Submitted 2 weeks ago by otters_raft@lemmy.ca [bot] to selfhosted@lemmy.world
Plex is starting to enforce its new rules, which prevent users from remotely accessing a personal media server without a subscription fee.
If anyone needs it: jellyfin.org
To anyone saying they’re happy since they already have a lifetime Plex pass, do you really think they won’t come for you too?
I paid 79€ almost a decade ago. I got more than my moneys worth. Even the current lifetime (on sale) is less than a year of Netflix. More expensive than piracy + Jellyfin ofc if that’s your benchmark 😀
I have a Jellyfin instance running anyway, I’ll switch to that if Plex enshittifies.
if Plex enshittifies.
Anyone want to break the news?
This is a "slippery slope’ argument and thus a fallacy.
Let users decide how they want to run their own stuff. Right now if you have Plex pass this isn’t an issue. If it becomes an issue, then you’re in the exact same position you’d be in today if you decided to move away from Plex now.
I moved away from Plex years ago, but I don’t blame users for sticking with it, it still has a lot of advantages over jellyfin.
If it becomes an issue, then you’re in the exact same position you’d be in today if you decided to move away from Plex now.
I disagree. Right now you got time to do the research, plan the move and test it out with a demo setup. You do not know if you got the time if Plex decides to screw their lifetime users.
Yes this is hypothetical.
Introducing “Plex pass plus”! With no advertisements!
Bought a lifetime pass, switched to Jellyfin after way too much Tidal promotion on my server.
But they haven’t yet
Have the lifetime since like 2012, every time a post like this surfaces I wonder if the contents of it are finally going to force my hand to use jellyfin instead
Oh I’m fully aware I’m just to lazy to set up jellyfin and navidrome quite yet.
Enshittification intensifies
Imagine hosting a software on your own hardware and still choosing the one that makes you dependent on the whims of a corporation lmao
When I first set up my server this year it was a VERY easy decision between this and jellyfin. Why would I ever go with the corporate, closed source option?
In my case, I was not able to make jellyfin work: transcoding issues, lagging, client disconnection or unresponsive… Plex worked flawlessly out of the box with the same hardware and the same library.
From time to time I try Jellyfin again, but things never change …
*only for external streaming.
You can cut it off from the internet and stream in your house locally for free still.
Anybody still using Plex kind of deserves what they get at this point. They’ve been announcing these anti-consumer “features” for a while now.
Two years ago, when I found out that you need damn subscription, to watch stuff with transcoding (I believe it was for transcoding per se, not for watching itself), I complained on reddit and a lot of people was disagree with me for harsh position.
They_got_what they_focking_deserve.png
People don’t deserve to be mistreated but it is surprising that folks haven’t abandoned it if they’re so actively anti consumer.
I kind of understand why someone would honestly. Jellyfin subtitles are still a hot mess for a lot of formats unfortunately. Also, while plex has tried really hard to ruin their UI, I’ve still had more trouble explaining where to find things in Jellyfin. And if you’re sharing your collection with friends or family members there’s a lot more technical stuff involved.
So I can see why the balance might still tip toward paying plex still for some people.
Luckily I bought a lifetime license ages ago before the first price hike so this doesn’t affect me yet. So I’m just riding out the decline, running them in parallel until plex completely breaks. slowly transitioning the family as they get annoyed with broken features. Plexamp is quickly taking care of that 😅
The alternatives are not as easy use
Am I the only one who thinks jellyfin is not only superior to pure, but also way more intuitive to setup? I still don’t understand how plexs routing works, and why I need a central account in order to connect to my own server.
Is it more intuitive to set up for remote streaming to friends…? That’s the use case here and as far as I know the answer is a big “no”.
Probably not the only one, but configuring your server for outside access is way easier with Plex.
Since I mainly use these services for streaming my music collection (long time cd collector), I declare that Plexamp is simply superior to jellyfin. It is really awesome and feature-rich and jellyfin does not even come close to Plexamp regarding music in my opinion. There is Navidrome etc.
