Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April

Alright, so I have had Jellyfin installed for years now, but my primary issue is that most devices myself or my users use lack official, readily-available clients. For example, the Samsung TV app is a developer mode install. Last I looked, nobody has put a build into the store.
I really want to use Jellyfin, but I feel like my users simply can't. I'm interested in others' experiences here that could help.
- I mean, except for Tizen OS isn't most available? You can find the client for Android, Android TV, Windows, Linux (Flatpak), macos, apple ios, and more.
  https://jellyfin.org/downloads/clients/
- Don’t ever connect a “smart” tv to the internet. It’s only going to become shit and steal your data.
  Raspberry Pi, old pc or any kind of other external player will always be better for connectivity and control.
- A Chromecast TV device might fill your gap. There is a jellyfin android TV build in the app store and it works with every TV. Just costs about 50 dollarydoos
- I had the same experience with my parents. They have a Samsung TV and the Jellyfin experience was awful.
  I ended up getting them a little N100 mini pc and installed Bazzite and the Jellyfin app from Flathub. You can configure it so it knows it’s on a TV, and responds to keyboard controls. I got them a remote from a company called Pepper Jobs that gives keyboard input and now they have a great experience with it. Even my mom, who’s a big technophobe, loves it.
  My dad also has an LG TV in his workshop that doesn’t have a working Jellyfin app (cause it’s ten years old), and he uses the Jellyfin app for his Xbox on that one.
- I can speak from my experience with an Apple TV, the application "Infuse" works amazing with a jellyfin server. Though the application is essentially $1 month subscription, but works across all your apple devices, if you have any. I think it's worth it.
  Additionally, the official app for Android TV worked pretty well when I last tried it on an Nvidia Shield
- I run an Android TV box on my Smart TV, because I don't trust them on the internet.
- You can access Jellyfin through a browser, too. Is that an option for the Samsung TV?
- I love Jellyfin, but I always find something that I have a problem with when trying it, for example it has weak searching, tagging, and TV show identification compared to Plex.
  I tried using it even as recent as yesterday for some searching and tagging, but it's searching, tagging, and even TV show identification has problems and is weak in comparison to Plex. I couldn't mass-tag certain videos which was annoying for me, I had to do it one-by-one and it ended up taking a long time, that was frustrating. Also, tags don't show up in searches anymore because it hurts performance apparently. With that said, maybe Plex has the same limitation, but it doesn't mean that Jellyfin has to. They are open-source, and they can be better than Plex, and in many ways they already are, but I keep running into pain points with how I want to use it, and it does feel a bit unfortunate. With that said, I'm a developer too, so I know it's not always that simple. It's just in some ways it feels less "complete" than Plex.
  I'm still really pleased with Jellyfin though, and especially the future potential of it.
- I use Jellyfin client on my new Samsung TV via a Google TV dongle (ONN tv, $25 at Walmart). Seems to work well.
  My only complaint is the stream volume has been very low after a recent update. Downsampling helps but seems like it shouldn' t be necessary.
- The only major pain point I had with Jellyfin was getting it on my Samsung TV yes. It is absolutely not a good recommendation for people with Samsungs unless they're willing to get their hands very dirty. Now, once I got the app side loaded on there, it works perfectly well, but the process sucked ass.
- I've never had an issue with the apps. It's on my Chromecast and my android phone, and I typically stream to the TV from my phone.
  My only issue is that they require a real cert (which is good tbh) and I am having trouble getting letsencrypt working due to my isp blocking port 80 and me dragging my feet getting DNS working
- https://emby.media/
- Yeah.
  Jellyfin is spectacular for LAN usage on two computers. Once you start using devices (because, you know, that is what people tend to plug into their TVs...) or going on travel, it rapidly becomes apparent that it just isn't a competitor.
  Hell, a quick google suggests jellyfin STILL doesn't have caching of media for offline viewing. Plex's works maybe 40% of the time but... 40% is still higher than 0%.
  I have a lifetime pass for Plex and encourage anyone who even kind of cares to get one next time it is on sale (or shortly before the scheduled price hike). I have tried Jellyfin a few times over the years and... it is basically exactly what I hate with FOSS "alternatives". It isn't an alternative in the slightest but people insist on talking it up because they want it to be and that just makes people less willing to try genuinely good alternatives.
  To put it bluntly, Plex is an "offline netflix" as it were. Jellyfin is a much better version of smbstation and all the other stuff we used to stream porn to our playstations back in the day.
any recommendations to get it to work remotely? the good thing about plex was it was easy to set up, but the quality was medicore.
- I just figured it out. You have to open the port on your router
I've been testing out jellyfin for the last couple months but it doesn't really fill the void of this specific feature that's being locked behind a pay wall. If anyone has good recommendations for securely and reliably hosting jellyfin behind SSL and auth with email password resets where I don't have to worry about it as much as Plex.
I use jellyfin locally but for a handful of remote clients I have I may well block off their access they're not going to be able to figure out my hand spun services and wall of text.
- I would go for a reverse proxy to get ssl running.
  https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/networking/#running-jellyfin-behind-a-reverse-proxy
  Handling users with forgotten passwords is, sadly, a manual chore for the administrator.
  https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/users/adding-managing-users#profile
- Forget the Auth, use VPN profiles as access controls. Give them to trusted folks and you're gold.
- Authentik + jellyfin SSO plugin?
  I haven't tried it out personally, but I use authentik, for that you can just create a password policy, then add a new stage for identification (just make sure to add the email field), and an email stage, then create a flow.
  More work on your end than paying someone else obviously.
Before now I was on the sunk cost fallacy of not wanting to teach my extended family how to use Jellyfin instead of plex but after this I'm already mid-way through setting up a Jellyfin docker container on my server and I only found out an hour ago
Jellyfin is still way behind Plex in general performance but I keep a VM of it running and updated, for when the day comes that Plex is absolutely worthless.
Which at this rate, is, well, we're getting there.
Alas my TV (LG WebOS 2) doesn't have an application for Jellyfin, or I'd have switched years ago :-(
- Is there an emby app available or Kodi? The base of Jellyfin should work in either. Plug and play as far as I'm aware with maybe some issues for certain versions.
Jellyfin depends on proprietary Microsoft .NET, even on Linux.
It's still better than Plex and Emby, which are fully proprietary, and have no source code. But I will stick with sshfs with kodi, and nginx plus mpv for now.
- Except, it isn't, .NET Core is an open source framework by the .NET Foundation

As a result I imagine more users will look at other offerings such as Jellyfin.
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin
https://jellyfin.org/

