Important 2025 Plex Updates
www.plex.tv
Personal Media and Beyond You’re going to be hearing a lot from us this year—we’ve got a ton of exciting...

We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

    • sasquash@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      11·
      12 days ago

      any recommendations to get it to work remotely? the good thing about plex was it was easy to set up, but the quality was medicore.

        • gdog05@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          12 days ago

          I used a Cloudflare tunnel for security (no open ports) but that’s for people with limited tech ability mostly. Everyone else I’ve got connected with a tailscale node.

          • Grunt4019@lemm.eeEnglish
            8·
            12 days ago

            Careful with that I think it’s against their TOS to do that due to the large volumes of data video streaming takes.

          • jayb151@piefed.socialEnglish
            4·
            12 days ago

            I’m in the process of moving houses at the moment. But I’ve already got a nice PC put together to host a mess of services. Should be “fun” LOL

        • CmdrShepard42@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          12 days ago

          That works but is pretty insecure as you have nothing protecting your server outside of a basic password.

          • jayb151@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            11 days ago

            I’m pleading full ignorance here. Because I opened the port for JF, doesn’t that mean the only thing exposed would be my jellyfin? I thought having the rest of my ports closed would not allow access to the rest of my system?

    • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      12 days ago

      Before now I was on the sunk cost fallacy of not wanting to teach my extended family how to use Jellyfin instead of plex but after this I’m already mid-way through setting up a Jellyfin docker container on my server and I only found out an hour ago

    • keyez@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      12 days ago

      I’ve been testing out jellyfin for the last couple months but it doesn’t really fill the void of this specific feature that’s being locked behind a pay wall. If anyone has good recommendations for securely and reliably hosting jellyfin behind SSL and auth with email password resets where I don’t have to worry about it as much as Plex.

      I use jellyfin locally but for a handful of remote clients I have I may well block off their access they’re not going to be able to figure out my hand spun services and wall of text.

        • Dempf@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          12 days ago

          You can connect Jellyfin to an SSO provider. It still needs work, and client support is lacking. Ideally I think it maybe should be built in rather than a plug-in (would definitely encourage more client support). But it exists.

          https://github.com/9p4/jellyfin-plugin-sso

          Feature request for oidc/sso:

          https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/230/support-for-oidc-oauth-sso

          As it stands, you could enable both the SSO and LDAP plugins, and let users do password resets entirely through your auth provider.

          Basically, this is all stuff that comes with Plex out-of-the-box, but you sort of have to glue it together yourself with Jellyfin, and it’s not yet in an ideal state. Plex is much much easier to configure. I wouldn’t allow yourself to believe that Plex doing all this for you will make you totally secure through – there’s been multiple incidents with their auth, and IIRC the LastPass attacker pivoted from a weak Plex install. Just food for thought.

          • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            Ah, that’s good to know!
            My jellyfin server is only available over vpn (and locally) so I haven’t much looked into beefing up the security on the jellyfin server itself.

        • deeferg@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          12 days ago

          Dumb question but should there be VPNs operating on both ends, server and client? Or just the client because I’m guessing the server might change the connection address.

          • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1·
            11 days ago

            A VPN Server on the server or home network (look into PiVPN for instance), and a VPN Client on clients (look at openvpn for instance).

            Good luck and let me know if you have any further questions - I’m more than happy to answer!

      • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        12 days ago

        Authentik + jellyfin SSO plugin?

        I haven’t tried it out personally, but I use authentik, for that you can just create a password policy, then add a new stage for identification (just make sure to add the email field), and an email stage, then create a flow.

        More work on your end than paying someone else obviously.

    • kingthrillgore@lemmy.mlEnglish
      32·
      12 days ago

      Jellyfin is still way behind Plex in general performance but I keep a VM of it running and updated, for when the day comes that Plex is absolutely worthless.

      Which at this rate, is, well, we’re getting there.

    • Obinice@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      Alas my TV (LG WebOS 2) doesn’t have an application for Jellyfin, or I’d have switched years ago :-(

      • gdog05@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 days ago

        Is there an emby app available or Kodi? The base of Jellyfin should work in either. Plug and play as far as I’m aware with maybe some issues for certain versions.

