The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
reprodev.com
reprodev.com
I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I could never really figure it out so just learnt to live without but TIL that it's not just me and them setting it up wrong to begin with. I use the Android Player and Desktop app on my MacBook and as part of the Plex Pass I'm happy enough.
Can I ask if you or anyone else have tried any other players for it as my buddy who uses the Jellyfin (FinAmp) version of this for iPhone seems to have a lot more of a feature set than me?
This will reduce the switching workload, and you can run both services at the same time whilst trying out Jellyfin.
For foolproof matching, adding Plex metadata in the style of "{tmdb-12345}" to the directory name would cause problems for Jellyfin, as they used to demand different formatting, for instance square brackets.
It has taken a years to convince the maintainers that this change is a good idea and not "letting Plex determine the future course of Jellyfin."
The vision of Silo appears to be much more clear, and has quite a few great devs behind it. It also has features to run side by side and has full JF api support. I have no involvement in the project, just excited for a new player in the space.
Something to keep an eye on!
> and has full Postgres support from the get-go
Then I went on siloserver's website and I was even more confused.
What made the success of Plex is how easy it is to setup, how nice it looks and how easy it is to use.
Siloserver's marketing miss all those points because they focus on the tech stack, don't show a single picture of the UI and don't demonstrate the UX.
Even as someone who understands the tech written on the website, I don't see the point. So I can easily imagine how someone without the technical knowledge would feel about this...
I'm thinking of trying it out though to see if there's any noticeable differences in performance etc.
Marketing is not really the important bit at the moment when they’re working on building things from the ground up.
I was just mentioning it because it’s a new contender to the space, changing the status quo. Always a good thing in the OSS world.
I just checked: my "com.plexapp.plugins.library.db" is 24Mb. Meanwhile, I have some custom apps with SQLite db's that are >10Gb and I don't have performance issues.
So I don't see how big a library have to be for its db to become a bottleneck?
- Jellyfin forced me to organize my files into Show/Season folders, whereas Plex just handled my original flat mess of scattered files.
- When playing video on Plex, I generally have to wait some time before subtitles show up, whereas the subtitles in Plex just show up immediately
- Plex has built in search for openly available subtitles matching your video that you can use if your video lacks subtitles (not sure if Jellyfin has it too)
That said, I still prefer Jellyfin for numerous other reasons, and I don't regret my migration.
Regarding this, try out sonarr/radarr with hard links.
You keep all your shows in a single directory? or just sorted into folders per show?
I haven't had any issues with files just sorted into show folders for shorter series, but even in general it's very un-particular about filenames as long as you have `<show name> (<year>) S<Season #>E<Episode #>` (and it accepts a decent number of formats for season/episode number, and year is usually only needed if you need to differentiate shows with the same name).
Plex was the jellyfin of the 2010’s. Pirate-centric (or at least agnostic), hobbyist focused, a bit hard to use and ugly but super valuable.
Then they went corporate and yeah it’s weird and in decline.
* general Tv support - no Jellyfin app on Samsung TVs (at least older ones)
* General challenges to get things to start - it never worked for me out-of-the-box
* slightly weird sign in flows because it’s all self-hosted (have to first install a mobile app to make signing in on TV app smoother unless you happen to have your computer and TV side by side)
* weird issues with things suddenly stopping to work: DLNA was working but without any changes I can think of on my end it no longer works
* weird dlna support - at least with iOS VLC it didn’t work smoothly - like VLC sometimes wouldn’t see the announcement or something and I’d have to reset. Could be a VLC issue but don’t recall similar problems with Plex
So basically Plex is a smoother, easier to use experience that typically “just works” without issues.
- plex has some fancy remote access thing so it can figure out your home network IP without DNS. You need to use VPN/Tailscale or self host something that advertises your IP if you want remote access with Jellyfin.
This is lame if your use case is “my parents remote play from my server from their smart TV” - getting VPN working on a smart TV can be a lot of hassle.
- Jellyfin iOS did not support continuing to play on app switch last I looked (it must have focus or playback stops). Plex app does not have this issue.
I will also say the new pricing structure is a non starter to me, if I wasn’t grandfathered into a lifetime pass from when it was cheaper I would not use Plex anymore. But I do have the pass so I’m not super motivated to change (for now)
Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall.
On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves out for free.
Up till now, Plex kept their promise regarding the Lifetime pass: we still receive updates, we still have all the features. So, unless they change that, they haven't broken their promise. It seems only fair from them to try to run a sustainable business, which you can do without renewed income. They have to find money. They raise subscription price: no impact on existing Lifetime pass owners. They add ad-supported features: no impact on existing Lifetime pass owners. I don't see a single add wherever I access my Plex library, I have hidden their "free" library. I still have 100% of the features I had when I bought the Lifetime pass. Except that I have now access to more features.
Sure, nobody forced them to say "Lifetime", but I don't see how I could be mad if they decided to release a completely new version that is out of the Lifetime scope. I would still have access to the old one, but if I was interested in the new one, I would have to move to one of their new plans, that looks more sustainable in the long run.