This might be what it takes to at least get me to install it.
Do they live well together with the same shared media library?
Also, are there audiobook clients for Jellyfin?
- I found audiobooks to be kind of awkward on jellyfin. I'm now running Audiobookshelf for all my audiobooks, radio shows and podcasts. Together with the Lissen app on Android, it works very nicely!
- I've heard rumors that they do play well together, but that's people running it in docker with a "read-only" flag set for the content folder, with metadata saved in the config folder
  I've used the Jellyfin app to listen to audio books, but for my purposes, it's easier to run the separate client/server Audiobookshelf.
- My Jellyfin and Plex containers were able to use the same locations for media.
- I've had Jellyfin and Plex running using the same media directory for a couple years now. I think I had to make a couple small changes for things like seasons of a TV show to show up correctly, but nothing incredibly difficult. Definitely worth setting up and playing with periodically so when you do finally get sick of Plex, you're ready to just switch.
  Only thing I use Plex for exclusively now is when I'm flying, Plex has the Netflix style download option and Jellyfin just downloads the video file. I like Plex's way better just from personal preference.
- I haven't used Plex myself but Jellyfin doesn't create any kind of meta files in the library folders. If that is true for Plex as well then I don't see why it would be a problem to point them at the same shared library.
- I didn't enjoy using Jellyfin for audiobooks, on my android I use the Jellyfin client to download the book I wanna listen to and then I use AudioAnchor for listening to it.
- Of you use docker plex and jellyfin arent gonna be messing with your media unless you delete/modify them within the respective clients (but then again thats what *arr is for)
https://emby.media/
- They too put a whole lot behind their subscription though
  https://emby.media/support/articles/Premiere-Feature-Matrix.html
- FUCK Emby! What they did was worse than what Plex is doing even now

I'm not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.

Also remember to give them your credit card, name and address for the privilege of pirating the content.
- Even better, it's now a nice database of who companies and governments can go after when they want or need to!
lmao me either
Jellyfin ftw

I have a lifetime plex pass so this does not really affect me but I expect the trend of degrading experience to continue. I would have switched to Jellyfin a long time ago but I am dreading contacting everyone I share with and getting them migrated.

Same boat here. I chose Plex because the apps were everywhere. Smart TV's, phones, web...
I can switch, no problem. I don't want to have to teach my parents a new app. OMFG!
- This is also true of Jellyfin, though. I have apps on my Windows PC, my Android phone, multiple Nvidia Shield boxes on my TVs, plus the web interface if I need it.
  I switched over from Plex several years ago, and while it takes a bit more time to configure, compatibility for clients seems just as good for Jellyfin as it is for Plex.
  Most importantly, Jellyfin is strictly client/server, no "cloud" bullshit and no remote account is required; I don't want Plex phoning home with a list of the media on my file server.
- its actually the sole reason why i ended up paying for plex myself. its not because on ME that i ended up using plex, its moreso everyone else that I want to give my server access to with the least amount of hurdles that made me ultimately go that route.
- You can use Cloudflare Tunnel as well.

Hellooooo jellyfin!

Only use open source software

If you don't like the price there's always jellyfin.

Got to say that I have been very happy with it.

Jellyfin is just so much better, imo. Much cleaner, less stuff that I don’t actually need.
I'm a plex pass lifetime owner, but I don’t regret switching to Jellyfin one bit.
Yeah I switched 2-3 years ago because so many features were paywalled and on jellyfin I can at least use plugins
- I switched when I had an internet outage and couldn’t log into Plex locally to watch my own media. Very happy with Jellyfin since then.
Does Jellyfin do remote streaming?
- Yes. You'll have to set up a reverse proxy, I use nginx, and get yourself domain, I use duck DNS, and get a SSL certificate from let's encrypt if your wanting to steam to something like a Chromecast or Roku.
  It's not all that hard honestly and there's a good guide here for general home media, including both Plex and jellyfin
  https://www.simplehomelab.com/docker-media-server-2024/
- If you can set it up? Yup.
  Behind CGNAT? Maybe you need to set up a relay or something to circumvent it.
- With the caviat that you have tailscale enabled on both devices. This prevents it from being used on a roku outside your home but you could access it remotely from your computer/phone/tablet.
  It is significantly harder than Plex, currently. There are improvements happening all the time though.
- does jellyfin have a roku app?
  Yes, it streams pretty well, it has some UX issues, but it will let you get off plex as it stands right now with most of your needs covered.
- It works, but isn't nearly as user friendly.
- Yes. I use mine daily and it works great
- You should ditch Roku amyway considering the posts I have seen here on lemmy.

Glad I bought the Plex Pass like 13 years ago. While I understand everyone seems to think everything should be free, I'm sure your boss wishes you worked for free too, but the world doesn't work that way.

I'm OK supporting products I use , and Plex is an example of this for me. It was a well spend $75 in 2013

Nah. Cool that you think that, though. The moment they started charging for what was a free service, they lost me. I have gigabit internet. The only reason i used their service to begin with was ease of use.
Hot take but maybe everything doesn't need to be an infinitely expanding business. Just imagine for a second that it's fine for something to just break even, pay for the few mainteners salaries and not expand the business at all ever. I know that I just uttered the cardinal evil under capitalism but fucking seriously. The primary userbase of plex is pirates. The whole incentive is not having to pay for a streaming service. Charging money for it is just torpedoing your entire userbase. The entire appeal of Plex was it not charging money.
- Yah and I still bought a plexpass and then left Plex. Do I care no I got my money worth. Software costs money how would they continue to developed it if not getting paid?
- I don’t know when or how, but it seems in my lifetime we went from that. Having corporations that just did something well and left it at that to this idiotic grow or die mentality that seems to be fueled by investor ROI.
- So, you've got option. You can just roll your own, or go to jellyfin.
  I'm one of the first people to complain about the incessant need to grow 20% a year to appease shareholders and how unsustainable that is. But I also realize as I said, stuff cost money and "just breaking even" will also grow in cost every year with everything else, so... Even in that perfect world you were describing, there would be an increase in cost applied to that project.
  Much like I am sure you expect at the very least a cost of living raise each year. I'm also guessing you're glad your paycheck to bills ratio isn't what it was 20y ago. (or I can say, that for me that is true). I'm pretty happy my discretionary money is more now than it was then. I bet those developers also want that same thing.
Jellyfin
I fucking hope to god they don't go full enshittification and decide to revoke the lifetime licenses.
- Nah they'll just release Plex2
- Even with Plex pass they were really pushing their paid content. Much happier with Jellyfin, and it was very easy to switch.
- I keep expecting something, the lifetime pass has more/less paid for itself.
  That being said, they do still offer the lifetime pass, so clearly they see it as worth it.
Hot take here but not wrong
- No, it's still wrong.
  We have ways to do NAT traversal and hole punching on consumer routers. Failing that, UPnP and port forwarding exist. Or, god forbid, IPv6.
  In the rare case that literally none of those are an option, they would have to use TURN to relay between an intermediary. That is a reasonable case to ask the user to pay for their bandwidth usage, but they don't have to be greedy fuckers by making everyone pay for it.
  This is enshittification and corporate greed. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your view unfortunately doesn't show you how shitty the unpaid experience has become. XBMC used to be a good product. Since becoming Plex, now we have:
no local hardware accel
no HDR
panels that look like local videos that trick you into switching to a paid app
rearranged home screen after some updates
no downloads on remote devices
and now I'll lose the ability to share streaming with my kid, who lives many cities away
If this were clear from the outset , no one would be upset. But pulling back features Plex at one time promised "forever" (remote streaming), is complete rug-pull bullshit.
You can enjoy that warm and fuzzy reverse-fomo feeling now, but you should know that they'll start limiting your paid experience eventually.
- Xbmc didn't become plex. It's still alive and kicking but rebranded to Kodi (mostly because it had little to do with xbox anymore) ages ago.
- no local hardware accel
  What do you mean by this?
- what? all of these work on plex for me:
  -server hardware accel transcoding (are you talking about something else?)
  -HDR playback works fine for me...
  -I can download just fine from a browser or the plex app, when remote
Same here. I don't like some of the recent decisions, but I remember the time I looked at the value and thought "yeah, this is working, valuable, and I can get behind it", and bought the lifetime pass.
And I used the hell out of it! I don't regret supporting the developers at all.
But features like plugins disappear, rolled to in-house teams. They work better, but cost more to maintain.
It's ambitious, and gives developers plenty of work, but I feel the new redesign bit more than they can chew and overran budgets. They may be trying to balance budgets.
I mean, I'm with you, it is nice to support something you use, financially. But you made a one time payment 12 years ago. Your money is certainly not there anymore, they used it and paid something with it. I don't know, it just sounds like a really weird take reading your post. But maybe its me whose weird, I would prefer one time payment over subscriptions too.
- Lots of businesses have and do exist without a subscription model. I'm fond of the Paprika Recipe Manager, for example, which asks a one-time payment for each major version. All commercial software worked this way in the 80s.
- I looked at and look at it as an investment. 13 years ago it could have been a good decision or a bad one.
  The idea behind a lifetime membership is a means to spark fund raising, and I thought then "I use this a lot, it works for me I'm gonna pay for it".
- You're right the guy who paid $5 once for a month of Plex Pass is way more valuable than the one who paid $75 (or $120 full price). The only people more valuable to the company than the $5 guy are the ones who use the app for free.
Yeah, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal for most people here. They kept the price down as long as possible. I spent $119 just before the 'rona hit and I think it's been well worth it.
What did you pay for exactly?
- What are you asking? I bought a lifetime subscription to Plex pass.
OK, but why is it a for profit company in the first place?
And why does open source Software like xz, ffmpeg, etc still work without being for profit?
Fucking liberal.
- They don't. Most people get paid by companies to work on that stuff. For example red hat pays for a lot of OS development.
- You know nothing very proudly

