Plex is a series C for-profit company and is 100% beholden to its investors who expect a handsome return on investment; the enshittification & price hikes are literally guaranteed to continue. Existing users can, and should expect to be squeezed for profits until they have nothing left to give
I literally pay the same for Nebula, which is decidedly not my own media. Paying a subscription for your own media playback is so stupid.
I run both concurrently, but Plex has had a rash of outages recently that led to it and any services relying on it completely useless. It’s insane that an online service outage would cause me to be unable to stream media locally, so yeah Jellyfin has been all but essential, recently.
That’s a big red flag for privacy imo
Oh, I generally couldn’t agree more. In this specific case it was actually their authentication service that was down, but it meant if you use multiple accounts with Plex or have a pin on your singular account that you were essentially locked out. But I agree it’s a bad look to have remote dependencies at all.
I’ve had so many instances of free to use, lifetime licenses, and purchased software that have turned into subscription services that I refuse to install anything that requires an account unless it can’t be avoided. The fact that Plex required an account be created to view my own local content years before they started charging for use made it obvious subscription fees were coming.
Jellyfin works great. Combined with Wireguard it works great anywhere.
My only hitch making the switch to Jellyfin is that a couple of my TVs just don’t have a jellyfin app whatsoever. I wish they did, I can’t stand all the changes Plex has made over the last few years specifically.
Spin up pihole and just look at the data coming to your “smart” TV’s even when you are not using them. Then consider the data they must be sending home, the only thing “smart” TVs are good at is watching you watch them (or not watching them). I would highly recommend getting a pi or media computer for your TV’s.
I do not think I can stress this enough smart TV’s are not smart for you they are smart for whoever made the TV. Manufactures sell TV’s at a loss now because they get more by selling you.
I have an Nvidia Shield stick that’s android based and one day Google started pushing live Taco Bell ads to it on the ambient Home Screen. That was the last day pi-hole ever let it phone home.
A cheap device like an Onn (~$20) would solve that, probably without requiring the device have Internet access once set up.
Researching now. I figured there were things out there like that but didn’t know they were so inexpensive. Thanks for the suggestion!
couldn’t you also do a little raspberry pi setup? little more work but a lot more control.
Are they Samsung TVs?
They are, at least the one that’s given me the most trouble is.
I think Jellyfin already released to Tizen OS, although not all model supports it https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen/issues/222#issuecomment-3831638580
If you want to try, it should be possible to install it yourself instead of waiting it to be available in Tizen app store
when are they going to completely drop the lifetime license? they must at some point right?
I paid a lifetime thing for a medication app, to help me keep on track of my meds. It was free for x number of drugs but then they wanted me to pay for more. A few months ago I got notified that my “life time” access was going to become a subscription so I said nope, no thanks, nada and uninstalled the app and set up HA alerts that remind me. Finding out I could do that was such a freeing feeling, I set up reminders to do a whole bunch of things and they remind me on my watch.
I have a pretty old lifetime Plex pass that I got on sale.
I’m still 100% a Jellyfin convert. Keeping my Plex server while trying out Jellyfin myself lasted even less time than my Windows partition after I had linux installed.
Several years ago I was looking to set up a media server and initially grabbed Plex because I’d heard so much good about it at the time. The moment it asked me to create an account with Plex during setup and I discovered this wasn’t optional I immediately uninstalled it.
I remain baffled that anyone was okay with needing an externally managed account in order to use software running entirely on their own hardware, let alone the litany of additional enshittification that has happened since.
Networking is a big aspect. I have almost 40 friends on plex, about 10 of them actively use my library. I also have access to 8 other plex servers in my circle. And I can put all the “latest added episodes” up on my homescreen with a few clicks.
With jellyfin I’d have to have at least 8 different accounts on 8 different instances.
And while the social aspect isn’t great, I found a few interesting people by looking at plex reviews of recently airing shows. Or just finding people through “friends of friends”.
There is a lot of things to be gained by having a central account and a connection beyond just very selective accounts on your own server, it really shouldn’t be that baffling.
Their centralized login and services offer some pretty good upsides, that is, before the company started enshittifying the hell out of us.
Anyone you want to share your stuff with, they make an account, They see your server and your content. There are no ip’s, no ports, no configuration.
They handle a limited quality proxy, you’re users behind CGNat? They can still watch your content. Don’t want to open your firewall up? It still works for limited quality.
They cache TheMovieDB, being good neighbors.
They cache EPG, making live tvguide data work for people with tuners.
They provide you with a credible SSL. Your traffic is opaque to your ISP and your network.
They provide you with 2FA.
That said:
- You are the product
- Your users are the product
- What you watch is tracked
- What your users watch is tracked
- Their clients are not your friends.
That would be fine for an optional account if you want this features and the tradeoff that comes with it. Making it mandatory is bad.
I fully agree that what they did is openly bad. Just that it’s not for nothing.
When plex initially exploded in popularity, the alternatives required like manual xml config, constant babying the database, and generally barely worked.
Plex had apps on all the devices from wii to your phone and just worked. There was also lots of promises of privacy, you owning your data, segregating accounts to coordinating direct access, etc etc. It was almost a no brainer because there was no alternative that could deliver that experience.
Now is very different. The vibes at plex are very different, the world is a lot more hostile to privacy, and there are open source alternatives that get very close to the same experience.
So for a lot of people, yeah, plex doesn’t make sense anymore.
Yeah if I were starting now I’d be looking at jellyfin. But I paid the lifetime plex pass, and inertia/laziness what it is, so I haven’t found a reason to actually switch yet.