Plex is still the easiest one to use for regular user or for the people, like me, that act as IT support for their family and friends, and don't want to spend their evenings and weekends tweaking their aunt's TV just for the sake of using Open Source software.
Recently, I've been asked more and more by friends and family to set up Plex for them as it's "free" and "easy". I do the basic setup or walk them through it. Then they want to share to their libraries to others or just watch off their connection and hit the wall of having to have a subscription.
Then they bring me Jellyfin as the alternative from something they saw on XDA. I'm not too quick to help them set that up just because of the current state of it and having to find them players on their various devices. As you mentioned, I've been spending pretty much be spending all my free time helping them set it up but I think Plex being so cost prohibitive now so Jellyfin will start to become the defacto option as what we'll be tweaking for those of us that act as IT support.
I can see how scary the price increase on the Lifetime pass looks, and I see it as a deterrent to push people to something like the 5 years plan which looks like a good deal to me
The pricing around Remote Watch Pass is a bit weird to me because I haven't got any complaint from people access my server, and I know they don't have any kind of pass, so I'm not sure why it should be needed?
But having to pay 30/year to access someone else's server, who's already paying a regular Pass and the infra, sure seems abusive
The Remote Watch Pass explanation was just a bit confusing when it first got announced. I was helping someone build their first one and they are now having trouble with accessing from off their network to do some automation with their Watchlist. I ended up just telling them to buy it for the month and see how it went as it seemed like it was just a paywall issue. Turns out it was something to do with their Windows setup in the end but something that just worked now being so obfuscated takes away the ease of setup and really confuses more than informs.
If you have the Plex Pass then anyone connecting to they shouldn't need the Remote Pass it so that's probably why you haven't had any complaints from people accessing yours as long as you have it. It's more for people who are sharing their library without it so if you have a few people accessing then I don't think it's unfair to ask them to chip in a bit to future proof you but I think we'll be having similar questions in 5 years time when this one expires for people who picked it up.
I'm still a really big fan of Plex but it's getting harder these days to actually recommend it while the pricing is really all over the place. My advice these days is just get it now and assume the price for things will go up and not down.
It was nice having a chat here because you felt more nuanced than in the article and we basically agree overall!
I really appreciate the friendly chinwag too I've enjoyed it. I didn't want to overload the article too much but I think going forward with the other ones I've already planned I'll have to bear that in mind to try and capture more of that nuance as a lot of these truly aren't. I've also really enjoyed the different viewpoints on here and I've learnt a lot more about to be challenged in a good way about how other people are using Plex in the real world and not just my sometimes echo chamber of a circle.
What does this mean?
I always have a hard time with this one because, in French, it's not a towel that is thrown: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jeter_l%27%C3%A9ponge
The French version version naturally comes to my mind, even when I'm thinking in English, and then I can't find the translation because it's too close, yet so different.
https://demo.jellyfin.org/stable/web/#/home
Username is demo, PW is blank
Also, I've been running jellyfin for many years, I've had no issues
If you don't mind me asking what client are you using and server setup are you using. Any tips from someone who has been using it for a decent chunk of time?
Emby just works, it's players are great, and issues actually get fixed. I know it's a closed source fork of XBMC, I know that's controversial, but the product itself is just so good.
Did you try anything else before hand or just go straight to Emby? I have to say I never really gave it a proper chance
At some point their web client felt like it was abandoned, because they kept on releasing apps for a bunch of niche devices and for VR. I was unsure if my subscription was going to make my experience any better.
Eventually I discovered Emby, trialled it for a couple of months alongside Plex (same XBMC core, so the same library naming convention and folder structure). After that I decided to get the subscription for Emby. Their server is solid, the web client is solid, and their android clients are solid. Happy camper since then!
I think we may have had a similar path I did the Samba share thing from my Xbox from XBMP the XBMC as they started to become more of a Dashboard replacement with a crossover cable to begin with way back when.
Really glad that you found your flavour of media player when you did as I've seen Emby as a Smart TV app as much as Plex but never really had a full idea of how it fared.
It has more polish and refinement than Jellyfin but doesn't have the obtrusive ads and whatnot that Plex offers. Client support is also great. Jellyfin is still quickly gaining ground but Emby is still my media server of choice for now.
I'm a Plex user who's been thinking about trying Jellyfin out, largely in response to some recent UI changes I dislike but... what Plex ads? I don't have any on my android apps, on Roku installs, or on my parent's SmartTV, and none of my other users have ever mentioned any ads to me. (If I was seeing ads, Jellyfin would become "take some time off work and get it working now".)
I know I've disabled everything except my own libraries, so it's possible there's a setting somewhere that allows them, but if so, I disabled it so long ago I honestly don't remember ever seeing any. Are other Plex users seeing ads? Was it after a recent update that I may have skipped, maybe?
Last time I searched I couldn't turn it off. But maybe I missed that setting.
Not having that is an absolute deal breaker.
I've been playing with Kodi with the Jellyfin plug-in but it requires such brittle tower of themes and plug-ins to look like Plex that I've yet to make the switch.
The only thing keeping me on plex is my lifetime plex pass, and family inertia.
b) I would never use an app that used VLC for playback.
