Comparison
Altffour next to Jellyfin's web app
Both apps play the same Jellyfin library with the same account. Here's what each one does, and how fast each one opens a title page on the same server.
At a glance
What each app does
| Feature | Jellyfin web | Altffour | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Movies, shows, music, books and Live TV from your server | Yes | Yes | |
| Plays on phones, computers and TVs | Yes | Yes | Altffour installs from the browser, and its Android and Android TV app is in beta. |
| Offline downloads that play in the app | No | Yes | Jellyfin's web app saves the file but has no offline player. |
| Downloads across your devices | No | Yes | See each device's downloads and send them between devices. |
| Opens with no connection | No | Yes | Altffour opens offline and takes you to your downloads. |
| Skip intros, recaps and credits | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin needs a server plugin that scans your files; Companion finds markers without scanning. |
| Up next when the credits start | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin shows a next-episode overlay near the end. |
| Subtitle styles with a live preview | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin has size, font, colour and background; no glass background, accent colour or preview. |
| Foreign-audio subtitle mode | Yes | Yes | Altffour applies it to every subtitle, downloads included. |
| Separate languages for anime | No | Yes | Keep anime in Japanese with subtitles while everything else uses your normal languages. |
| Because you watched and Top 10 rows on Home | No | Yes | |
| Remove titles from Continue watching | No | Yes | |
| IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and TMDB scores with reviews | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin shows a community and a critic rating. Altffour's scores need Companion and the server's ratings keys. |
| Live TV guide with logos and favourites | Yes | Yes | |
| Live TV categories and channel search | No | Yes | |
| Listen together | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin's SyncPlay groups are picked from a list; Altffour's Jams join with a code. |
| Admin defaults and locks for every user | No | Yes | Set default languages and skip behaviour for everyone, and lock them. |
| Themes | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin has six themes and custom CSS; Altffour has seven, a theme builder and any accent colour. |
| Installs as an app that updates itself | Partly | Yes | Jellyfin's web app has a basic install; Altffour adds offline start, shortcuts and update prompts. |
yes partly no. Compared with Jellyfin's own web app; the official mobile and TV apps differ.
Every feature, with screenshots, is on the Features page.
Speed
How fast a title page opens
We opened 80 films and shows picked at random from one self-hosted library, half in Jellyfin's web app and half in Altffour, on the same server with the same account. Film pages opened sooner in Altffour. Show pages opened in about a tenth of a second in both.
| Page ready in1, 2 | Jellyfin web | Altffour |
|---|---|---|
| Films, typical | 1.2 s | 0.1 s |
| Films, 9 in 10 within | 2.3 s | 0.1 s |
| Films, slowest | over 30 s3 | 0.1 s |
| Shows, typical | 0.1 s | 0.1 s |
| Shows, 9 in 10 within | 0.1 s | 0.2 s |
| Shows, slowest | 0.1 s | 0.2 s |
1 Measured 14 October 2026 with Jellyfin 12.2.0, Altffour Companion 1.9.3.0 and Altffour 0.24.2, on a mid-range home server with the Gelato plugin and a library of thousands of films and shows. The browser ran on the same machine, so network time is small.
2 How we measured: 20 random films and 20 random shows per app, a different set for each app so neither warmed the server for the other, opened one at a time in a fresh browser, and timed from opening the page until the title and its Play button were on screen. Typical is the middle time of 20; "9 in 10 within" is the time 18 of the 20 beat.
3 Two of Jellyfin web's 20 films weren't ready after 30 seconds, when we stopped waiting.
Why films differ: Jellyfin's web app waits for the server to get a film ready to play before it shows the page, which takes longest with a catalog plugin like Gelato. Altffour gets its title pages from Companion, which skips that step; without Companion, Altffour reads titles the same way Jellyfin's web app does. A server without a catalog plugin won't see much of the film difference. Results on other servers differ.
Try it with your server
Open Altffour in your browser, enter your Jellyfin server's address and sign in. Nothing to install on the server.