this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

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[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] cynser@feddit.nl 7 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I run both on the same media sources. Works great. Some movies even seem to buffer quicker via Jellyfin than Plex

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[–] TedZanzibar@feddit.uk 21 points 1 day ago (8 children)

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.

[–] brot@feddit.org 12 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

It was difficult to setup

I'm not really sure here - I just did the setup and you literally paste one command into your terminal. There you'll find the Jellyfin IP and port, visit it in a browser and you'll get a simple wizard which guides you into setting up your libraries. Which also is not complicated, you just select a folder where your stuff is?

[–] TedZanzibar@feddit.uk 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Libraries were simple enough, sure, but have you delved into the full settings? Trying to figure out the correct settings for QuickSync hardware acceleration was a mission in and of itself and there's very little guidance on what any of the options mean or do. I don't have the container running right now or I'd provide examples, but In Plex it's a single checkbox.

I'm sure Jellyfin will get there and it's a cool project, but it's fairly obvious that it's written by hobbyists, for hobbyists. Meanwhile Plex excels at just working straight out of the box.

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[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 4 points 21 hours ago

I have a lifetime Plex account but have not used it in two years. I use Jellyfin. Obviously opinions vary.

At home, I have FireTV and Roku devices. I stream remotely to iPhones and tablets using Twingate.

[–] Revilo62@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

That's how I'm feeling about all these "TImE FoR evErYoNE tO swITCh To JElLyfiN" comments. You mean the program that also doesn't support this functionality out of the box?

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[–] quack@lemmy.zip 38 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] Xartle@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 7 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

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.

[–] ifItWasUpToMe@lemmy.ca 4 points 21 hours ago

All it means is you can’t go through their servers. If you setup a different way to access your network (VPN) it’ll still work.

[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I think most people probably have a lifetime plex pass for their plex server, or they are using alternative servers.

Lifetime pass grants licenses to all clients, at least it used to unless this changes that.

My server has many users and nobody has paid anything aside from my original buy of $120 in 2019. So far that comes out to about $1.67/mo for unlimited users and unlimited updates.

I'm not saying I really like the updates though. I think they should have remained slim, but someone is trying to make more and more money by branching out into bullshit beyond private media serving. All that trash should be separate products that are divorced from the private media server / client product.

All this being said, check out Jellyfin, little reason to use plex over it for private media but it has some limitations if you need subtitles or cannot relocate file structures.

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[–] Presi300@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago (9 children)

How to kill a service speedrun any%

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[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

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.

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[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (11 children)

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")

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[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 37 points 1 day ago

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

[–] Uncut_Lemon@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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

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[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

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?

[–] nibble4bits@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 18 hours ago

Historically, that's how they usually rolled out features requiring a Plexpass - It usually depended on the server owner owning Plexpass. This move, however, makes me think they'll probably change that for shared to others via E-mail.

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[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

[–] LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Why is this getting upvoted? Plex isn't running a server. You are. Your computer and your media files are quite literally "the server" that is serving the files to you remotely. Plex is at best doing authentication.

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[–] nuko147@lemm.ee 21 points 1 day ago

Wait a moment. I always thought that Plex’s servers only facilitate authentication (to verify your account) and discovery (to help your device find your server). They do not handle the actual media data. And if there is no Direct Remote Access, Relay usage is capped at 1 minute per day for free users. This looks like a cash grab to me.

[–] couch1potato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago (19 children)

It doesn't require Plex servers, though. I do this on jellyfin for free.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Why do people use this when Jellyfin exists?

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 day ago (11 children)

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.

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[–] gdog05@lemmy.world 557 points 1 day ago (128 children)
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[–] jivandabeast@lemmy.browntown.dev 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (5 children)

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?

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[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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

[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 1 points 16 hours ago

I absolutely love that Emby is such a third thought that they don’t even get a mention anymore.

💯

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[–] b3an@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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?

[–] Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 21 hours ago

Yeah, they're even doing a revamp. Even though I still prefer navidrome.

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