    • Limonene@lemmy.worldEnglish
      114·
      12 days ago

      Jellyfin depends on proprietary Microsoft .NET, even on Linux.

      It’s still better than Plex and Emby, which are fully proprietary, and have no source code. But I will stick with sshfs with kodi, and nginx plus mpv for now.

  • Evotech@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1417·
    12 days ago

    I’m not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.

  • RonnyZittledong@lemmy.worldEnglish
    982·
    12 days ago

    I have a lifetime plex pass so this does not really affect me but I expect the trend of degrading experience to continue. I would have switched to Jellyfin a long time ago but I am dreading contacting everyone I share with and getting them migrated.

    • ghost@feddit.orgEnglish
      201·
      12 days ago

      Jellyfin is just so much better, imo. Much cleaner, less stuff that I don’t actually need.

      I’m a plex pass lifetime owner, but I don’t regret switching to Jellyfin one bit.

      • HorseFD@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        12 days ago

        I switched when I had an internet outage and couldn’t log into Plex locally to watch my own media. Very happy with Jellyfin since then.

        • bishbosh@lemm.eeEnglish
          8·
          12 days ago

          Assuming you know them well enough, can’t you just give your IP address to folks and forward the port on your router?

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            8·
            12 days ago

            You can, but the reason you use a reverse proxy, isn’t revealing your IP or something, it’s that without it, the traffic is unencrypted.

            As in, log in details and the contents of media streams are sent fully readable by any network node on the way.

        • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.caEnglish
          61·
          12 days ago

          Here’s the thing though, for the average plex user (myself included) you’ve already used too many acronyms and words I don’t understand. Plex serves a purpose for a lot of people, people who are even willing to pay for it to be easy.

          Kind of reminds me of Netflix before anyone else did streaming. They had so much stuff I stopped sailing.

          • maniajack@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            12 days ago

            Yep. Imo now with Plex you are paying for a much simpler and accessible setup. Seems fair enough to me. Lemmy FOSS or die users (every else in this thread seemingly) are not the target audience of Plex but they sure love to complain about it.

            • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.caEnglish
              2·
              11 days ago

              I try to use Foss but only when it’s a lateral move. I tried Linux mint. It came close but there were so many little things that just didn’t make sense to me as someone who used windows for the last 25 years. Do I want to use Windows 11? No, especially with everything they’ve been doing to it. But in terms of usability, the sacrifices that I make by using Windows 11 outweigh the extra work, frustration, and time spent trying to figure out Linux (tried 3 different distros too).

              I have 3 little kids, a full time job and aging parents. I don’t have hours every day to try and make stuff work.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          12 days ago

          No, you don’t need a RP.
          You can and should set it up though as it’s a very good convenient feature.

          But you can expose Jellyfin directly.

          • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            12 days ago

            Yeah, welcome to the easy, fast, cheap conundrum.

            If you’re willing to do a bit of learning and asking the community for help if you get a little stuck, you’ve got a free solution, if not, which is perfectly okay mind you, then Plex is your solution and you have to decide how much you’re willing to pay.

            And honestly, of you’re going down the home media route with friend and family, you’re going to want to set up sonarr, radarr, ombi, transmission with VPN anyways.

            • deeferg@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              11 days ago

              I’m going to be going the free solution route, been trying to find a cheap laptop to turn into my server right now. Do you mind if I reach out about it or do you know of any good instances?

          • tfw_no_toiletpaper@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            Just put it behind tailscale and use the IP. Doing this for a two years now with weekly anime watch togethers with my friends. Not elegant but enough.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        12 days ago

        If you can set it up? Yup.
        Behind CGNAT? Maybe you need to set up a relay or something to circumvent it.

      • Sarmyth@lemmy.worldEnglish
        65·
        12 days ago

        With the caviat that you have tailscale enabled on both devices. This prevents it from being used on a roku outside your home but you could access it remotely from your computer/phone/tablet.

        It is significantly harder than Plex, currently. There are improvements happening all the time though.

        • Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          71·
          12 days ago

          You very much can create an external port and access anywhere without any of this. No tailscale needed but I’d recommend one knows what they are doing…

        • SirSamuel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          12 days ago

          Hmmm, i use a Synology NAS with Jellyfin installed and my family can use their Roku TVs without issue. I didn’t realize Synology made a difference there

          • thisNotMyName@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            12 days ago

            It totally depends on how you expose it to the outside world. If it’s exposed just like it is, it works fine with every device. If you put an authentication before it (e.g. Authelia), it can only be accessed by browsers from outside the network. That being said, it’s not recommended to expose Jellyfin directly, because there are a ton of security flaws. Best practice is to use a VPN

            • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              12 days ago

              it can only be accessed by browsers from outside the network.

              Weird.
              If I nslookup my jellyfin URL it responds with an IP in my local IP range…
              And it works both outside with a 2FA page and inside without…

        • hikaru755@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          12 days ago

          Huh? I’m streaming from my Jellyfin just fine when I’m on the go, with no tailscale or other VPN set up

          • Sarmyth@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            It was significantly harder to set up remote access for Jellyfin than Plex 6 months ago. I ha ent attempted since. With Plex there was literally no set up, it just works. Until it just works without having to do any extra work, Jellyfin will struggle with adoption.

            I have both running, and thatd a big difference to me. Also I prefer the way Plex detects intros and credits for skipping and their detection for captions. Once that’s all sorted Jellyfin wins in every field.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        7·
        12 days ago

        does jellyfin have a roku app?

        Yes, it streams pretty well, it has some UX issues, but it will let you get off plex as it stands right now with most of your needs covered.

  • dmtalon@infosec.pubEnglish
    9220·
    12 days ago

    Glad I bought the Plex Pass like 13 years ago. While I understand everyone seems to think everything should be free, I’m sure your boss wishes you worked for free too, but the world doesn’t work that way.

    I’m OK supporting products I use , and Plex is an example of this for me. It was a well spend $75 in 2013

    • CmdrShepard42@lemm.eeEnglish
      18·
      12 days ago

      I fucking hope to god they don’t go full enshittification and decide to revoke the lifetime licenses.

      • pageflight@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        12 days ago

        Even with Plex pass they were really pushing their paid content. Much happier with Jellyfin, and it was very easy to switch.

        • 032 Mendicant Bias@feddit.ukEnglish
          4·
          12 days ago

          What paid content? I have a Plex lifetime pass and I can’t recall ever being asked to pay for anything? I can remember them dumping free TV channels in there at some point, but I simply switched that off and it’s not come back.

          • pageflight@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            12 days ago

            Hmm, it’s been a while, maybe I’m misremembering. There were definitely some categories of Plex content not from my library that kept reappearing on the home page of my server, despite trying to get rid of them a few times. Maybe they weren’t actually paid, I just assumed they’d only be pushing something if it was going to bring them more revenue.

            The other thing that made me want to jump ship extremely fast was when they started sharing your recently watched items with other users, without asking.

      • jacksilver@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        12 days ago

        I keep expecting something, the lifetime pass has more/less paid for itself.

        That being said, they do still offer the lifetime pass, so clearly they see it as worth it.

      • pivot_root@lemmy.worldEnglish
        89·
        12 days ago

        No, it’s still wrong.

        We have ways to do NAT traversal and hole punching on consumer routers. Failing that, UPnP and port forwarding exist. Or, god forbid, IPv6.

        In the rare case that literally none of those are an option, they would have to use TURN to relay between an intermediary. That is a reasonable case to ask the user to pay for their bandwidth usage, but they don’t have to be greedy fuckers by making everyone pay for it.

        This is enshittification and corporate greed. Nothing more, nothing less.

        • Evotech@lemmy.worldEnglish
          44·
          12 days ago

          They make a product. It’s not just the cost of infrastructure.

          They have developers and other employees

          • pivot_root@lemmy.worldEnglish
            41·
            12 days ago

            And this isn’t a new feature they’re adding. Remote streaming was already implemented and generally available to users.

            I don’t discount there being a cost in maintaining code over time, but it’s not as though they have to spend any significant employee time on improving it. They already support UPnP and NAT-PMP to have the clients connect directly to the self-hosted servers.