As a plex pass lifetime user, this doesn't change anything for me.

I am, however, blown away that the price went from $75 CDN to $350 CDN over the last 10 years!! That's just insane!

I'm not sure where you're getting that from, the article literally states the price hasn't changed in 10 years, and still hasn't, but it finally will on the 29th of April.
This tracks with my experience as it's probably been 10 years since I bought the lifetime pass and here in the UK it's often on sale for basically the same price (about £75 if I recall).
- Well, it was $75 CDN when i bought in 2012, it's $150-170 CDN now, and going up to $249 USD which converts to $358 CDN, so I'm assumong they'll round down to $350 or up to $360 CDN.
  The conversion from USD to CDN kills it for us sadly. It's just such a huge jump this time. More than double on this bump.
They have sales, and it's not really worth paying the "MSRP" price. My wife got Plex Pass for $80 back in 2023, and I got it late last year for $90.

I'm surprised by the resistance to Jellyfin in this thread. If you are using Plex, you're already savvy enough to use bittorrent and probably the *arrs. If you can configure that stuff, Jellyfin is absolutely something you can handle. If you like Docker, there's good projects out there. If you're like me and you don't understand Docker, use Swizzin community edition. If you can install Ubuntu or Debian, and run the Swizzin script, you're in business.

I've been meaning to set up a homeserver with plex recently but will defnitely go for jellyfin now that I read this thread.

Can’t say I have a huge issue with this - Plex isn’t FOSS and the infrastructure to make this happen isn’t free. Other options are available if you don’t want to pay the fee.

So glad i switched to jellyfin half a year ago

Same. My wife also just asked me to get a bunch of audio books too...so looks like I have to set up that now
- The default Jellyfin client isn't great for audiobooks.
  For Apple iOS you might wanna look at https://github.com/LeoKlaus/plappa
  For Android I would look at https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf
  Personally I just download the audiobooks from Jellyfin and play it in https://f-droid.org/packages/com.prangesoftwaresolutions.audioanchor/
- https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/i-threw-away-audibles-app-and-now-i-self-host-my-audiobooks/
  Check out this arstechnica article on AudioBookshelf. Should cover most of what you need to get started.
- I would recommend audiobookshelf for the audiobooks, especially if you have your stuff running in docker. It seemed to me like the solutions to force Plex or jellyfin to do books were a bit more hacky than I wanted.

This is the best ad campaign Jellyfin could have asked for.

It looks like as long as the host has a Plex pass, this doesn't change much. It is a regression of service, which sucks, but there are viable alternatives for those unable or unwilling to pay. And honestly, jellyfin is the clear winner in that case and always has been.

Now, if they start to charge my friends and family for access to my media after I have already paid them for their lifetime subscription, then I'll grab a pitchfork with the crowd.

Also, why not run both and be ready? The resources required are minimal if you're running via docker, just some extra RAM and a negligible amount of compute for overhead on library maintenance tasks.

Same. I'm not switching to Jellyfin yet either - mostly because of my boomer parents - but this is getting close to the tipping point for me
I run both on my unraid NAS. I use plex for streaming to my phone over cell data. I use jellyfin for streaming to my laptops and TV.
Plex tends to break every once and a while though. Not often, but it happens enough that I'm replacing it with just having my music on a DAP that is synced with Syncthing.
I also use the comic viewer function of jellyfin.

I can understand new features being behind a fee, but this is putting old, old capabilities behind a paywall. Hmmm...

This with a recent decision to remove watch together sort of eliminates the whole reason I would have tried Plex so many years ago.

I'm a fan of Plex (it's worked for me) and understand the Jellyfin crowd too. I'm worried about who is calling the shots at the moment. They aren't aligning with their users.

Old capabilities that don't even work as well as free alternatives because AMD transcoding support has been """experimental""" for years.
I can understand new features being behind a fee, but this is putting old, old capabilities behind a paywall. Hmmm...
I am a Trakt user, was an Evernote user and I am (thankfully) a Plex Pass user...
What service are we missing that has done the same? We should make a list if there is not one already.

I already pay for plex pass but I'm going to start looking into jelly fin out of principle. I will not support the enshitification of a service I use and this is how it starts. Soon they will have tiered subscriptions and then the cheap one will be taken away and the cheapest paid one will be stuffed with ads then all tiers will be stuffed with ads then they will jack up prices again or charge more for sharing with family or block it all together to force your family to get their own sub and the circle of enshitification will be complete.

Another company fucked by executives.

Well, looks like my decision to stick with Kodi and never bother with Plex is about to pay dividends.

Kodi and Plex do different things, both of them organize your media and give you a pretty interface to access it, but Kodi is a program running locally and Plex is a webservice that you can access remotely. Jellyfin is the open source program that does the same thing as Plex, i.e. a media server manager that can be accessed remotely through a web interface.
The equivalent to Plex is Jellyfin I think, Plex can be used as a media server for Kodi.
I used Kodi for years (back before and during the XMBC - > Kodi shift) before moving to Plex, it was great (a pain for a good config, but once your clients have remote access and use a shared database its insane how good it can be) but Plex was touted for so long I figured I'd give it a try when I saw a good sale. I've been using it for the past 8 years or so but may go back to Kodi or Jellyfin.
NAS + Tailscale + Kodi is the easiest to setup for me. Works really good.

