn’t support HDR and only stereo audio, you’ll get much more efficiently coded HD video (or maybe SD) and stereo audio streams that are more suited to playback on that device. It would be impractical (huge cost and minor benefit) to try to replicate dynamic adaptive streaming just for yourself.
In any case, even if you’re just pulling off a NAS, you shouldn’t need to wait for the entire file to download before you can start playback. If your files are properly coded, you should be able to do progressive streaming in just about any use case.
I interpreted their question differently. It sounds like they’re taking about Radarr having to download a movie before they can watch it, whereas streaming services have a “complete” (compared to a new *arr setup) library available to stream instantly.
Some bittorrent clients can start playing a video before it’s done downloading, and prioritize the torrent chunks in the right order so there aren’t any interruptions as long as there are seeders and you have enough bandwidth. But I don’t think plex or jellyfin can do it, and I don’t know of any alternatives that can.
Ah, I see the unclear part. I read this line…
I imagine sitting on coach, searching for show. Then you want to watch some, and then you have to wait half an hour for full episode (or even season?) to download.
As if OP already had a media library, and was outside of their home, sitting on a coach (bus?) and wanting to watch something from their existing library on their phone/laptop/tablet, thinking they’d have to wait for the entire thing to download. This would not be the case. If OP had no content library, and wanted to browse for something new, then yes, you’d need to download the entire thing and add it to your media library first.
- Getting stuff into your media library require downloading the thing.
- Watching stuff (even remotely) that already exists in your library does not require downloading the whole thing.
Yes, I mean to watch before it downloaded completely to my server via torrents. I would be happy, if qbittorent can enable “download in sequential order” enabled by default.
Got it.
With radarr etc you typically download content and then move and rename it in post processing. You can’t stream it in Plex, as it doesn’t even show up in Plex until after all of this has happened and Plex has scanned the folder.
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Closest thing to streaming is Kodi + Umbrella + Premiumize (or other debrid). Search for Movies or Shows in Umbrella and stream immediately, once it scrapes and you pick a source/resolution.
You’re right, it’s for building a private library, not a “what’s new to watch now” stream. There are other tools for that, like stremio or real-debrid.
Once you adjust it works well. The whole “find something at random to watch” paradigm is not really how *arr works, but if a coworker mentions a show I can have it ready when I get home.
*arr works just fine with “find something random to watch” if you set it up that way with lists.
This! Using top 100 lists to pull new shows twice a day has made it to where I don’t even mess with the arrs apps now that they are set up.
You can connect your *arr profiles to monitor external lists of new titles by pointing the list manager to something like MDBList. They might not be as instantaneous as you might like, with a 24hr refresh period, but it’s pretty much a 0.99:1 Netflix replacement for me
I am struggling with this aspect. I have a list there (they call them “filters” and I struggled with that too, lol), but it (radarr) does not seem to detect the new titles I put in it my list. I am sooo close. The mdblist site is difficult for me to parse (UI and nomenclature) and I get frustrated whenever I try and fix it. So, I still just jot the title down on a scrap of paper and feel like a caveman. [shrug]
Hmmm, sorry to hear that. What kinds of lists are you trying to make? Are you making sure to “enable” the filter when creating it in Radarr?
I tried making a “new film” filter to list higher rated films with sufficient votes. Then I created a normal “new” filter just to add titles to as a seperate test. One I linked with Trakt and the other I didn’t b/c I wasn’t sure at the time where I would scrape with radarr. And I also created a list from one in the community. Partly to see if I could point radarr to it (don’t think you can), and also I could just manually peruse and add titles myself. I am sure I’ve pointed to one of my lists, but am not in front of my server atm to check again.
I’m a tech guy, but every so often I run into some tech that is very foreign to my mind and it tough to latch onto. The mdblist site does that to me. Getting older too, so I am sure I am losing mental elasticity. Anyways, I thank you for replying and any help you might offer. Cheers!
It would be nice to have streamio work with your arr stack.
It’s a great user experience, but the android app gives you no control over the torrents, doesn’t handle port forwarding & isn’t really opensource AFAICT.
Firstly, the core *arr suite is not a streaming service, whatsoever. It’s a media file manager meant to help with running a private server streaming app, like Plex or Jellyfin. With that out of the way:
I imagine sitting on coach, searching for show. Then you want to watch some, and then you have to wait half an hour for full episode (or even season?)
Download speeds depend on your own setup. IMO, a Usenet connection is the only way to use *arr. Downloads happen at the maximum speed and don’t rely on some other person’s seed rate. You, conversely, don’t need to worry about seeding.
When you manually add a show to Sonarr, you can select it to only pick up the pilot episode of the show, which could cut down on DL times by focusing bandwidth. You can also select a lower definition. With Usenet and something like a 720p quality, there’s no reason why this should take more than 5 minutes to be in your library.
I’ll also paste my comment I left below about connecting to lists:
You can connect your *arr profiles to monitor external lists of new titles by pointing the list manager to something like MDBList. They might not be as instantaneous as you might like, with a 24hr refresh period, but it’s pretty much a 0.99:1 Netflix replacement for me
I’ll also add that I’m not some CompSci nerd, either, so don’t be scared to give it a shot. My server runs off Plex on my Windows 10 desktop because I don’t know how to do any better but I’ve never had an issue watching what I want to watch
Its possible to have seerr search integrated into the main jellyfin search.
Streaming torrents popcorn or stremio style is not very practical and never has been. Popcorntime still has working forks and stremio works with jellyfin to some degree but unless you also use a paid debrid service or maybe if you dont care about tanking your ratio on a private tracker There are jusy way better solutions: like using either an on demand iptv service inside jfin that costs about the same as debrid anyway but also gets you live tv.
Not to say there isnt tons of room for improvement still, but a lot of progress is being made. I suggest to folx if jellyfin doesnt meet your standards yet, try back in a year and see how much progress gets made.
Friend, how do I do Seerr in Jellyfin? Could you post a link?
I did this by using Seer and Jellyfin Enhanced Plugin. Also here is a list of Jellyfin plugins
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Beautiful. Thank you!