Love jellyfin, super easy to install on my proxmox server. Its been running for nearly a year now, no problems. ❤️
took all of 5 minutes to convert plex-on-pi to jellyfin-on-pi. Probably harder to rename the host than install… fstab’s already set up and errything
Plex is not free. Plex is paid software, just like Google Photos or iCloud. The only free software is open source. Open source everything. Doesn’t matter if the client is open source. If the server isn’t, it’s not open source. (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, SNAP!)
Unfortunately this idea that open source is free is a bit toxic in a way. It’s definitely not free to make, it takes years of dev time, and sure, those people often do without any compensation. And therein lies the problem. People here bitching about jellyfin not doing x or y, but doing nothing to support full time development of it’s creation, then shitting on the devs for not having a perfect product, leads to good devs leaving OSS behind.
Lol, guess who just made themselves a target. They are now profiting directly on people who stream content they don’t own from other people’s servers. Plex is going to go down when Hollywood sues them.
I believe if the server hosting the content has a plex pass then end users are allowed to stream from it without any additional subscription or membership. At least that is how it was several months ago when they announced this.
But you are right, even with the above being true, there will still be a non-insignificant portion of users paying to stream from servers.
Jellyfin users, how is the transcoding situation? I have a mix of AV1 and H265 and I need to get smooth playback to my living room Apple TV for families’ sake.
Bought a lifetime Plex pass a few years ago so this doesn’t affect me. It’s honestly worth the cost especially over time.
I’ve never used jellyfin, but do they also host proxy servers? AFAIK plex does and its costing them money, hence the need for paywalling this. You can still use tailscale and reverse proxy to allow remote streaming
The only reason I went with plex was easy remote access. Now with the state on reverse proxies and tailscale tunnels we happily ditched it.
I never shared my server anyway, but a lot of the other design decisions they’ve made over the last couple years drove me to Jellyfin. My issue though is I cannot figure out how to set it up properly like I had Plex setup with genres, sort by added to server, lists, etc. I can’t tell if I’m missing something obvious, or Jellyfin just lacks those features and I need to get a plugin or something. Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just hoping someone has experienced similar and might point me in the right direction.
Good luck setting up remote streaming with Jellyfin.
Tbf Plex lifetime is often on sale and relatively cheap. For me Plex is a paid Software the free part was always more of a demo.
Any recommendations for Linux distros for a Jellyfin server?
Welcome to JF
I ultimately want to ditch Plex, but as an existing lifetime member, it currently handles everything so smoothly for my users that I don’t see enough benefits in switching. Particularly on the music streaming side (PlexAmp), I think the experience is the most polished one I’ve seen.
My hope is that by the time the lifetime Plex Pass experience has become enshittified, Jellyfin will be more ready than it is today, and I’ll make a switch then.
Longterm MythTv user here, watching the discussions
🍿
(looks up from his floaty chair in his Jellyfin pool while sipping his fruity bittorrent cocktail) C’MON IN FOLKS THE WATER’S FINE!
Years ago I decided to go with Emby over Plex only because at the time plex didnt support kodi integration and I enjoyed using that at the time for my front-end user experience. Within 6 months they started supporting it and I was upset since I did want to go with plex. Lately I feel like I made the perfect decision. It’s gotta be close to 10 years now and I paid one $100 lifetime fee for Emby and still use it everyday along with some family and friends I gave access to. Also gotta remember I dont believe jellyfin was even an option at that time. I tried it not to long ago and although it was fine, I actually think I liked emby a little more.
As for the remote access, how do they block it? Do they not allow you to setup your own remote connection that does not involve plex? Thats how I do it, I do not use emby connect to make it easier to go through them I just setup my own domain, use ddns, and configure the ports I want exposed and thats it. If plex doesnt allow that then thats already crazy, if they do and even thats now blocked then thats even crazier.
