New Fire TV Stick with Vega OS blocks Kodi and Jellyfin — no sideloading possible

Amazon's new Fire TV Select 4K streaming stick runs on Vega OS, a locked-down operating system that breaks compatibility with popular media players. Users hoping to use Jellyfin or Kodi for local content playback will find neither app in the store, and there is no way to install them manually.

Vega OS is a restricted version of Fire OS built on Linux, offering a trimmed experience compared to the traditional firmware. Amazon's curated store contains only about 3,000 apps, and neither Jellyfin nor Kodi is among them. The company cites security concerns and a desire for tighter control over what gets installed on the device as the reason for the lockdown.

Older Fire TV Sticks running classic Fire OS support sideloading of Android APKs, giving access to hundreds of thousands of applications. The new devices completely block this method. Searching the store for Kodi or Jellyfin returns only dubious third-party apps or irrelevant results like the Silk web browser.

For Jellyfin, the situation is particularly bleak: no client exists for Vega OS, and the sideloading ban makes manual APK installation impossible. The project relies on a small open-source community, and rewriting the client to meet the stricter rules of the new store is a significant effort, so a release timeline remains unclear. Alternative clients such as Moonfin, Wholphin, and Jellyflix are also unavailable.

Kodi simply does not run on Vega OS, as the new system is not a version of Android but Amazon's proprietary platform. Users who rely on playing media from their own storage should avoid the Fire TV Select 4K and opt for models with traditional Fire OS, which are still on sale.