The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience

How stupid do they think we are?

Very, apparently.
They use UPnP and NAT-PMP1 to have clients directly stream the media from users' own self-hosted servers. It costs them almost nothing in bandwidth to do that.
- To be fair, they didn't say that they needed more resources for remote streaming
Here, I fixed it:
The reality is that we need more ~~resources~~money to ~~continue putting forth the best personal media experience~~increase our profit margins.
Wait, why do you say this? I’m no Plex shill, this is disappointing news to hear and is the strongest push toward Jellyfin I’ve had yet. But they’re certainly a business with employees they need to pay, and their app has an objectively large feature set that needs to be maintained. Their employees deserve raises and benefits, and if costs are rising at the grocery store, they’re probably rising for businesses too. Why are we stupid to believe their financial burden is growing?

Why do people use this when Jellyfin exists?

Because of the Wife Factor. Getting people to convert requires getting past a lot of social inertia. It requires you to first convince them that the convenience of streaming services isn’t actually worth paying for. Then it requires an elegant onboarding experience. Lastly, Plex simply makes remote access easy. Sure, you could fiddle with reverse proxies for Jellyfin. But that’s easy to mess up. Instead, it’s much smoother to simply sign into Plex.
I can talk my tech-illiterate “My google chrome desktop icon got moved, and now I don’t know how to check my email” mother-in-law through Plex’s sign-up process over the phone. In fact, I did. It’s familiar enough that anyone who has signed up for a streaming service can figure it out. I can’t do that with Jellyfin, because their eyes glaze over as soon as you start talking about custom server URLs or IP addresses. Hell, my MIL’s TV doesn’t even have a native Jellyfin app available on the App Store. If I wanted to install it for her, I would need to sideload it.
Jellyfin does a lot of things right. But by design, the setup process will never be as elegant as Plex’s, because that elegant system requires a centralized server to actually handle it. And centralized servers are exactly what Jellyfin was built to rebel against.
To be clear, I run both concurrently; Jellyfin for myself, and Plex for friends/family. I got the lifetime Plex Pass license a decade ago, and it has more than paid for itself since then. But it sounds like a bunch of my friends and family may end up switching to Jellyfin if they don’t want to deal with the PlexPass subscription.
- Setting jellyfin up is for the technically inclined, i'll agree there, but once deployed I don't really see where Plex fundamentally excels over Jellyfin when it comes to "the wife factor"?
  You open the app, app shows library, you click on desired media item, desired media item plays. What am i missing?
- I think its a great idea to run the two concurrently. I didn’t see the point but given how plex is evolving i think its time to start getting familiar with jellyfin.
- 100% agree with the reverse proxy set up, it's not hard but it is intimidating at first and just fyi, reverse proxy set up is a ton easier if you're using swag with the drag, drop, run for a ton of apps including SSL certificate renewal.
  https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2020-08-21-introducing-swag
  With that reverse proxy and SSL set up, no problems with the wife test or parent test and jellyfin for me at least.
I took a dive into linux and jellyfin and im too stupid for it.

Wireguard so you are always seen as being on the local network. This bit of assholery is easily defeated.

The audacity of this company to increase prices when:

A) downloads are locked behind the paywall but havent worked in years (probably close to a decade at this point)

B) they focus all the development time on bringing bullshit to the platform (live tv, rentals, other streaming app searches, etc)

Requiring a subscription for remote access is actually fucking insane, they don't have any bandwidth costs associated with that other than authentication so ???

This will drive people to Jellyfin, and watch how fast Plex drops into irrelevance when all the selfhosters move away. Plex is (now was) the #1 thing to that both myself and others in this community would recommend to someone looking to get into selfhosting. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ not anymore, wonder how much the revenue will drop?

Final thought: there's also a fair chance (I'd rate it at almost 70%) that they presented this to us because they knew it would piss people off. Then, in a week or so, they will post a "we're sorry, is this better?" with the changes they're ACTUALLY going to make. A ploy to make us blindly agree to whatever they want because "at least it's better than what they wanted originally" 🙄🙄
- Ehhh i don't think that justifies having people pay to stream, i doubt a lot of people even ever used that functionality and yeah they could have just pay walled it if it was that much of a problem.

I moved on to jellyfin after I found out the hard way Plex servers need to authenticate for use. I'm sure by now there are ways to set up offline authentication but I already didn't like the idea of paying monthly to stream my own content from my own machine. It just didn't make sence to me. Jellyfin isn't perfect, or as flashy as Plex, but it works, looks fine, and its free, not counting a much deserved donation to the devs .

Plex Media Server- Settings : Network : List of IP Addresses and Networks that are allowed with Auth : 192.168.4.0/24, e.g.

They seem to be getting a lot of hate for this, but Plex is not FOSS... They have the roots but they currently have like 100 paid employees and are trying to make a business out of it. They have to do something to make money to pay people every month. My $75 10 years ago isn't going to do much for that... The fact that they've made it this far without folding is impressive.

I keep a Jellyfin instance running as a hedge. Here's the thing with Plex (and actually a lot of companies set up similarly): those "lifetime" memberships are a trap. Think about it: Plex gets your money ONCE but they have ongoing expenses. Sooner or later, they'll have spent every single cent made by a lifetime membership unless they either get more folks OR squeeze everyone a bit more.

Once they started adding their own shows and making strange UI decisions, I could sense the end was coming. A move like this brings it up fast. Jellyfin is not nearly as good as Plex in a lot of ways, but it's really Open Source.

Anyway, a lot of rambling, but in short: when there is a "lifetime" subscription, watch out!

I’ve been using Plex many years. I abandoned it about 1-2 years ago when they began their enshittification journey. Now I see they are continuing to double down on being assholes.

They do not need any more resources to allow people to use what already exists. Most people run their own servers, and, they track all that by the way. Hence why people moved away from it.

Don’t give them your money. Let them rot. They fucked their user base who built them.

This always baffled me when I had a friend who showed me his Plex server years ago.
So you're using a service which makes it easy for you to host and access everything wherever you are, pulls in all the metadata for shows and movies and you're not worried about them tracking all of that?
When I finally set my own up I used Jellyfin from the start, I prefer as little tracking as possible but thats just me
- What do you do to access jellyfin wherever?

I stopped using Plex shortly after they started forcing logging in with your online Plex account to connect to LAN only based server. The writing was on the wall all those years ago. Who wants to be locked out of their media when the internet is offline, completely defeated the point of self hosting local infrastructure

Jellyfin, while lacking a bit when I first migrated, has continued improved over the years and it has been joyful to use. Plus Jellyfin supported hardware transcoding before Plex did, which was a gripe I had with Plex at the time.