And it’s in their repo.
It seems to be status “official beta” and closing in on a new release with a considerable amount of rework done.
I’m running a local build deployed to my appletv and it’s working fine.
Huh? I find Infuse to be a very solid tvOS/iOS client, and they added built-in support for Jellyfin over 6 years ago [0]. It's right there at the bottom with other media servers they support (Emby & Plex). What's your issue with it?
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I connect it to the internet to use the internet, not sure what you’re expecting?
Connecting your tv to the internet is quite frankly insane.
> think of it as Netflix for which you provide the media yourself.
Netflix is a provider of content. If I have the content, why do I need a provider for?
> Having the ability to connect with a client running on something connected to your TV is nice
(???) But that's what I'm doing now with Kodi.
> as is the ability to connect remotely (if you open up the ports on your firewall of course).
Wireguard (only one port), and all home LAN is accessible, not just one service.
> It also gives you things like remembering what shows you were watching and giving a shortcut to the next episode
Kodi does that too. Or maybe you mean it remembers between player devices? See ep.1 on player A and it shows up as seen when I start player B too? That's nice. I think I read somewhere that Kodi can use a remote MySQL/MariaDB for it's library too. I could probably set up a shared DB.
> intro skipping
How does it know where the intro is and how long?
> transcoding
If I were to install Plex/Jellyfin it would be where the storage is - on a router that also serves as a NAS. It doesn't have the power to transcode anything, not even audio. Meanwhile, the lowest spec phone can play everything. So, why would anyone transcode in 2026?
I have never used Kodi. Does it organize your content? Does it download summaries for every episode? Does it create thumbnails and posters for you? Create mobile transcodes and allow you to cache downloads on your clients?
Does it allow you to create a home with managed accounts? Can your friends and family access it without setting up wireguard, dynamic dns or other manual access methods?
From what I see, Kodi is a media player but I don’t see what else it really brings to the table if you really want a streaming service experience.
I have used XBMC, Boxxee, mythTV and a bunch of other OSS media platforms over the years and Plex is just the most polished and feature rich that I haven’t had a need to look at anything else for a long time.
There is a delete function (if enabled in options), but generally no - files stay where they are. There is a searchable library where files are sorted into various categories. I never used it much, though. I do file management with a file manager.
> Does it download summaries for every episode? Does it create thumbnails and posters for you?
It can, but I take great care to keep those options disabled. If enabled, it would leak the contents of my library to imdb, tmdb, cloudflare, amazon, microsoft, palantir and God knows how many 3-letter agencies.
Thumbnails are ok. They are extracted from the video file. There is a local cache that doesn't pollute the remote storage where the video files are.
> Create mobile transcodes and allow you to cache downloads on your clients?
No. This is the client. I already expressed my doubts about the need for transcoding in 2026.
> Does it allow you to create a home with managed accounts? Can your friends and family access it without setting up wireguard, dynamic dns or other manual access methods?
Anyone can just turn on the TV and have free access to everything in LAN. Why create accounts? I don't give access to outsiders.
> I have used XBMC
It's called Kodi now. :) But the name change was a long time ago.
> From what I see, Kodi is a media player but I don’t see what else it really brings to the table if you really want a streaming service experience.
Yes, that what I don't understand: What exactly is this "streaming experience"?
I turn the TV on, navigate to a file, press play. What else is there?
I say that without judgement, it’s just a reality. Open source was always going to be the path.
Maybe I'm old, but it feels like everyone has a little too much "business-brain."
I paid for Plex for a long time but I no longer use it because I got fed up of fighting it. (I now use Jellyfin + Tailscale instead.) I think the problem with Plex is they aren't happy with what they are: a service for people viewing their own (yes, pirated) media library. They always wanted to be something more. Netflix envy.
But all anyone I know ever wanted Plex to do was handle their media library, perhaps offer a paid tunnelling system but otherwise get out of the way.
That killer remote user connection brokering can’t be free, right?
Jellyfin-mpv-shim is great.
I get that things are changing with Plex, naturally given it was a steal. But somehow it feels in bad faith when the author got that great deal but puts out this hit piece.
I tried to balance it as best I can with me already having that lifetime licence and it's kind of unfair to those who never got it. Maybe it's just a precursor of things to come within tech as people try to monetise things monthly on roadmaps which promise massive potential rather than having faith in their original products.
I still think it's a great deal and I hope that came across but $750 now vs $119 when you got it is definitely the point where you have to think about the alternatives out there.
I'm lucky to have the years of XP and watched it go from a great alternative to also being something that has suffered from feature creep as it tries to be everything to everyone. This doesn't mean my opinion is any better or even more right than anyone else, it's just my opinion having been through some major touch points in tech history. Even trying to explain the price changes and things that you don't get for the monthly fee to others sends me in circles as it changes so frequently.
That unlimited updates thing for a low price is the main reason why it's such a great deal and as time goes on I truly hope it keep innovating as best it can maybe leveraging those brand deals it has which were built on the initial consumer trust it built so well.
The dream would be: anybody with a jellyfin install can add your library to theirs, anybody with the jellyfin client can be invited to browse your library.