I thought the same until I was bored one saturday afternoon and set up jellyfin as something to do. I haven’t taken my ples server offline only because I don’t want to help my users switch.
Same. I’m kinda half migrated running both but plex is convenient and (for me) still free.
Plex is a really nice app. And the people who really like it justify in their head the need for the external account. Some will twist up into a froth arguing the need for it.
I think some people may get too emotional over such matters. But if it works for them, carry on my frothy friends.
Truth is, 99% of people really don’t care.
I was a big supporter of PLEX for a lot of years but I don’t want all the streaming options and ads and crap it was giving me. All I want is a solid media server application and Plex was no longer it.
JellyFin has been fantastic. I’ll never go back
I got Plex set up for my media server literally the day before they hiked the prices. I was weary about the $150 lifetime and couldn’t afford the new price when they changed it so I went to jellyfin.
Turns out jellyfin was everything I wanted and free. Bought 5 years worth of unlimited hosting and a domain name for less than a month of Plex and now I’m well on my way to a pirate media empire.
Just wish I had anyone other than my spouse to share if with… Or that I could figure out fucking MusicBrainz…
Hey I’m just learning about Jellyfin and have one question that maybe you have a take on.
How do we know that Jellyfin isn’t just one step behind Plex on the enshittification scale? Is it structurally different somehow? Open source or something?
There was a time when Plex was the bees knees and everyone loved it, and now they’re putting th screws to us. Why should we believe another group won’t do the same?
Jellyfin is FOSS. Taking a single step towards the Plex route will be going against the ethos of Jellyfin as a whole. It is community owned - rather than private, and if there are unethical practice’s involved, then people can and will jump ship forking the whole project at nearly 1:1 scale.
Because of the way jellyfin is built and the underlying philosophy. It can’t enshitify that easily as Plex - it will need a massive community effort to change it.
It is also useful to read on the history of jellyfin as it does highlight some useful pointers.
Jellyfin itself is Emby. Emby was owned by a company and it enshittified at the speed of light, and that’s when Jellyfin was born (by forking the last open source version of Emby).
Also, Plex controls the login/authentication through their portal, and can also receive data back from your host regarding the content being shared/watched.
Jellyfin is 100% locally configured accounts
In the time it took you to write this comment you could have gone to the Jellyfin website and read the first 12 words on the page:
The Free Software Media System
Jellyfin is the volunteer-built media solution
I’m never going to apologize for asking questions on Reddit or Lemmy. This is a place for talking to people. In the time it took you to chastise me you could have stuck your thumb up your ass 17 times.
Meanwhile, I got a perfectly good answer from someone else. Thanks for nothing.
I think it just shows you actually don’t care. I think some of the things you asked could be interesting if you had done any of your own reading first and had some context, but what you did instead was ask us to tell you what to think.
You can go do that on Reddit, or do you think that’s where you are now?
My bad I use 3rd party app clients for both Reddit and Lemmy and they look much alike.
It makes no difference though, because Lemmy is a place for talking to people too.
When you already know the answer it’s very easy to “ackshually” someone and tell them just how they could have googled it in a second.
But when you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s not so simple. For example: when my question is “how do we know Jellyfin will not eventually go down the path of enshittification as well?” It doesn’t occur to me to just start reading their homepage and see if I stumble into an answer. Excuuuuuuuse me.
Anyway…
Not that I want to defend Plex which is definitely enshittifying, but I don’t think most people are buying Plex to stream their own media. They’re doing it so other people can stream their media. Not wanting to buy a domain and set up port forwarding or a reverse proxy or whatever doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. My grandparents are never going to use Tailscale, and even if they did, I don’t think there are any Tailscale smart TV apps.
Disclosure: I run Plex and Jellyfin (and Navidrome) in parallel, and bought a lifetime pass years ago.
Yeah, I have been learning more and just got oauth working last week. I found Plex a little after blockbuster went under and I had over a thousand movies and a few full TV shows. I have tried jellyfin but the lack of apps has been the issue for me. But as Plex does more of this it will get more and more worthless.
I run Jellyfin for myself and Plex for others. The Jellyfin android tv app almost pushed me back to Plex, but Wholpin works quite well.
+1 for Wholphin, it’s so good! I wish it was the default app.
ITT
jellyfin just runs and looks better, too
I run both side by side and I’m very thankful that Plex exists. Jellyfin is my backup app and would be very painful to get setup in my families houses.
Jellyfin is nice that even a noob like me can struggle a bit but get it working. :)
Now guide your parents through installing Jellyfin on their TV so they can connect to your instance.
That’s why people get Plex.
It’s exactly the same steps for both Plex and Jellyfin. There’s just one additional field when you login, which is your server address. That’s it.
I’d say Jellyfin is even easier than Plex, because when you create an account it’s nice and clean, while Plex pushes you to see their own ad-riddled content. Cleaning up a new Plex profile takes time and it’s annoying.
What’s the hurdle?
Input server, input credentials, no?
Yeah exactly. It’s just one additional thing you have to write. That’s it
And then for extra credit, try doing it on whatever shitty “smart” TV OS that their TV uses…
Shitty? Man even try installing on Samsung.
No no, preconfigure some fire sticks and then mail them out. At least we have quick connect for when logged out.
I’m still learning what I need to do in order to get up and running on the internet, but I think my plan for my dad to connect to my Jellyfin is to build him a Raspberry Pi and just hand it to him.
It’s really pretty similar either way. Install the app, put in login details. Jf just has an additional login detail of your URL. Yes, that’s slightly harder. No, it’s not a big deal
when making a media server i first went for plex. but when i heard it costs money to view my own files in 4k i had to use jellyfin instead
