Plex is increasing Plex Pass prices and paywalling remote playback for personal media at $1.99/month or $19.99/year.

I also paid for a lifetime pass and still switched to Jellyfin last year. I find it's quite a bit better than Plex. The UI leaves a bit to be desired, but the performance for me is way better.

I'd suggest giving it a try

“We regret to inform you that your Lifetime Pass has died in a restructuring related accident. Consider easing your loss by browsing our other pass options.”

Never EVER pay for lifetime subscriptions , unless you have lawyers on retainer.

Unfortunately, Sony seems to be really hostile towards allowing most any video player apps on the PS5. They specifically went out of their way to remove DLNA support, and they only just allowed a DLNA-enabled video player on the store 7 months ago... and it's subscription based.

I am in the same exact boat. The PS5 is the media machine for us upstairs. I would switch to jellyfin if there was a PS5 client. Glad I'm not alone on this.

That's the biggest reason I haven't switched to Jellyfin.

As long as their not Plex's files I see no Issue that they should be compensated for.

And if server host doesn't have premium.

Anyone investing in a lifetime pass because of these changes is really making a really bad decision. Plex is not going to get better. These shitty decisions will keep coming and eventually it will be something that affects the lifetime users.

I'm not encouraging this at all. I've got a library of 5600 movies, 300 series, 300k songs I share with family. I have a lifetime pass I got last year, family doesn't need anything, apps stream free on TV's and browsers, only mobile had a few $ attached to it, which you can bypass using the browser. They all use tv/computer anyway.

There were some hoops for me to jump through in order to get secure remote access working for sure. Fortunately for my family that connect remotely, it’s transparent for them and doesn’t require any kind of VPN or tunnel. They just need URL, user, and password.

And for subtitles I’m not sure what the differences are between the two, but I’ve used them plenty on jellyfin and they seemed to work well and render nicely.

Hard disagree. I think jellyfin is much better than Plex.

In what way? I share my server with 8 friends/family and it does everything I need it to.

Why not try emby it works fine no?

What's better, exactly?

I switched years ago from Plex to Jellyfin, and while the UI wasn't quite as nice, everything else is better.
And I don't have to pay to use HW transcoding on my own hardware...

I cannot upvote this enough. "Just migrate to X, it's every bit as good!" when end users know it's not is a disingenuous argument and even if they don't have the technical know-how to explain exactly why they feel this way, they'll feel the deception. It only reinforces a growing distrust in tech.

The argument has to be made honestly. It's not quite as good, but almost. Those few things you'll miss will require an adjustment, but the overall value (a lot of times just literally, it costs less!) will become evident.

I know we're all Linux nerds here and enthused to get people onboard, but the battle right now we're facing is one of trust and security and must be grounded in those notions because while great strides have been made in convenience and accessibility, big corps will always be able to bankroll themselves over those points.

The only thing Plex has on Jellyfin are client apps. Sever-side… Jellyfin hands down. I was super surprised to see av1 transcoding support… In Plex we JUST got HEVC.

I’m not hating on Plex by any means, but when I have an issue with Plex, Jellyfin picks up the slack. I’ll be using Jellyfin full time after the ATV app re-write.

I am curious, though, what is it that makes you think Jellyfin’s software is inferior? Since I’ve been following, Jellyfin has released new features long before Plex.

Its weird how people complain more with the current state of plex compared to if they just required a plex pass for everything.

My ONLY complaints are that they have new features enabled by default, and that it doesn't work well if the internet breaks

There are 2 types of "free". Liberty, and price. "Free as in beer" means they mean the price version of the word. It's a really old saying now.

I agree with this. Add in also Apple TV options aren’t great. Swiftfin is just ok and Infuse is $

Thats fair. I haven't really noticed any of those issues. For my use case of just organizing and streaming my desktop's media library to my TV, its fantastic.

i’ve had none of those issues and i’ve been a jellyfin user for the past 5 years or so, but I do use containers for the server.

Android client is not great, but there are alternatives like Findroid, which is pretty great.