            It would be nice if they added NAT hole punching on top of that, but it’s evidently good enough to work as-is in its current form. If they’re not even running relays to support more tricky networks (which the linked support article has no mention of), keeping this feature free costs them literally nothing extra.

    • non_burglar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      205·
      12 days ago

      Your view unfortunately doesn’t show you how shitty the unpaid experience has become. XBMC used to be a good product. Since becoming Plex, now we have:

      • no local hardware accel
      • no HDR
      • panels that look like local videos that trick you into switching to a paid app
      • rearranged home screen after some updates
      • no downloads on remote devices
      • and now I’ll lose the ability to share streaming with my kid, who lives many cities away

      If this were clear from the outset , no one would be upset. But pulling back features Plex at one time promised “forever” (remote streaming), is complete rug-pull bullshit.

      You can enjoy that warm and fuzzy reverse-fomo feeling now, but you should know that they’ll start limiting your paid experience eventually.

      • legion02@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        12 days ago

        Xbmc didn’t become plex. It’s still alive and kicking but rebranded to Kodi (mostly because it had little to do with xbox anymore) ages ago.

      • Harriet_Porber@lemmy.worldEnglish
        22·
        12 days ago

        what? all of these work on plex for me:

        -server hardware accel transcoding (are you talking about something else?)

        -HDR playback works fine for me…

        -I can download just fine from a browser or the plex app, when remote

    • ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      62·
      12 days ago

      I mean, I’m with you, it is nice to support something you use, financially. But you made a one time payment 12 years ago. Your money is certainly not there anymore, they used it and paid something with it. I don’t know, it just sounds like a really weird take reading your post. But maybe its me whose weird, I would prefer one time payment over subscriptions too.

      • Mniot@programming.devEnglish
        8·
        12 days ago

        Lots of businesses have and do exist without a subscription model. I’m fond of the Paprika Recipe Manager, for example, which asks a one-time payment for each major version. All commercial software worked this way in the 80s.

        • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
          21·
          12 days ago

          Did you notice what you said there each major version. Plex has been rolling releases for years. Maybe they should have done Plex 1 2 etc. yes software has been that way forever but you would pay for a version and then a year later pay for another one. Now people expect to pay once and get upgrades forever.

          • Mniot@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            Sure, I’m not saying Plex has to do a single-payment model. Just that it’s a think that’s been done successfully (and for longer than Plex has existed). Everyone’s pushing subscription models so hard that it’s easy to think “this is the only possible way that anything can work”.

          • CmdrShepard42@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            Now people expect to pay once and get upgrades forever.

            Because they’re called “lifetime passes” voluntarily offered by the company. It seems weird to act like people are being entitled about this or that their $75-$120 one-time payment is meaningless compared to someone who’s only paid $5 or worse using it for free.

        • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          12 days ago

          I wonder how much money Plex still makes through their lifetime purchases. Is it that they were struggling and then made bad business decisions with the aim on increasing revenue (ad supported video on demand)? Or was it the other way around?

          In the 80s new systems usually came with new OSs, which required porting software it. Thus a lifetime license was practically limited.

          I wouldn’t be as opposed to a subscription model if it was cheaper and they focused on their actual core product, not all the other fluff around. 5€/m is a bit much given they don’t pay for my bandwidth. And if they didn’t store my media info, history etc…

          • Mniot@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            I have no idea how well it works in reality, but I can imagine the Lifetime Pass being a good business model for them: only the most enthusiastic user will pay for 3 years up front (lifetime currently costs 3x the yearly). So when they get a Lifetime pass they’re getting 3 years paid up front and an evangelist who will probably tell their friends about Plex. If that Lifetime subscriber gets even one person to sign up for a yearly sub who otherwise wouldn’t have, then Plex came out ahead.

      • dmtalon@infosec.pubEnglish
        1·
        12 days ago

        I looked at and look at it as an investment. 13 years ago it could have been a good decision or a bad one.

