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.
I never got the idea of selfhosting but paying (except for enterprise-grade support or donations) anyway.
You know all the certs and security and port stuff you need to do? Plex does that. You just download the app, point it at your folders with media, and you’re all set both at your home and beyond it. There is no self hosted solution that is that turnkey. I really don’t understand how so many people don’t see the appeal of that. It makes quasi-selfhosting possible for people with far less technical knowledge than those of us here.
I could write a less than one page bullet point instruction and virtually anyone who knows how to work a desktop computer could get a server up and running in one or two hours tops. If they have any computer experience, more like 30 minutes.
What’s more, people with literally no computer knowledge can easily open the app and watch your stuff. They just make an account, download the app, and they’re off to the races. TV, tablet, doesn’t matter. There is no self hosted solution that is nearly as streamlined as Plex. I say this as somebody who likes jellyfin a lot. They are completely different experiences that require completely different levels of knowledge
I run into you again! This time I get to wholeheartedly agree with you! You are spot on and nailed it.
I use Plex for exactly the reasons you said because when I set it up I didn’t know anything about self hosting a media server and I wanted to share with family in other locations. I keep it because it’s so easy for my older, less tech savvy family members to access so I don’t have to be their support person for it.
I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
The biggest thing about this is I don’t get why OP is so annoyed. If you have a Plex Pass you’re not impacted, you can still share and your users can still access your library for free, they can’t share with you without a Plex Pass but who cares.
It’s about as plug and play as any other website. They just open the app, type in the URL, and log in with their credentials and…that’s it.
After setting up an elaborate VPN scheme
No such scheme required
So you’re telling people to expose Jellyfin to the internet?
I’m not telling anyone what to do, I’m just saying the VPN is not necessary. Mine is exposed.
It’s not advisable to expose Jellyfin to the internet. Telling people they don’t need VPN means you are encouraging them to expose it to the internet.
Jellyfin or Plex, needs to be done if you want remote connections without a VPN
You don’t technically need it on Plex. They do have a relay feature.
How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)
I suppose having Plex handle users is easier than creating an account but barely imo.
Not shitting on Plex either, gotta do what you want I think the problems with this kind of thing is the change, people had a free service for years and now they have to change or pay. People hate change, lol
Immich has a weird “buy a licence” model which literally does nothing.
Instantly bought the server license. Support your favorite FOSS, people.
With Plex, you’re getting the easy ability to grant access to users. You get a single pane that can search across multiple Plex instances, and NAT traversal/port forwarding. Jellyfin makes you figure that out yourself.
It’s not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don’t see the value for the cost; if you’re even considering self hosting a Plex server/instance, there’s a list of basic knowledge you should have or learn (like what you mentioned).
Its not difficult for technical people like you or me, but my friend who just wants to watch their favorite show on my Plex on their TV won’t know how to traffic engineer the traffic over a Tailscale network to my network. My mom won’t be installing Tailscale on her laptop and phone.
As long as the technical person does all of the setup on their end, the non technical person only has to enter a domain and port in their jellyfin client.
If you want to be on the hook for all IT requests from folks you share with, this is a fine approach. There are people out there who honestly don’t have a problem with that and more power to them. I doubt they are the majority, and a lot of selfhosters completely ignore this aspect of software. There is a reason non-free services exist beyond just “capitalism bad.” I mean, capitalism indeed bad, but your time is worth something.
I guess I haven’t noticed that. The non technically literate folk I know use smart TVs, or can download Jellyfin from an app store. Then they just use the URL when the app asks for it.
There’s no other configuring to do on their end.
They also need to run a VPN client.
Because you’re not putting bare jellyfin on the internet, right? You shouldn’t be doing that for most services in the first place, but doubly so for something that has a bunch of APIs that require no authentication: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Put it behind a reverse proxy!
For a good while, Plex was the only game in town that did the job well, and they put the transcoding feature behind the paywall.
Given it wasn’t that expensive for a lifetime pass a number of years ago (I remember it was cheaper than a game anyway) and they still seemed relatively user-centric at the time, many people like me felt like they were supporting developers building something that was useful to us.
I still run my Plex server since it’s not really costing me not to, but I’ve been running Jellyfin too for a little while and it more or less can do the same job these days
I put my chips (£100) on Emby.
I haven’t regretted my purchase. I can’t sell anyone on much either, because Emby does all the same as other services, except they’ve kept adding features while Plex kept doing the Google thing and taking them away. CPU transcoding is free I believe, as is remote streaming up to 10 devices for each user… Idk I paid pretty early on, but lifetime license is where it’s at. Subscriptions just open your asshole for greedy CEOs to fuck you. Best to keep subscriptions voluntary, like donating on Github or Patreon
I think you have that backwards. Jellyfin is a fork of emby
Yup, for the time it was worth it. I got about 7 years out of my “lifetime” plex pass, and I got it on sale. All in all, I won’t say the money was wasted.
It’s 100% a waste if anyone pays for that BS monthly streaming fee though.
Wait so you’ve got a lifetime plex pass already? Then literally nothing changes for you or anyone that is streaming from your server.