What do you mean they’re moving toward trying to be a streaming service?
It’s now how a majority of users are using Plex as well.
> In 2023, Scott Hancock, Plex’s then-VP of marketing, said that Plex had more people using its online streaming service than using its media server features since 2022.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/plexs-crackdown-on-f...
With media servers being something studios surely don’t like, and Plex deprioritizing that aspect of the business, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they shut it down completely.
To even know they have a media server, I need to click on the profile image in the top right of their website (even though I’m logged out), then click “My Media” under Links. No one is finding that organically.
That goes here, which seems to be their only page about the media server, and at the bottom is a link to a site that tries to scare people away. Instead of talking about how to rip your existing DVD and CD collection for the modern streaming era and self-hosting, it pushes users toward the big streaming services. Maybe that link is there because of the lawyers, but it sure seems like they don’t want this to exist anymore.
I was concerned.
Then they became a client/server model.
They are supposed to provide the source code for Plex Transcoder, since that's a modified ffmpeg build. In practice, the version they share is not up to date with the version they ship.
They are generally speaking, closed source.
It’s becoming hostile for people who want to work from their media alone.
On the flip side Jellyfin has never worked that well out of the box for me. Always some fiddling around and even when I get it right the server will crash unexpectedly and when I want to go watch something I have to manually reboot it.
I also remember opening the app one day, not long ago, and seeing a full screen ad instead of my media. Considering I have PlexPass, I found this extremely off putting. I think that was a one-time thing, but still a bad omen.
I was not suggesting Jellyfin was better because the apps don’t exist in any meaningful sense for TVs.