Plex is not self hosting
this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Jellyfin. Have you heard about our Lord and Saviour Jellyfin? Fuck you if you don’t run Jellyfin. Emby? Never heard of it over me running Jellyfin.
You’re nothing if you don’t run Jellyfin. NOTHING.
Vulnerabilities? Yes, but who cares. What are you communist? Letting the paid software win even though it’s got better and easier security out of the box?
It's self hosting by the literal definition that you host the server yourself.
That it's closed source and sends all kinds of data to another server is an entirely separate (and valid) concern.
As much as I agree with the concerns around Plex, I would rather we didn't start gatekeeping the self hosting community with arbitrary requirements and grey lines around what is and isn't "true self hosting" or whatever. I would far rather we inform people and let them make their own choices about what they want to host on their private devices and networks.
For me, if I can't use it when the internet is down it's not self-hosting, so Plex certainly isn't for me.
This can be done but you need to set the ip address ranges that don’t require auth when you can still get into the server(aka have internet). Then it works without internet fine.
Not really. I actually got rid of my Amazon Fire Stick because it didn't work offline, but Plex did. I discovered this because my TV automatically showed the Plex shares as browsable media sources, which were being broadcast over DLNA.
That’s an option too but that’s mostly just DLNA and not really Plex (as the client).
What? You need internet to use plex? Can't you just type in the local IP?
You can use Plex without the Internet. But it takes an extra two or three setup steps, so lots of people immediately jump to “wahhh my Plex isn’t working” when their Internet goes out. Not because it can’t work, but because they didn’t jump through the extra hoops to ensure it does.
Mine works when the internet is down. Why doesn't yours?
Because they’re a silly goose who never learned to google
This. I’ve had a couple of situations where we had an ISP outage and for whatever reason Plex Auth had expired and needed to connect to their servers to regain access to local media. The first time it happened I was pissed off. The second time it happened I installed Jellyfin and never looked back.
Jellyfin. Jellyfin. JELLYFIN. install it now? Is it the right fit? Fuck you who cares. I loaded Jellyfin and it worked for me so if it doesn’t work for you then you’re wrong!
Jellyfin!
Forget Emby or Kodi. JELLYFIN JELLYFINJELLUFIN!!!!!!
If you are hosting software services (proprietary or not) on hardware you control, in a network you control, then you are self-hosting. What the service itself actually is is irrelevant.
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.
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.
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.
Exactly this. Jellyfin shouldn’t be available externally (even with a reverse proxy!) which means a personal VPN is your only realistic option for remote access. But that means you can only remotely access it on devices that can run a VPN. So grandma’s smart TV is probably disqualified.
Plex makes remote sharing much easier, so it’s what I use for friends and family. I got the lifetime pass like a decade ago, and I have gotten my money’s worth out of it a hundred times over. Luckily, Plex and Jellyfin will happily exist side-by-side, so there’s no real reason for me to choose one or the other.
I won't make any claims about other users, but I am using Plex for 100% legally obtained media, mostly by means of ripping physical media that I still have on my shelf. So, not everybody is using it for pirated content.
Due to the DMCA by circumventing the copyright to rip your DVDs you are technically breaking the law. You would most definitely be considered a pirate.
I guess that depends on your definition of "piracy"... is it "breaking the law" or is it "stealing"?
In any case, the point I was making is that some people use Plex with non-stolen media. I mostly see assumptions that it's only used for stolen media, so I wanted to offer a counter-example.
Piracy is infringing on copyright. Ripping DVDs is most definitely consider a form of piracy. Although without sharing it, I think a jury could see it as non-infringing personally.
I do agree there is a huge difference between ripping media and downloading/sharing it as far as civil liability goes.
I take some umbrage with calling either ripping or downloading stealing though as it does not deprive the owner of their property. The correct term would be commercial copyright infringement.
Technically recording TV on VHS is piracy, but in practice no one is getting sued for it.
To this point Congress was ready to eliminate the VHS home taping technology. Believe it or not Mr. Rogers came in to save the VHS from regulation death because he believed parents could record shows to watch with their children.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29686/how-mister-rogers-saved-vcr
Notable quotes
"The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." - Jack Velanti
"I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the 'Neighborhood' off-the-air ... they then become much more active in the programming of their family’s television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been ‘You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions’ ... I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important." - Mr. Rogers
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It's not just about watching content, but also about having it neatly organised with your watch history tracked in a easy to use interface. And on top of that, making it easily accessible to friends/family with minimum effort.
open source to me means open source, not open/paywall/ source.
It sure means that, but not quite sure why this is relevant. There is obviously a big overlap between self-hosters and foss enthusiast on lemmy, but for me they are unrelated.
Is really Self Hosting?
I don't really get hung up on the nomenclature and definitions. If you run your services off of a VPS and call it selfhosting, more power to you. No skin off my nose. If you run your services off of a homelab rack that dims the lights whenever you power it on and you call it selfhosting, more power to you. If you're running your services off of an old repurposed, disposable vape unit, and you call it selfhosting, git sum. It's a big umbrella and we can all coexist without nitpicking each other. Gatekeeping is something I don't do, and it gets tiresome to hear others regurgitate the same trope over and over again.
ETA: @CallMeAl@piefed.zip, nice profile shot.
Achtually, if the lights dim less power to him.
No, no, he needs more power if the lights are dimming! That means the servers are hungry!
If you run your services off of a homelab rack that dims the lights whenever you power it on
If you are in this situation, then you definetly should get some more power, or at least a UPS to make sure you don't trip a breaker.
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Yes. Ask another question, the one we're all aching to respond 😜
... well, at some point any hobby grows to the point where purists show up.
There's give and take with everything. Is it "self" hosted if you rely on Docker - a 3rd party with control over their own infrastructure? Or hosting it on a Debian OS? Is it really "private" if it's connected to the internet at all?
Are you running the Plex Server application on some hardware so other devices can access the library? Hey, that's self-hosting. That's it.
I guess I’m not selfhosting at all, I use a power grid that I don’t control.
It’s not truly self hosting unless you start by creating the universe.
Edit: Balls, @gedfromgont@piefed.ca beat me to it. That’ll teach me to riff on Sagan quotes before I scroll down in the thread.
Have you mined the minerals though?
Or to put it in another way "to truly selfhost you need to start by creating the universe".
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I don't think there are any hard and fast rules for what is self hosting. Lots of people use cloudflare, which would fail both of your criteria as well.
At least with Plex/cloudflare/others, your overall control and privacy is better and more in your control than it would be with other non-self hosted alternatives.
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As long as you're running it on your own hardware, it sure is.
Privacy: Plex clearly records the metadata of what you watch.
Sure, that doesn't really have anything to do with self-hosting, though.
Control: Plex has all of it.
They have no control at all over the contents of your media library. Even if they shut down everything, all your media is still there. They merely have control over a user interface that can be replaced.
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