Docker isn’t needed for Jellyfin. It can be just installed like a regular program. I don’t know about any Arr stacks but Jellyfin by default will identify and fetch metadata for any media included in its library. The library structure that I use is one folder for music, one for TV shows, and one for movies. That’s it. I just copy over manually downloaded or ripped files.

I use Linux for hosting Jellyfin but the setup was minimal, it was just some Linux specific file permission stuff. Before you get too far into it just download Jellyfin and give it a try! You might be surprised how little setup is needed.

If you’re doing any work with serving video, make sure to get one with a 7th gen Intel chip. The QSV (hardware decode) supports much more than the 6th. They seem to be pretty common second hand, I think they were used for a lot of businesses and schools.

This is the way to go. I got one second hand for $70. It already had the 16gb ram upgrade. The 7th gen Intel processor handles Jellyfin encoding without a problem even though it’s an old i3. Gigabit ethernet, WiFi, NMVe slot, and sips power.