Emby may be simpler, and i heard about plex having a music AI feature that I was actually jealous of, but overall it just works and not paying anything in forever will always be my preferred method over awful monthly subscriptions anyday.
Imagine, you software get massively used for piracy, and then you decide to ask for licence for the use of thir software, host on server you do not control. I suspect this will not be result they expected
can’t wait for this to start. then maybe I won’t have to hear about it from the jellyfin shills every week.
Imagine being so addicted to having every nanosecond of your waking life filled with noise and colors that this announcement means anything.
Can I avoid updating to a version to avoid this enforcement?
I just wish Plex on my TV didn’t have this bug where it can’t play the correct audio track when Direct Play is enabled. So annoying.
Are there legal ways today to have your own media server serving new TV shows? I see the point if you’re sailing the high seas, but curios if there’s other uses for one (for videos)
BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Why would anyone use Plex over jellyfin anyway? The writing was on the wall years ago.
kindred@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I set up Plex on my mum’s TV and she can just push play. The UI is intuitive (read: familiar) to her.
Jellyfin has a reputation for giving users more control and customizability, but the other side of that coin is that it’s more “fiddly”.
My users don’t want to fiddle.
tehmics@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s the opposite of my experience. Jellyfin just works and immediately exposes the content we’re looking for, plex tries overloading you with bullshit and burying your actual content
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
I set up Jellyfin on my mother-in-law’s TV, it’s just push play.
My mum has an Apple TV (the device, not the subscription) and on there she uses swiftfin. The only issue has been sound not working on certain audio tracks on certain movies, but in general it is easy for anyone.
Both are very familiar interfaces for anyone used to playing something from a streaming service.
IdleSheep@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
This is legit the opposite of my experience. I am a relatively tech savvy user, I like to fiddle with all the settings and an ugly UI doesn’t inherently deter me as long as the experience is good, so when I first installed jellyfin I was ready to have a clunky experience fighting the UI.
Despite that, I was legitimately surprised at how Jellyfin was far less confusing for me to use out of the box than plex ever was. I found Plex’s UI very confusing to navigate on my TV and my family did not like using it either. In Jellyfin all the content is just there and very easily categorized.
It made me wonder why anyone would use plex.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I never really understood intuitive as a description for user interfaces. I remember back when opinion articles on Tech news websites would use that term to mean it “looks and functions exactly like Windows XP”
theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Because I don’t have to learn about things like proxies to try and open the service up outside my network in a secure manner or try to explain to family they need to run tailscale at the same time and then inevitably have to provide tech support for another aspect of “why is this not working?”
I just check allow remote access and it just works and I can go about my day doing things I enjoy more because fucking about with Linux and providing tech support are pretty low on that list for me :)
AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Same. For whatever reason Jellyfin just does not want to work outside of my network. I have fiddled with port numbers, settings, and everything else. I have no idea why it won’t work.
chonkyninja@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Should I begin telling you about the wonderful man in the middle attack that I reported to Plex over 3 years ago and how it’s still not fixed? Anyone can setup a plex instance and use that very instance to request an ssl certificate on behalf of any other plex instance, and then setup shop and gain complete access to your machine.
hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Sounds like a skill issue.
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
What?! Why don’t you have to do those things with Plex?
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I can’t wait till meshvpn technology becomes so common that we forget what life is like without it. Tailscale is awesome but it is just the beginning
Mondez@lemdro.id 2 weeks ago
Why bother self hosting at all then? Paying somone else to do it for you and the deal constantly getting altered is pretty what you signed up for.
ccunning@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m ready to replace plex but unless something major has changed in the last several months I simply can’t understand how people feel jellyfin is a comparable solution to plex. I couldn’t even get past the user interface and it falling flat on its face with media recognition.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Jellyfin is the solution if you have a media file on your computer and you want to stream it to your TV in a different room and Bare Bones works fine. It serves my use cases for a lot of things pretty well, but for hardcore self-hosted streaming Plex still has more features and polish
StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Might want to take another look at Jellyfin. My experience has been that as long as the video file s are at least somewhat reasonably named and organized, Jellyfin has no problems identifying a file and looking up its metadata.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
I dunno what you were doing wrong, but Jellyfin is a strong alternative to Plex that has feature parity. The only reason to use Plex over Jellyfin is if you want the streaming channels Plex has. Especially since many of the features Plex has are locked behind a paywall, whereas on Jellyfin they are free.
