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I ultimately want to ditch Plex, but as an existing lifetime member, it currently handles everything so smoothly for my users that I don't see enough benefits in switching. Particularly on the music streaming side (PlexAmp), I think the experience is the most polished one I've seen.
My hope is that by the time the lifetime Plex Pass experience has become enshittified, Jellyfin will be more ready than it is today, and I'll make a switch then.
I ran Jellyfin and plex for a while, using Jellyfin instead of plex at every oppurtunity. Then Jellyfin broke, I couldn't figure out how to fix it in an evening, and I just went back to using Plex, which had continued working. It isn't great, sure, but it's fine. I think Jellyfin would need to be Immich levels of cool, or plex would actually need to be unusable for me to switch.
Anybody still using Plex kind of deserves what they get at this point. They've been announcing these anti-consumer "features" for a while now.
Two years ago, when I found out that you need damn subscription, to watch YOUR stuff with transcoding on your device in local network, from your local server - I complained on reddit and a lot of people was disagree with me for harsh position.
They_got_what they_focking_deserve.png
Welcoming the incoming dowvotes for correcting your comment just like the many similar comments and posts I've seen on Reddit, but this is purely a configuration issue.
Transcoding on local network is allowed without a subscription. If you are running your own DNS server (like pihole or unbound) you need to configure an internal "plex.direct" record. You also need to uncheck an option to "treat your WAN IP as internal" option which corrects double NAT issues.
I have yet to see a need to move away from Plex. I paid for the cheap lifetime sub over a decade ago at this point and everyone I invite to my server has no complaints and has not had to pay Plex a dime. I don't use their plex.tv proxy, I direct connect to my own IP and leave their remote proxy option off in the server and everything works great.
I will check out Jellyfin at some point if Plex makes things more difficult in time, but for now these articles are literally just rage bait in the homelab ecosystem. They enacted this back in April of 2025 already!
Pure rent seeking. It's not the only example. So many products have artificial defects deliberately added by the manufacturer so that they can then charge you to disable the defect.
Years ago now, they pushed an offer for lifetime subscription onto my server. I clicked it, went through to their website and bought it, paid, the subscription activated and worked.
The next day they emailed to say actually i wasn't eligible for the offer, they cancelled it and refunded me and said it would actually cost $30 more.
I installed Jellyfin that same day, it was pretty buggy back then but was definitely the right decision.
People don’t deserve to be mistreated but it is surprising that folks haven’t abandoned it if they’re so actively anti consumer.
I kind of understand why someone would honestly. Jellyfin subtitles are still a hot mess for a lot of formats unfortunately. Also, while plex has tried really hard to ruin their UI, I've still had more trouble explaining where to find things in Jellyfin. And if you're sharing your collection with friends or family members there's a lot more technical stuff involved.
So I can see why the balance might still tip toward paying plex still for some people.
Luckily I bought a lifetime license ages ago before the first price hike so this doesn't affect me yet. So I'm just riding out the decline, running them in parallel until plex completely breaks. slowly transitioning the family as they get annoyed with broken features. Plexamp is quickly taking care of that 😅
The alternatives are not as easy use
Jellyfin users, how is the transcoding situation? I have a mix of AV1 and H265 and I need to get smooth playback to my living room Apple TV for families’ sake.
All dependent on the hardware you run the server on. Give it a good GPU and you're off to the races
Just as long as you’re fine with your media server absolutely eating power all the time
Stop encoding in av1 and get a low power older intel chip around 10th gen or so with quick sync. Unless you have like 5+ users watching 4k media at the same time this will handle transcoding absolutely fine while using far less power than a dedicated gpu
I don't encode in AV1, I use HEVC. But while your argument is not unreasonable, it misses the component of file size and amount of disk space required.
HEVC (x265) takes half the space of x264. While it does require a more modern GPU, it can be run on lower powered Intel CPUs with an integrated GPU just fine, so long as the CPU is new enough. Though it can only handle 2-3 streams on a CPU like the Intel chips in a ZimaBoard. So you need to choose wisely.
HEVC (x265) takes half the space of x264
In some scenarios, it can. Generally I'd say it's about a 20-30% reduction in size.
Person you responded to said av1, I didn’t mean to imply you did. HEVC is good balance and quicksync will handle it as you’ve said. 10th gen stuff will handle 4-5 at the expense of more power (but less than like a typical gpu build).
Last statement you made is critical - usage dictates build
Any recommendations for Linux distros for a Jellyfin server?
Debian and Ubuntu have the most docs and guides If you know what you're doing nixos or ucore would be pretty unbreakable Paid for product I love Unraid
Trash guides is pretty good for getting started https://trash-guides.info/
To anyone saying they're happy since they already have a lifetime Plex pass, do you really think they won't come for you too?
Have the lifetime since like 2012, every time a post like this surfaces I wonder if the contents of it are finally going to force my hand to use jellyfin instead
Bought a lifetime pass, switched to Jellyfin after way too much Tidal promotion on my server.
I paid 79€ almost a decade ago. I got more than my moneys worth. Even the current lifetime (on sale) is less than a year of Netflix. More expensive than piracy + Jellyfin ofc if that’s your benchmark 😀
I have a Jellyfin instance running anyway, I’ll switch to that if Plex enshittifies.
if Plex enshittifies.
Anyone want to break the news?
So far the enshittification has not hit lifetime Plex pass subscribers
This is a "slippery slope' argument and thus a fallacy.
Let users decide how they want to run their own stuff. Right now if you have Plex pass this isn't an issue. If it becomes an issue, then you're in the exact same position you'd be in today if you decided to move away from Plex now.
I moved away from Plex years ago, but I don't blame users for sticking with it, it still has a lot of advantages over jellyfin.
EDIT: Y'all are trippin' over yourselves to complain about what other people choose to deploy on their own hardware.
If it becomes an issue, then you're in the exact same position you'd be in today if you decided to move away from Plex now.
I disagree. Right now you got time to do the research, plan the move and test it out with a demo setup. You do not know if you got the time if Plex decides to screw their lifetime users.
Yes this is hypothetical.
The steaks are very high. I could lose access to my media library for 1-2 evenings (the time it would take me to switch to Jellyfin).
Plex are trying to start a beef