This is related because I'm exclusively interested in building a local-network-only media server to serve my firestick and a laptop, but are plex (nice interface, for some reason requires a sign-in to their service, some sort of paid features) or emby (similar) the only options?

If I for example wanted to just access my media library through firestick and windows with a kinda neat interface without paying anybody or making an account on a third party website, is there a solution?

I suppose I could just use VLC, which is fantastic software that isn't particularly beautiful and get used to it, but I'd like a somewhat more "netflix-style" interface for navigating my content within a single rpi server on my network.