I stream from my server remotely and share with Family without hassle. I dunno where Plex is trying to go, glad I bailed long ago

Judging by the rest of the thread I'm going to get downvoted for this, but what the hell:

I'm sure I'll switch to Jellyfin eventually but I tried it out a few weeks ago to see what all the hype was about and it just... wasn't great. It was difficult to setup, with way too many overly-complicated settings, and then it refused to play one of the two test files I tried. Like it or not there's a reason that Plex is the dominant player in the game, and a large part of that reason is that it verges on plug-and-play for simplicity of both setup and use.

Yes, it sucks that they're removing remote streaming for free users, but I imagine there's a significant chunk of users who don't know or care how to properly open their server up to the world and are relying on the Plex proxies for their streams (which happens entirely in the background), and those aren't going to be cheap to run. Maybe putting them behind a paywall will provide the resources to make them faster.

I did buy a lifetime pass last time they announced a price hike; it's honestly paid for itself many times over, and I've been encouraging other users I know to do the same before this next one, because yes, it is a significant hike this time around. That said, while I wouldn't pay monthly for it, I do still feel like the lifetime pass is tremendous value for such a polished product. It's a shame they've had to do it at all, but I don't begrudge them for it.

I feel like it’s just a matter of time, until they pull the rug from under lifetime subs.

But in any case, this is probably it for me. I’m not completely happy with jellyfin performance on my server, but the price hike puts me outside of what i’m willing to spend for this service. I already host it myself, and i can tunnel it myself too, if i ever decide to run it outside of my home network

sometimes good software is worth paying for

Big facts. Even the FOSS software, I buy the premium or donate a bit to it. It only feels right. I couldn't imagine making something millions of people count on and not throw them SOMETHING. Especially when its such a good experience.
Yes. I have a lifetime Plex pass, and I donated to Jellyfin as well. Looking forward to the day I can uninstall Plex and no longer worry about them potentially giving my data to Media companies so they can sue for piracy
Yup, that's why people who can afford it should do ate to the jellyfin project

I gotta be honest, when I look at the problem pragmatically, it'll be a lot easier to pay $20 a year than to switch to jellyfin and get all my users to figure out how to install clients and make it work for them.

I'm already at the point in my life where my primary concern is making things work smoothly, and if I need to throw money at something to make it work smoothly, the choice is a no brainer. (At least for some values of "money")

Time to move to Jellyfin for the rest of their users?

Yeah, my lifetime Jellyfin subscription wasn’t quite that much, thankfully. 😆

Subscriptions are a non-starter for me

I've paid for the lifetime subscription for Plex...Still only using Jellyfin
- I can justify a one time purchase, but never recurring payments.

I just want to make sure I read this correctly. It says that if you're a Plex plass holder already that remote streaming changes won't affect your service. This means that if I have the lifetime subscription and host my own server than users whom have not payed for Plex pass can continue to access this server without issue correct?

Well this is a good reason to finish my migration to Jellyfin I think.

I only use remote streaming a couple times per year, so paying for plex pass just for that seems a bit silly. Their online-only account auth is also super annoying if the internet is down.

So basically.. this is a blatant cash grab, and a nearly 200% one depending on the level of service you pay/paid for. Wonder how long it will be before the lifetime pass is discontinued and everyone gets forcibly moved over to a monthly subscription model

Every service is doing this as expenses and interest rates go up. Its the driving force of enshittification. All the VCs want internet startups to finally turn a profit.

All these comments mentioning jellyfish and I haven’t see a single mention of emby. Is it considered bad or something? Because I switched over to it and I am liking it a lot better than plex so far

I believe emby went proprietary, and jellyfin is the fork that stayed open source. Naturally Lemmy prefers the FOSS one 😅
- Yup, that's why I was on NextCloud, why I avoid MongoDB like the plague, and why I'm here on Lemmy (I justified Reddit because of their open API).
  So yeah, that tracks.
- Ironically Plex users cling to their solution like it's life or death without considering the other side.
  Just like when someone mentions that Windows has it's place too and sometimes Linux isnt the be all and end all of all OS.
  The hyprocrisy of some users here...
Jellyfin is a fork of Emby, so they share much of their codebase.
Emby subscription costs a lot even if you just want to use it on a home server. It can work without subscription but will display a warning before playback. Jellyfin is free.
- Yeah the warning is definitely annoying and especially the ten second counter on it pisses me off. But honestly I would much rather see an unskippable ad for the premium version of the program I am currently using and enjoying than an unskippable ad for literally anything else
I greatly prefer Emby to Jellyfin.
I use Emby with the lifetime premier (their 'premium' version).
Works great, but honestly I would just point people to Jellyfin unless Emby provides something specific you need. I just use it because it's what I've had for years.
If you're leaving Plex because it's subscribeware, Emby is also subscribeware.
Its quite annoying how licensing is tied to devices. I can't even sign in after reinstalling my OS.
- Interesting. Thanks for the warning I’ll make note of this one
I like Emby a lot. It's my backup for Plex. I even give them money as development isn't free (frequently)

I've said it for years that Plex is shit because of their license and the fact that you have no control everyone said no it's fine it's my media fucking look at it now

Why would anyone even used Plex since we have jellyfin?

For working subtitles
- Jellyfin subtitles now work flawlessly and you can finally select colors compatible with HDR.
  Migrated to Jellyfin a few months ago and I haven't looked back.
It was there first and you can share it with friends more easily. For Plex you just register with the central server and share your username with your friends or w/e. Jellyfin has nothing like that.
- And now, that feature costs $240. Suddenly, jumping through hoops to configure Jellyfin's external SSO plugin becomes a lot more rewarding.
Plexamp is (or at least was) pretty awesome. It requires plex and plex pass for its full features. Jellyfin doesn't have anything remotely comparable (though you could always just run Lyrion).
- Have you tried Symfonium? I liked Plexamp too, but I think Symfonium is even better, and it's compatible with just about any music server.
- Was does it do better than say 'Symfonium'?
the PS4/PS5 app was one of my deciding factors when I used it

So I have a lifetime Plex pass, but my friend (who is remote) does not. Does this change mean they have the have a Plex pass to connect to my device remotely?

Edit: thanks for the info! After I posted I continued reading and realized that question was already answered! Appreciate the help!

Option 1: Remote playback with a Plex Pass
Upgrading to any Plex Pass subscription is a great option for server owners, as it ensures all users accessing the Plex Media Server can stream remotely, without an additional charge. Even if you don’t run your own Plex Media Server, a Plex Pass subscription will not only allow you to stream remotely from any server to which you have access, but also lets you make use of other Plex Pass functionality like Skip Intro and Skip Credits.
From reading the article, sounds like you're situation won't change.
No. You're good.
From what I saw, they will be able to remotely stream from your PMS (if you don’t have Plex Pass) for a fee of $2/month or $20/year.

I used to use Plex, then one day my internet was down and since Plex couldn't phone home, it wouldn't let me log in to watch media ON MY LAN.

So yeah it's inherently broken. That's before you even consider the licensing.

Why would you expect this to NOT be paid? It requires them to be running servers to stream the media through, I wouldn't expect this to be a free feature.

I dislike Plex for several reasons, but asking for payment for stuff that costs them money is completely justified.

