Comparison

Emby vs Kodi

Emby and Kodi both land on Depends.

Emby

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy it if you're a hobbyist self-hosting a personal library and will keep it patched . users say setup is easy and it just works.

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy if you want a free, powerful player for your own media files and don't mind tinkering.

Emby versus Kodi
Compare	Emby	Kodi
Verdict	Depends	Depends
Best for	Self-hosters streaming personal libraries	Local media library owners
Who it's not for	People who won't patch promptly . exposed servers got hacked	Non-technical users wanting plug-and-play
Privacy	Weak recent record: critical 2025 admin-takeover CVE, hacked servers force-shut down, and a disclosed May 2023 incident.^⁶	Open-source project with a CVE history and a forum breach exposing ~400,000 accounts; official guidance warns against exposing remote access.
Support quality	Very active community forums; official support unverified	Volunteer community forums only, no official SLA
Public sentiment	Users widely call Emby easy to set up, reliable, and better than Plex for their needs, while some self-hosters avoid it over closed source and security incidents.^³	Fans love it as a free local-media powerhouse, but many describe ongoing tinkering, setup friction, and weak Live TV without paid services.¹³
Biggest gotcha	Exposed servers were hacked and force-shut by Emby . use VPN or strict firewalling^⁴	Forum data breach exposed ~400,000 accounts, including private messages