Streaming traffic has to go through the Plex proxies if your server isn’t exposed to the internet (meaning proper port forwarding, no CG-NAT and no other ISP fuckery that would prevent such functionality).
Of the 25 million users of Plex, how many do you think have the setup (either the ability or availability) that supports direct playback remotely?
Ideally yes, only basic things like authentication and server mapping should go through the main Plex servers but sadly this isn’t the case. And Plex has provided that service for years, for free. Them asking money for a service that isn’t free to run, is fair game.
Given the prevalence of one click install NASes (and by that I mean that Plex is a one click install, or even the whole *arr stack), I wouldn’t be sure.
Also that doesn’t account for people who are limited by available ISPs - some of us only have the choice of a single ISP, who might not be offering static IP, and CG-NAT makes port forwarding impossible. IPv6 would fix that but given we’re not much better off than we were ten years ago… I don’t have high hopes.
Yeah, been a lifetime Plex pass holder for a long time, it was fun but it still doesn’t support OAuth and now they are forcing ads before local TV streams now. I realize the latter is probably more on the Roku side of the house as my shield hasn’t started doing that yet.
Really live TV is the last thing holding me onto Plex, well that and I really do love Plexamp and the sonic analysis bit Plex can do. Plex’s days are sadly numbered for this selfhoster.
I for example just put together a neat pocketID+Crowdsec+Caddy stack, and via OAuth I can easily manage everything. Every service that integrates with OAuth makes it super simple to create new users automatically with limited scopes, all directly fed by PocketID, allowing me to expose my services to the open web without fear of being hacked (crodsec being the fallback if shit would hit the fan, blocking all the community-sourced known threat actors and suspicious behaviour like port probing, login stuffing, etc.).
Streaming traffic has to go through the Plex proxies if your server isn’t exposed to the internet (meaning proper port forwarding, no CG-NAT and no other ISP fuckery that would prevent such functionality).
Of the 25 million users of Plex, how many do you think have the setup (either the ability or availability) that supports direct playback remotely?
Ideally yes, only basic things like authentication and server mapping should go through the main Plex servers but sadly this isn’t the case. And Plex has provided that service for years, for free. Them asking money for a service that isn’t free to run, is fair game.
What isn’t fair is how they’ve been doing it.
I think of those that run their own server and use remote streaming at all, the vast majority. All it takes is to forward one port in the router.
Of the 8 plex servers I have access to, all have direct streaming. And mine as well, of course.
Given the prevalence of one click install NASes (and by that I mean that Plex is a one click install, or even the whole *arr stack), I wouldn’t be sure.
Also that doesn’t account for people who are limited by available ISPs - some of us only have the choice of a single ISP, who might not be offering static IP, and CG-NAT makes port forwarding impossible. IPv6 would fix that but given we’re not much better off than we were ten years ago… I don’t have high hopes.
Yeah, been a lifetime Plex pass holder for a long time, it was fun but it still doesn’t support OAuth and now they are forcing ads before local TV streams now. I realize the latter is probably more on the Roku side of the house as my shield hasn’t started doing that yet.
Really live TV is the last thing holding me onto Plex, well that and I really do love Plexamp and the sonic analysis bit Plex can do. Plex’s days are sadly numbered for this selfhoster.
What do you need OAuth for? Also I never really used the live TV thing, I pretty much exclusively stream from my or other people’s libraries.
As long as they don’t mess with the lifetime pass and start charging me or my friends for accessing my library, I really have no quarrels with Plex.
Centralised Auth stack for all your services.
I for example just put together a neat pocketID+Crowdsec+Caddy stack, and via OAuth I can easily manage everything. Every service that integrates with OAuth makes it super simple to create new users automatically with limited scopes, all directly fed by PocketID, allowing me to expose my services to the open web without fear of being hacked (crodsec being the fallback if shit would hit the fan, blocking all the community-sourced known threat actors and suspicious behaviour like port probing, login stuffing, etc.).