        The idea behind a lifetime membership is a means to spark fund raising, and I thought then “I use this a lot, it works for me I’m gonna pay for it”.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        12 days ago

        You’re right the guy who paid $5 once for a month of Plex Pass is way more valuable than the one who paid $75 (or $120 full price). The only people more valuable to the company than the $5 guy are the ones who use the app for free.

    • modus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      Yeah, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal for most people here. They kept the price down as long as possible. I spent $119 just before the 'rona hit and I think it’s been well worth it.

    • Luffy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      310·
      12 days ago

      OK, but why is it a for profit company in the first place?

      And why does open source Software like xz, ffmpeg, etc still work without being for profit?

      Fucking liberal.

      • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
        7·
        12 days ago

        They don’t. Most people get paid by companies to work on that stuff. For example red hat pays for a lot of OS development.

  • PhAzE@lemmy.caEnglish
    742·
    12 days ago

    As a plex pass lifetime user, this doesn’t change anything for me.

    I am, however, blown away that the price went from $75 CDN to $350 CDN over the last 10 years!! That’s just insane!

    • 032 Mendicant Bias@feddit.ukEnglish
      111·
      12 days ago

      I’m not sure where you’re getting that from, the article literally states the price hasn’t changed in 10 years, and still hasn’t, but it finally will on the 29th of April.

      This tracks with my experience as it’s probably been 10 years since I bought the lifetime pass and here in the UK it’s often on sale for basically the same price (about £75 if I recall).

      • PhAzE@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        12 days ago

        Well, it was $75 CDN when i bought in 2012, it’s $150-170 CDN now, and going up to $249 USD which converts to $358 CDN, so I’m assumong they’ll round down to $350 or up to $360 CDN.

        The conversion from USD to CDN kills it for us sadly. It’s just such a huge jump this time. More than double on this bump.

    • tomkatt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      They have sales, and it’s not really worth paying the “MSRP” price. My wife got Plex Pass for $80 back in 2023, and I got it late last year for $90.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.mlEnglish
    432·
    11 days ago

    I’m surprised by the resistance to Jellyfin in this thread. If you are using Plex, you’re already savvy enough to use bittorrent and probably the *arrs. If you can configure that stuff, Jellyfin is absolutely something you can handle. If you like Docker, there’s good projects out there. If you’re like me and you don’t understand Docker, use Swizzin community edition. If you can install Ubuntu or Debian, and run the Swizzin script, you’re in business.

  • profilelost@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    38·
    12 days ago

    I’ve been meaning to set up a homeserver with plex recently but will defnitely go for jellyfin now that I read this thread.

  • quack@lemmy.zipEnglish
    468·
    11 days ago

    Can’t say I have a huge issue with this - Plex isn’t FOSS and the infrastructure to make this happen isn’t free. Other options are available if you don’t want to pay the fee.

  • GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    391·
    12 days ago

    It looks like as long as the host has a Plex pass, this doesn’t change much. It is a regression of service, which sucks, but there are viable alternatives for those unable or unwilling to pay. And honestly, jellyfin is the clear winner in that case and always has been.

    Now, if they start to charge my friends and family for access to my media after I have already paid them for their lifetime subscription, then I’ll grab a pitchfork with the crowd.

    Also, why not run both and be ready? The resources required are minimal if you’re running via docker, just some extra RAM and a negligible amount of compute for overhead on library maintenance tasks.

    • ditty@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      12 days ago

      Same. I’m not switching to Jellyfin yet either - mostly because of my boomer parents - but this is getting close to the tipping point for me

    • Evrala@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      I run both on my unraid NAS. I use plex for streaming to my phone over cell data. I use jellyfin for streaming to my laptops and TV.

      Plex tends to break every once and a while though. Not often, but it happens enough that I’m replacing it with just having my music on a DAP that is synced with Syncthing.

      I also use the comic viewer function of jellyfin.

  • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    11 days ago

    I already pay for plex pass but I’m going to start looking into jelly fin out of principle. I will not support the enshitification of a service I use and this is how it starts. Soon they will have tiered subscriptions and then the cheap one will be taken away and the cheapest paid one will be stuffed with ads then all tiers will be stuffed with ads then they will jack up prices again or charge more for sharing with family or block it all together to force your family to get their own sub and the circle of enshitification will be complete.