If I didn't already have my lifetime pass, I'd use Jellyfin as my primary media server platform instead of Plex.

One of these days though, I'm sure Plex will make a mistake serious enough that it impacts me, and I'll end up switching to Jellyfin as my main media server platform.

I'm in the exact same boat. I have a Jellyfin server configured and ready to go whenever something happens to really piss me off. This nearly was it until I saw that my lifetime Plex pass I bought 10 years ago will make it still be free for my family.

I dumped Plex years ago even though I paid for it. Too many issues with it. Constantly losing movie folders, unable to stream to the device I wanted to watch on, wrong codec, wrong sound, etc, etc. I gave up. I’m sure it worked fine for most, but it got to be a pain. Switched to Jellyfin and a DDNS address and have had zero problems since. And it’s free.

With Plex every time I try to sync new content I put in the folders it says I'm unauthorized and have to close the server and reopen it.
Haven't bothered to trouble shoot it yet as it's annoying but not annoying enough.

I absolutely love that Emby is such a third thought that they don’t even get a mention anymore. They fucked their loyal users over so much that they don’t even get mentioned anymore. Can’t wait for plex to suffer the same fate

Man, my Jellyfin subscription just rose in price too.

/s

What a load of BS.

If it costs them money to run it, it makes sense?

Yeah this seems fine; if they're proxying the stream through their server it's using their bandwidth which costs them money. It doesn't make sense for them to not charge for it.
- Why are they proxying the stream through their server though

" When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge"

So as a plex pass holder it shouldn't affect any of my (current?) users? Am I reading this right?

edit: Seems I'm good.

I had my pitchfork out and ticket to Jellyfinville in-hand. I read the blog post and saw this myself. I'm wondering if it's a matter of time before they want to screw over my family though
- You wonder? What else is going to happen, it now stays the same forever? Just a question of when.

A big part of the appeal with Plex is that you can run a server and friends can sign up for a FREE account and stream remotely. When you take this away, you're going to just kneecap the whole offering. This is such an arrogant move from Plex: they are thinking that when this change goes live they will get a flood of subscriptions. The more likely outcome is they will get a few subscriptions and a lot more angry and frustrated people that walk away.

"A subscription"

Its the same Plex pass subscription for people who don't want to read a clickbait article.

That is not really covering the topic for everyone, this only covers the article for ppl who are paying already for the pass.
Not seeing how this is clickbait. The title sums it up on point.
- "a subscription" is ambiguous as to whether it's being locked behind the existing Plex Pass or some new/additional subscription model. The title could have more accurately stated that remote streaming is becoming a Plex Pass feature. As is, Plex Pass users (many of whom bought the lifetime pass years ago,) can't tell from the title whether this is a new subscription cost or if they're completely unaffected.
  "Clickbait" might be a little harsh, but I get where they're coming from.
- Everything is clickbait, everything and everyone sucks, etc. To a large number of people here.
- they could have very easily put "plex pass" in the title, or "paid feature". It's clickbait because it's clearly intentionally designed to be misleading so you have to click on the article to find the actual information.

Dammit, my friend just said he would give me access to his file server, all I have to do is install Plex. Presumably this announcement means that will become impossible without a subscription.

I don't really have a problem with this. I paid for a lifetime quite a long time ago. Right now I only use Plex for plexamp and everything else is on jellyfin.

Is finamp at a point that it can replace plexamp yet?

Huh, I was somewhat excited about the elimination of the playback limit for mobile apps (we are in 2025 ffs!) and then re-read that this will be only applicable for the subpar preview version once it is released... Which doesn't fucking has the watch together feature lmao.

The only good news in a nutshell is that I am still a Plex Pass Lifetime User, so in a nutshell I don't get good news lol.

I’m inferring from the language of the post that OP is against this policy change, but I’m not sure I follow the argument. Why is it problematic that Plex is asking for money?

Not OP but nobody likes price hikes and locking once-free features behind a paywall without adding anything to the features is pretty wack

Can't wait to see a 40 minutes rant on LTT where he will feel betrayed and teach everyone how to use jellyfin

On one hand, it looks like this only applies to streaming from a remote server where neither the server owner or the user has Plex pass, so lifetime holders or committed server operators with a subscription can continue to provide access to all our non paying friends. It isn't explicit whether non-paying users people who port forward / do reverse proxying themselves are affected but it sounds like they are, which is utter BS since direct connections hardly cost Plex anything.

It is however nice that they're trading this for getting rid of the mobile unlock BS - it was always awkward explaining to friends that they could watch anywhere except on their phone unless they paid $5.

On the other hand, one notable side effect is that all non-lan streaming will now be associated with a paying server owner or a paying user, which makes it impossible to use Plex to share pirated media without a user on either end giving up PII / payment information. I have a gut feeling that this is an extension of the previous piracy crackdown on OVH(?) hosted servers meant to ensure they have the identity of all users who may be engaged in selling access.

Overall, yeah another reason to move to JF. I paid for lifetime more than a decade ago so I'm going to keep using Plex until my non-paying friends start to have issues, but I really hope this pushes more investment into JF apps. I really need a good android TV app that supports server transcoding (IIUC findroid's beta TV builds are direct stream only).

Just saying...

Any Kodi users here?

I've been using Kodi to pull movies from my NAS for years.

As someone looking to get into self hosting and was researching plex. What’s been the experience like using jellyfish with non techy people? This is mainly something I want to set up for my parents

Why do you need to explain to your family and friends how to switch to Jellyfin, if you have a lifetime pass and therefore aren't impacted at all by this announcement?
Anyone know if they're referring to Plex "Home" users or anyone you've granted access to here? I used to just hand out my credentials with my admin account pass code protected but now I make people create their own accounts and just grant them access.
If you have plex pass lifetime already, your family can still streams fully from your server. Nothing changes here.

Well that's the beginning of the end for them.

I'm about half-way off the platform already (and I'm a lifetime subscriber)

The only thing I go back for is Roku use (better app), PlexAmp (better app) and offline viewing. I don't have to go off JF for those, but it's a lot better on Plex.

But it's not so much better than I can't protest.

I used Plexamp before and found the switch to Finamp pretty painless. Can't speak for other music apps though.
- Finamp lets you listen to music and add songs to a playlist.
  I'm missing the crossfade tracks option massively.
  I'm missing the AI DJ's, but i could let them go in the name of privacy.
  I kinda miss the visualization.
  I really miss Plex's free SSL, server locator and user management.

So I have a lifetime pass. But my family members have their own accounts. Will they be able to watch from their house to my server now or will they need to pay? Cause if that’s so guess I’m switching to jellyfin and teaching them how to work it.

To stream remotely starting on April 29, 2025, you will need a Remote Watch Pass or Plex Pass subscription on your account or the admin of the Plex Media Server from which you stream will need a Plex Pass subscription on their account.
Everyone using your server should be fine.
Yea, no change for lifetime pass holders. Anyone connecting in remotely can still stream like normal.

This sucks ass. I'm a lifetime Plex Pass holder, so this doesn't affect me yet, but who's to say they won't fuck over lifetime users sooner rather than later?

Honestly, this made me consider setting up Jellyfin. What the fuck?

