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.
Comment on Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April
Wobble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months agoHow is the general perception of emby? They’re closed source and US based.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 months ago
cm0002@lemmy.world 3 months ago
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.
You should not be recommending them at all for any reason for that. I was there and saw the shit that went down over it.
Emby should be considered a no-go for all purposes.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Oh no I’d absolutely recommend it for anybody switching from Plex. Anybody who liked Plex and the state it was in pre-enshittification will obviously have no qualms with a proprietary solution. If FOSS is your end goal then you’d have a better argument, but Plex refugees are for obvious reasons not a part of that demographic.
Emby is a great product that “Just works” in the same way Plex used to and for that purpose it is head and shoulders above Jellyfin even if it doesn’t have the benefit of being FOSS.
CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I have had both a Plex and Emby lifetime subscription since around 2018 and relied on Emby for quite a while during Plexs shenanigans 5-6 years ago but still think Plex and Jellyfin are the only true options. Emby is just an amalgamation of the worst qualities of Plex and Jellyfin. It “just works” as a media player in the same way that VLC “just works” but doesn’t offer a whole lot outside of that especially nothing that these other two don’t offer. Plex is the “polished but expensive and limited” solution and Jellyfin is the “free, some work required, and open” solution.
cm0002@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That’s just putting them on another enshitification train that just happens to be a couple stops back, but is still moving along.
How they went about going closed source was unforgivable and also means they will absolutely implement crappy enshitification type decisions in the future
cm0002@lemmy.world 3 months ago
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.
SirSamuel@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Well now I’ll like Jellyfin even harder