Kodi doesn't have a server feature like plex does where you can serve media to other devices. A more direct alternative would be jellyfin, which even works well with kodi as the media player.

[–] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

What does Kodi do, then, if you can't host your media on it?

[–] theredhood@lemm.ee 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's a media center, you can play your local files or you can use add-ons like the official jellyfin addon and connect to any jellyfin server.

[–] otterpop@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

IIRC didn't it start out as XBMC, a media center you put onto the original Xbox?

[–] Kelly@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It sure did, its over 20 years old now.

I guess it has inspired much of its competition, some of which with have added broader scope (like media servers) as one of their distinguishing features.

[–] EisFrei@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It basically does the same thing that VLC does, but with a controller optimized interface.

Media can be loaded from a ton of places. Samba share, dvb card, streaming services, ...

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

Controller optimized, and yet they still can't make the d-pad send the correct number of button presses. There is like a 1 in 20 chance it receives 2 presses instead of one.

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 1 points 7 months ago

Kodi, especially with librelec on rpi can be used as a replacement for appletv or firestick. But atm its rough for me, ngl.