Would Tailscale/ZeroTier work as a workaround for this or do you think Plex would also put that behind a paywall?

Tailscale would definitely work for this as long as you use your home network as an exit node

If the server you are stealing movies from has a pass you still don't need to pay

They could have worded this better

Jellyfin FTW!

Bro what

Jellyfin needs to partner with someone people can pay a very low and reasonable and/or one-time fee to enable remote streaming without the fuss of setting up either dangerous port-forwarding or the complexity of reverse proxies (paying for a domain-name, the set-up itself including certificates, keeping it updated for security purposes).

And no a VPN is not a solution, the difficulty for non-technical users in setting up a VPN (if it's even possible, on smart-tvs it's almost always not, and I don't think devices like AppleTV and other streaming boxes often support them) is too high and it's an unwanted annoyance even for technical users.

I'm not talking about streaming video's through someone else's servers or using their bandwidth. I'm talking about the connection phase of clients and servers where Plex acts like an enhanced dynamic DNS service with authentication. They have an agent on the local media server which sends to the remote web service of the third party the IP address, the port configured for use, the account or server name, etc. When a client tries to connect they go to this remote web service with the servername/username info, the web service authenticates them then gives them the current IP address and any other information necessary. It then sends some data to the local Jellyfin server about the connecting client to enable that connection and then the local media Jellyfin server and the client talk directly and stream directly.

Importantly the cost of running this authentication and IP address tracking scheme would be minimal per Jellyfin server. You could charge $5/year for up to 20 unique remote clients and come out ahead with a slight profit which could be put back into Jellyfin development and things like their own hosting costs for code, etc. Even better if they offer lifetime for this at $60-$80 they'd get a decent chunk of cash up-front to use for development (with reasonable use restrictions per account so someone hosting stuff in Hetzner or whatever and serving 300 people with 400 devices will need to pay more because they're clearly doing this for profit and can afford to throw some more money at Jellyfin).

Until Jellyfin offers something that JUST WORKS like that it's not going to be a replacement for Plex, whatever other improvements they offer to users it's still a burden for the server runner to set up remote streaming in a way that isn't either incredibly dangerous (port forwarding) OR either involves paying money to third parties AND/OR the trouble of running your own reverse proxy and/or involves walking users through complicated set-up process for each device that you have to repeat if you change anything major like your domain name when using a VPN.

Umm AppleTV has a Tailscale app and it's dead simple to set up, so I would argue that it is a solution.
- That's what I do. Jellyfin + Tailscale + Apple TV box. It works like a charm.
Authelia maybe?
- Interesting project. Thanks for the link and I do appreciate it and could see some very good uses for that but it's not quite what I meant.
  Unfortunately as it notes it works as a companion for reverse proxies so it doesn't solve the big hurdle there which is handling secure and working flow (specifically ingress) of Jellyfin traffic into a network as a turn-key solution. All this does is change the authorization mechanism but my users don't have an issue with writing down passwords and emails. Still leaves the burden of:
  choosing and setting up the reverse proxy,
  certificates for that,
  paying for a domain so I can properly use certificates for encryption,
  making sure that works,
  chore of updating the reverse proxy, refreshing certs (and it breaking if we forget or the process fails), etc
  Which is a hassle and a half for technically proficient users and the point that most other people would give up.
  By contrast with Plex how many steps are there?
  Install (going to skip media library setup as Jellyfin requires that too so it's assumed)
  Set up any port settings, open any relevant ports on firewall, enable remote access in setting with a tickbox
  Set up users
  Done, it now works and doesn't need to be touched. It will handle connecting clients directly to the server. Users just need to install Plex client, login to their account and they have access.
  By contrast this still requires the hoster set up a reverse proxy (major hassle if done securely with certificates as well as an expense for a domain which works out to probably $5 a year), to then have their users point their jellyfin at a domain-name (possibly a hard to remember one as majesticstuffbox[.]xyz is a lot cheaper than the dot com/org/net equivalents or a shorter domain that's more to the point), auth and so on. It's many, many, many more steps and software and configurations and chances for the hosting party to mess something up.
  My point was I and many others would rather take the $5 we'd spend a year on a domain name and pay it for this kind of turn-key solution for ourselves and our users even if provided by a third party but that were Jellyfin to integrate this as an option it could provide some revenue for them and get the kinds of people who don't want to mess with reverse proxies and certificates into their ecosystem and off Plex.

Plex borking itself a year ago for me is the best thing that could've happened. Long live jellyfin

I really need to stop being lazy and swap to Jellyfin....

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CURRENT PLEX PASS HOLDERS:
\ For users who have an active Plex Pass subscription, remote playback will continue to be available to you without interruption from any Plex Media Server, after these changes go into effect. When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge—not even a mobile activation fee. More on that later in this update.

I was worrying about this change because my Plex server provides free streaming for several of my friends and family and I didn't want them to have to start paying for it. The whole point was to get them away from Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc.

But this sounds like, since I'm already a Plex Pass subscriber, my remote viewers will still be able to access my stuff for free. Do I have that right? Because if so, this change is just business as usual for me.

I don’t like it, but it’s a pragmatic decision.

Hosting for a simple website can be as little as a few bucks a month. That’s easy for any project to absorb, even if they are open-source with no one pulling a paycheque.

Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.

That isn’t easy to absorb, even for a for-profit company with clearly-defined revenue streams.

Some people want everything for free, but free doesn’t pay the bills.

Full disclosure: I don’t use the streaming feature. I prefer to grab actual copies to drop onto my NAS. I also don’t share to friends and family, as I am the only one I know of who uses Plex.

Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.
Are you under the impression that Plex uploads the movie files to their servers and then transcodes them there, or something?
And the hard work happens on your own hardware. All Plex's servers are doing is acting as a signaling server, but no media or routed through Plex's servers.
- It depends on if you use the "relay" feature. If your server is accessible from the outside it shouldn't be using this though.
- Plex actually does have streaming services. The ones we've never asked for. And live tv.
All those resources and costs are borne by the person hosting the video, NOT Plex.
they need none of that stuff. It's your own pc that handles the heavy stuff. From their end, the only point is to allow you to stream videos from behind one or more NATs
That high performance, high bandwidth streaming machine is in my house, not Plex's, though. I already pay for the maintenence, power and the bandwidth of that machine, not Plex.
The thing that's going to be locked behind the subscription is your ability to watch those files on your NAS through Plex when you're not in the same network as the Plex server. That's streaming.
If you only use Plex while at home, you will indeed be unaffected

And that’s why open source is best.

Universal media server works for me. I run it headless on a small instance. Streams my movies and music just fine.

If you are currently a Plex user i highly suggest at least putting together an exit strategy. I am in the process of it but it's rough. In fact, i think Plex might be the last thing i replace with a FOSS solution.

Hypothetically, if I have tailscale setup, would that be a viable workaround since everything looks local on my tailnet?

100%. This is just due to the cost of hitting their servers in case you can't reach your network

If you want to keep using plex and remote it’s important to you, they usually have pretty good deals on pass from time to time. I don’t regret my lifetime pass - I still feel like it’s a pretty solid app and service all things considered- but if I didn’t have the pass already I would be a bit pissed as well ngl.

