Selfhosted

59999 readers

795 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam.
Posts here are to be centered around self-hosting. Please ensure it is clear in your post how it relates to self-hosting.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or git here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title.
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

curbstickle@anarchist.nexus

curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world

134

Is Plex really Self Hosting? (piefed.zip)

submitted 3 weeks ago by CallMeAl@piefed.zip to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

166 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been thinking about this more and more. According to the sidebar, this community is "A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control." Based on that I don't think Plex qualifies.

Privacy: Plex clearly records the metadata of what you watch. When I used it, it would send me a report by email of what my "friends" were watching. Even with that turned off, their services still track telemetry.

Control: Plex has all of it. They can (and do) make unilateral changes to the service, how authentication works, where you can run it, etc.

So I ask, when you are hosting something that is entirely dependent on a commercial entity to function, is Plex really selfhosting in the spirit of this community?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Alloi@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (22 children)

im out here wondering why anyone would hand anyone credit card information to watch already downloaded pirated content.

open source to me means open source, not open/paywall/ source.

i prefer my open source free with a lil jank. as god intended.

[–] TheSambassador@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Because I'm lazy and want to be able to watch my stuff from anywhere, and let my friends access my library easily across all their devices.

Setting up Jellyfin for remote access is not trivial. Maybe for a lot of self hosting people it's fairly simple, but it's not nearly as simple as just downloading and running the Plex server software.

I paid for a lifetime account when it was 250, and I felt like it was worth it. At 750 like it is now, I probably would actually have considered figuring out Jellyfin. As with everything, it's a money/time analysis and it's less of my time to host Plex.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I have both specifically for this reason.

Plex is for my family who only need to know 'login to your Plex account', but I personally use Jellyfin because I'm on my VPN. I got the lifetime pass for under $100 ($80?) and it has saved me a lot of time by preventing technical issues that would need my personal attention.

[–] FreedomAdvocate 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Why would you bother with jellyfin locally if you have Plex also locally? It does nothing better.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

The short answer is because it is open source.

I'm using some non-standard transcoding profiles, for example RIFE motion interpolation. I have some other server customizations so that it integrates with my home automation system a bit better.

I can't customize Plex.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (18 replies)