Last point is literally a couple of clicks. You just need to understand what libraries are and how to add them.

The most infuriating thing about Plex for me was when they shifted to force you to start with their BS streaming service at open. I only used Plex for my personal media collection. So having to jump through a bunch of menus to get to the only thing I want to use in their app was the biggest reason to switch for me. Maybe there is a way to fix that, but I could never find one.

Jellyfin just does your personal media library and opens right up into it when the app starts. Its simpler, faster, and FOSS.

I used Plex before I got tired of it requiring a remote network connection to work in my home network (no remote). I switched to emby a few years ago, and I'm tired of it too: Subtitle is a pain, filtering is a nightmare, integration with sonarr/radarr and configuration is annoying...

I've started developing my own streaming server, playback is working nice through the browser from server to tvlaptop. I'm going to integrate Transmission UI into it, and show/movie management, to get rid of sonnarr/radarr and maybe I'll manage to get rid of jackett too, so tired of this cumbersome stack. I want it all integrated into a single server with a single interface.

There's enough work without them going all social.

Duckdns is not stable enough. You'll have downtime multiple times a year.

Possibly a bit annoying for family members used to just logging in though. It's an extra step.

Just shared in another comment, instead of doing this you can also use http://playit.gg/ to create a proxy without requiring an account and also not requiring port forwarding. They lease you a domain name, too

i’ve been struggling with what i thought was depression/anhedonia for a few years now. after multiple psychiatrists and meds accomplishing nothing i am starting to think i’m chemically just fine; the world is actually going to shit around me.

They are removing it to make money from a subscription instead. You're making it sound like they are doing something good!

How so? My friends need to use my account or else they need to pay to watch my movie? Did that change?

Eh. There’s like 6 apps that provide free channels like that, with actual good content. Obviously there are commercials, but it’s really not bad.

They do have a proxy service, but it is optional. I have it disabled because my server is faster.

I could see the proxy slipping behind a paywall as that feature has costs, but web accessibility? That's basic function of a video server.

Why would they check for piracy when it's not them you're pirating from and stopping piracy would remove the most popular use case of their product?

I just run it in default config basically. To be honest it's just the normal docker container I hadn't noticed any crazy resource usage but then in not able to compare that to Plex itself.

It’s this sort of fiddly stuff that gives me pause with Jellyfin. And the fact that people say their apps aren’t that good.

I’m not the sort of nerd who wants to fiddle with plugins or hook my laptop up to every TV in the house.

But I’ll give it a try just to see.

I bought it for $90 in 2020.

I tried Jellyfin a few months back as a Plex replacement, but I can’t seem to get reliable playback on iPad/iOS. I’ve tried the native app, Infuse and Swiftfin to no avail. On the rare occurrence the app finds and connects to the server(over local network), they don’t seem to support transcoding of non-native formats such as x265. Can anyone confirm they have this working on iOS?

It'd probably different for everyone, but in my case, its smart collections and playlists. My family lives off the home screen and pretty much never venture beyond it. Jellyfin cannot do smart collections and the home screen is very bare bones and unpolished. In Plex I have smart collections and playlists that build automatically for them all pinned neatly to the home screen.

The Jellyfin clients are also unpolished in general and buggy. The server works great though. No problems with that.

Was trying to get a friend to switch to jellyfin the other day and it turns out he's got a weird Hisense projector that uses VIDAA OS, which does not have a jellyfin app, but DOES have a Plex app. I imagine setups like this are probably limiting Jellyfin's adoption. VIDAA is actually less niche than I thought as well, heaps of cheap-ish TVs and projectors are running it.

But that’s exactly my point - we here in this bubble prefer Jellyfin - but it’s not ready for mass adoption. Even plex is a drop in the bucket.

Sure. Except in the ways it isn't.

It's deceptive because it leaves out the most important part. That is if you aren't using the free version of Plex (AKA you have the lifetime pass), this doesn't affect you. It's a non-issue for anyone smart enough to get lifetime subscription.