Well I already have jellyfin running in a container, just have to figure out how to get mum’s TV to work with it I guess
<edit> log in on a local IP and not the network name and it’s working again. but I’ll be moving to jellyfin from now
Remember when Plex tried to sell you a subscription to use outdated versions of open source game console emulators?
Plex wants to be a profit-driven company, but their business model is piracy. They’ll squeeze you for subscriptions, while making your experience worse to try and broker a peace deal with content owners.
idk I find $2/month to be very reasonable. I don’t feel squeezed.
EDIT: Just to be clear there is no amount of condescending replies form trilby wearing neckbeard keyboard warriors that will change my opinion.
To stream remotely from your own server?
If I chose to use Plex’s
plex.tvservices to expose my server to the internet, that’s one thing. But I have my Plex server exposed through my own infrastructure (NPM + Let’s Encrypt), so fuck that shit.The $2/mo is for the Plex relay service. If you access the server directly it should be free.
It’s not. Now you need to pay any time you want to connect to your server from outside of your LAN.
I got the Plex lifetime pass over 10 years ago for pretty cheap and Plex has served me well over the years. But it’s just so damn bloated now and the biggest recent change to their android app is atrocious. The app is so laggy and slow now. And downloading movies to watch locally on a tablet is just painful.
So I decided to start experimenting with Jellyfin this month and I am blown away at how fast and snappy everything is. It still isn’t as refined as Plex but there’s something to be said about privacy and using FOSS apps.
I’ll be using Jellyfin going forward now.
Longtime lifetime Plex Pass holder here.
FOSS is important. Having control over how you use your own hardware and files is important.
But even if none of that mattered, once I actually used Jellyfin for a few days the snappy bloat-free feel of it won me over. Switching between Plex and Jellyfin felt like switching between windows and linux.
I got fed up one day with Plex because it blocked me from getting to my server from one of my televisions. My LAN’s internet gateway was down and Plex was useless even though all the content was on the local network. I’m sure there’s configuration things or something that I could have changed but in the end I decided I didn’t want to be pressured into buying anything and I didn’t like the constant commercialization of Plex.
So I installed Jellyfin and never looked back. Yes, it’s missing a few features but you can get around that with nginx so totally worth it not to be harassed.
Something that’s getting glossed over in these comments is the ability to easily watch or listen to friends’ media.
I have my own library with about 1k movies, a bunch of anime and TV, and 10k albums. But I have like 6 or 7 friends with libraries even larger. My one friend has 37k albums, they all have thousands of movies I never even heard of, etc. It really makes it like my own mini streaming service, and I love throwing on a huge music library on shuffle via plexamp while driving to/from work.
I paid like $70 for a lifetime pass years ago, so I’m along for the ride I guess. I really rely on the music aspect of it, I haven’t had a spotify subscription in like 7 years.
I know they changed a lot lately, and particularly what pisses me off is how vague and how they intentionally obfuscate how their model works now. I have friends that for years used my library, and recently have been like “I saw Plex started charging now so I stopped using it” and I have to be like “no it’s still free because I have a lifetime pass”. It’s definitely just to trick people into getting monthly subscriptions.
the ability to easily watch or listen to friends’ media
Why do you think this can’t be done with Jellyfin?
Rip. I use AgentDVR for security and they do the same thing, but at least with camera footage you don’t want that to be external
Check out zoneminder, it’s the defacto open cctv server.
As for anything that offers a service for external access, that’s just setting up dynamic dns and setting up one port forward, I don’t understand why so many people struggle with that that they pay a third party a monthly fee to do it for them.
Frigate is pretty good, too. I’ve only been running it for a few months but I’m very happy with it.
I jumped ship early on. They didn’t include skipping intros (or removed the plugin or the capability to use plugins, I don’t remember).
Went to Jellyfin, took like 2 hours to figure out what’s different. I don’t even remember, are there any features worth it staying on Plex? At least I’m not missing anything.
Also for watch together you start a watch group and can watch a show episode for episode. Instead of having to open each episode separately and having everyone join again (but maybe Plex fixed this already, I wouldn’t know).
my main issues
- jellyfin has known security vulnerabilities and shouldn’t be run on a public network. that means everyone using your server remotely needs to be on a VPN… and then you may as well use plex because it’s “local” so the remote streaming thing doesn’t apply
- swiftfin (which i need for apple tv) doesn’t support media segments
Jellyfin or Emby.
What’s plex better at?
Getting people to pay to watch their locally stored media?
It literally says ‘remote access’
I know it’s fashionable to shit on Plex here, but OP either has his server misconfigured or is just trying to stir the pot:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202526943-plex-free-vs-paid/
Free to Use: Video (movies & TV) streaming of personal content on the same local network as the Plex Media Server
Right, the $2 is to use the relay service, which costs Plex bandwidth. They can’t just do it free for everyone forever, bandwidth costs money.
They charge for remote access whether it’s through their relay service or not, and you can’t opt out of fallback to their relay service.
If you connect with the IP address it doesn’t charge you. You can use ZeroTier to connect from anywhere.
That’s not quite the same - that gives you the appearance of being a local device, which is enough to fool the restriction.
Their policy and technology enforcement is to charge for remote access, not relaying.
Can you give me an example of remote direct access that would be blocked? You can use nginx to forward your public IP to your Plex and it’s fine, you can forward ports directly on your router and connect to your public IP, you can use a VPN to connect from a different network; what are they limiting? It’s the same hurdle you have to overcome with Jellyfin. Relays are convenient, but they also cost money.
Yes, however using the relay is not a prerequisite to being required to pay for a Plex subscription. That is what he is trying to say.
I can run Plex on the open internet and not use their relay at all, however if the IP of the viewer is not an interal IP on the same subnet as Plex (I assume the same subnet is required) then you’ll be greeted with the Plex paywall.
You are absolutely correct that it costs money to run a relay, but the relay has nothing to directly do with the paywall.
That isn’t how it used to work.
Why would they care what subnet the request is coming from? That’s wack.
