cross-posted from: https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/2333639
I was just forwarded this someone in my household who watches our server. That's it folks. I've been a hold out for a long time, but this is honestly it.
They want me to pay to stream content that I bought from my hardware transcoded also on my hardware.
I'll say it. As of today, I say Plex is dead. Luckily I've been setting up Jellyfin, I guess it's time to make it production ready.
Edit: I have a Plex Pass. More comments saying “Just buy a plex pass” are seriously not getting it. I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.
And for the thousandth person who wants to say the same things to me:
- YES I know I'm unaffected as a Plex Pass owner.
- My users were immediately angry at it, which made me angry. Our users don't understand what plex pass is, and they shouldn't have to, that's why I had it. The fact that they were pinged even though it should have kept working is horribly sloppy
- Plex is still removing functionality. I don't care that "People should pay their fair share". If Plex wants to put every new feature behind a paywall, that's completely okay. They are removing functionality.
- "But they have cloud costs". Remote streaming is negligible to them. It's a dynamic DNS service. Plex client logs in, asks where server is, plex cloud responds with the IP and port of where server is located. That's it.
- "Good luck finding another remote streaming" - Again, Plex just opens up an IP and port. Jellyfin also just opens up an IP and port (Hold on jellyfin folks I know, security, that's a separate conversation). All "remote streaming" is is their dynamic dns. Literal pennies to them. Know what actually is costing them money? Hosting all of that ad-supported "free" content that they're probably losing money on.
In short, I don't care how you justify it. Plex is doing something shitty. They're removing functionality that has been free for years. I'm not responding to any more of your comments repeating the same arguments over and over.
What was the appeal of Plex anyway?
It has been a few years since I last used Plex but I always liked their interface, their tech stack is fairly modern, they have apps for pretty much every device, their title matching for content works really well and there was not much wrong with it back in the day other than it lacking local authentication.
I switched over long ago when they started pushing streaming services to my users that I couldn't deactivate server side.
What did you switch to?
I ran Emby for a while before switching to Jellyfin. Still running it today.
I have both Plex and Jellyfin.
Plex takes like 1+ minute to start on my TV from 2019. Another maybe 15–20 seconds to load the first screen of content. It's insane. Jellyfin with the exact same library takes a few seconds to load its start page.
I don't know what Plex is smoking. 🤷♂️
One day I'll be Jelly only. ✨
The wife / parent appeal of simplicity.
Otherwise just use JellyFin.
Local media streaming Is the appeal?
Now if you're asking why use Plex vs Jellyfin, for me jellyfin has more issues with high bitrate 4K HDR content and subtitles for my situation.