Guide
Best mini-PC for Plex (and Jellyfin) in 2026
Prioritize hardware that can transcode without waking the whole house: Intel Quick Sync or a capable AMD iGPU, quiet idle watts, and enough RAM for the OS plus metadata. Pair with a NAS for the library disks — do not force every bay into the same chassis unless you accept heat and upgrade coupling.
Recommended hardware
- Geekom Mini IT13 — 13th-gen Intel mini-PC often shortlisted for Quick Sync Plex/Jellyfin and multi-VM Proxmox labs.
- Beelink SER8 — Newer Ryzen 7 mini-PC aimed at heavier VM stacks and iGPU media duties in a dense chassis.
- Beelink EQ14 — Twin-LAN Intel N305/N100 family box for quiet always-on labs that outgrow a single N100 node.
- Minisforum UM790 Pro — Ryzen 9 barebone mini-PC with OCulink option for GPU passthrough experiments and dense VMs.
- Aoostar R1 — Compact NAS-adjacent mini PC with multiple drive bays popular for Jellyfin libraries plus light VMs.
- UGREEN DXP4800 — 4-bay NAS alternative often paired with a mini-PC compute node for media libraries and backups.
FAQ
N100 enough for Plex?
Yes for a few 1080p or light 4K transcodes. Heavy simultaneous 4K or HDR tone-mapping favors N305 / P-series Quick Sync or a stronger Ryzen iGPU.
RAM size for a media mini-PC?
16 GB is a practical floor; 32 GB is comfortable if you also run Arr stack containers beside the media app.