I still use Plex because they offer the product I bought, an easy way to stream content on my devices. Others have technical or philosophical issues, which I totally understand. Plex is the easiest option for my situation as of now. It is working great for me and my family.
Nothing lasts forever so it's good to realistic about the future. If I start having technical issues, it's Jellyfin. If Plex doubles down on subscriptions, it's Jellyfin.
If you're like me, a lifetime Plex Pass holder, I would experiment with Nginx Reverse Proxy now so you understand how it works. I have Overseerr running through a reverse proxy now.
I think it's a matter of when, not if, Plex will make a business decision that pushes me off their platform. It's a company focused on profit and that's fine. And it would be good to be prepared for the future.

I never got the appeal of plex. I've been using Serviio back in the day and it was free, open source and did what I needed it to, which is play a video on tv, that's it.

Plex wanted me to purchase subscription years ago and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out how to set it up for free.

I've been using stremio for a few years now but i think it's closing in on the EOL as well, so i might go back to serviio and kodi one of these days. Just need a good NAS that could run a streaming server as well. Don't want to keep my gaming rig on at all times just to watch movies.

remote streaming rarely works for me so I won't be losing anything.

I thought that was already true

So then Photoprism is going to lock my photos and ask my mom for money to see them?

Its selfhosting, not freehosting for yet another asshole company.

Well that's disappointing

Wait why did in think this was already the case?

I'm pretty sure what was already the case was that you needed Plex pass to use the Plex hosted relay for when port forwarding failed when behind Nat. This seems to apply to all remote streaming, including when you're directly connected through port forwarding or a reverse proxy and not costing Plex anything to transfer your traffic.

I still remember sticking files on an apache server and openly sharing that with friends. Not had a need to do that lately but I can always start doing it again if necessary.

Glad I went Emby.

Would this affect self hosters?

Never used it. Started with Kodi and moved to Jellyfin when I learned of it forking from Emby.

Well that fuckin sucks dick.

Fuck this. What the absolute fuck lmao they just decided to kneecap their entire business model.

I was even going to get a lifetime subscription later this year when they usually put the price down. Not anymore

So it looks like the server will need plex pass in order to stream to users, or the user can pay about $2/mo to stream from servers without plex pass. I feel like this is fine, doesn't really come across as greedy or egregious.

I've set up plex, overseer, sonaar, and radaar in such a way that my family and friends can request and watch videos on my server. I use plex because it's the easiest for my less than tech savvy family to use, as it's just an app on their TV.

I have never paid a cent for Plex while Plex has allowed me and my family to save hundreds in subscription fees, so I'm feeling rather ambivalent about this new requirement for me to get plex pass in order to stream to the small horde of people I serve. I was considering getting plex pass to unlock hardware acceleration for transcoding anyway.

I've considered Jellyfin, but plex has a ton of features that allow for scripting that keeps me from having to manually do maintenance. Not to mention how hard it would be to get people like my father to use Jellyfin on his TV, last I checked there isn't even TV app available for most platforms.

If this is enough to push you away from Plex but you’ve tried Jellyfin and it didn’t quite do it for you, try https://emby.media/

It is the software Jellyfin is forked from and bridges the gap between the freedom of Jellyfin and the polished look and function of Plex.

I went from Emby to Jellyfin as they started their enshittification journey. I don't really notice it being less polished.
- I’m not aware of any enshittification with Emby, unless you know something I don’t. Emby sort of “just works” which is why it’s a more direct replacement to Plex than Jellyfin is.
  As for Jellyfin, I check in on it every now and then and they’ve made a lot of progress but the features and polish aren’t there. I hear good things about the Jellyfin web component, butif you want a good experience with Jellyfin apps on mobile or whatever TVOS you’re running, you have to use third party apps because the official ones are still woefully barebones. I still hear a lot of griping about issues with subtitles, and HEVC playback.
  Did Jellyfin ever even figure out proper Intro Skip? That was a big pain point for me for the longest time, as the only way to accomplish it was a third party plugin and the only option was to skip all intros, you didn’t get a button. I remember reading somewhere they added some kind of framework that would allow proper intro skipping going forward, but that the official function was not ready.
Absolutely not, fuck Emby with a branding iron, they're far shittier than Plex's decisions.
At least Plex started out as a for-profit company and has never misrepresented themselves as anything but. Unlike Emby.
- fuck Emby with a branding iron
- Nah, as far as I’m aware Emby hasn’t started their own streaming service and pivoted away from their self-hosted oriented position, or shoving a bunch of bloat into their server software. They haven’t shoehorned a bunch of unwanted social features into it either. If you were fine paying for Plex five years ago, you’ll be fine with Emby.
How is the general perception of emby? They're closed source and US based.
- They're not just closed source, they started as the open source project response to Plex. It was promised that they would be open source forever. They lied, slammed the source door shut a few years later and pivoted to a paywall.
  There was no discussion with the community or contributors, no alternatives explored, no surveys or polls.
  Just a "Sorry we're going closed source" blog post, Jellyfin was forked from them in vengeance.
- Emby remains in the position Plex used to, pre-enshittification. They’re closed source and have a PlexPass style license, but if you miss the value you got with old-Plex, Emby fills that spot.
  For context, Emby used to be open sourced but offered the Emby Premiere subscription for some added features, and the open source half allowed people to just bypass the paywall, so they closed sourced it. Jellyfin is a Fork of Emby pre-closed sourcing.

I'm seeing a lot of negativity but I think they offer a great service and deserve to be paid for their work. I bought a lifetime pass many years ago and I almost feel guilty how much value I have received over that time.

You need an internet connection to connect to a offline LAN Plex server... Just so unessessery, otherwise it doesn't find your server (I was quite confused on that one, when that started happening) Plus having to pay for multiple user accounts, all just seemed like it was heading towards user extortion. It also lacked hardware transcoding at that point in time, which isn't a huge issue, but did make it harder to run if you had a client that didn't support a specific codec.
While jellyfin requires zero internet to be functional and login, supported hardware transcoding before plex and has multiple user accounts usage out of the box, at zero cost.
- You need an internet connection to connect to a offline LAN Plex server
  Not true.
ur getting what u paid for, why the guilt
- I feel like I'm getting more than what I paid for. I understand it was a legal contractual exchange. I'm merely commenting on the value I've received relative to what I paid. Especially given the continued improvements over time.

Seems reasonable. I'm a lifetime Plex pass holder, so it won't affect me or the one person I let access my server lol

Isn't enby closed source? Thats why Jellfyfin was created.
- Not JUST closed source, the project owner slammed the source shut with no discussion with the community and little notice nor did they even bother to consider any alternatives whatsoever
  They went about it in the shittiest most unforgivable way possible for an open source project.
- As far as I know emby is a jellyfin fork that I think they took closed source? I also went the emby route after getting annoyed at how much Plex was pushing their own content. Emby felt more polished to me than jellyfin, I get that there is some community resentment over some of their decisions but so far I haven't had any regrets and have more control than with Plex.
How is that any different from Plex? Other than presumably a worse experience.