Evotech@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Looks fine to me, I replaced plex like 3-4 months ago
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
There are custom themes out there that change the interface.
Right click -> identify-> Title name, has yet to fail me.
Its been a long time since i used plex so I can’t say how much “easier” its over there but compared to the days before streaming this little upfront work takes less time then going to a physical store to rent.
Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
You need to properly name your media with a proper scheme (include tmdbid/imdbid).
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Plex is more polished, jellyfin is basically functional but we use Plex in our household because we watch movies all the time. I have my own personal jellyfin server on an old computer
amateurcrastinator@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
How much more polish you need to watch a movie? Jellyfin has everything you need. I keep seeing these discussions and for the life of me I cannot figure out what is missing from jellyfin that people use Plex after all they have been doing for years
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I switched from a heavily used Plex server with about 10 users to Jellyfin with the samw usage patterns abour half a year ago. So far it’s been pretty smooth sailing. A better world is possible!
Mondez@lemdro.id 2 weeks ago
I don’t think it is that is more polished, it’s just you pay for them to do the stuff you need to do yourself with reverse proxying, opening ports, securing stuff. This is only an issue if you are sharing outside your network of course.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Jellyfin is notoriously full of security holes. It’s recommended to no expose it to the Internet. It’s also easy easier on Plex, at least until this bullshit, to have a random non-techie family member sign in to your Plex server from anywhere. I never liked Plex and never got into it, but I see why people used to prefer it.
I think Emby is a good middle ground for people looking to jump ship from Plex. But I switched to jellyfin from my lifetime Emby sub because the plug-in community there feels dead and Emby development felt dead in the water.
tyler@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Please do explain or link sources to what you think are “security holes”.
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
Plex still has the most fully-featured music streaming app (Plexamp)
Pechente@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
There are plenty of good Jellyfin players too. I‘m currently using Discrete and I‘m quite happy with it.
Son_of_Macha@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
Also Audiobook apps don’t really exist for Jellyfin.
criticon@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Can I install/use jellyfin directly on my tv? That’s the only think keeping me on pkex (I haven’t tried jellyfin but I’m open to other options)
Scrollone@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
It depends on the TV. They have official clients for Android TV, webOS and some more.
Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Depends on the TV. They have an official app on Android TVs, but I still happily use Chromecast for everything
sucius@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I have a kinda old but still working great 4k TV that is not supported so I use a fire tv dongle. No complaints so far. The same for other family members who have Android tv and webos
rdri@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Using jellyfin on Chromecast. For the past 3 weeks I’m stuck not being able to use it because some update broke subtitles support for external players. App became useless, I can’t downgrade it, and the bug is still not fixed.
shishka_b0b@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I haven’t had any problems with subtitles. You mind linking the issue report you’re referring to?
Damarus@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Works great to me, I pay nothing, why would I change that?
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I am buying a old computer to setup a jellyfin server. It looks simple enough for me.
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Setting up Jellyfin as a local media server is very simple. Setting it up with easy access for remote friends and family is a hassle.
DancingTable@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Skip intro on Apple TV not working on Jellyfin is probably the #1 reason I do not use it.
When tvOS 26.2 comes out I will tentatively test Jellyfin + Infuse, but until then, Jellyfin is a non-starter for me.
But I use Emby over Plex so still not using Plex.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Shout to another Emby user!
PhAzE@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Because its more polished, has more options, and can be remotely shared with a simple account login and no configuration required. To name a few.