I'm not sure I understand the need for charging to play media on a private server when not on the local network. Why is this no longer going to be free? I'm glad I bought a lifetime pass many many years back but I definitely wouldn't pay for Plex nowadays with alternatives being comparable. What a silly choice they made~
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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I’m not defending them because it’s a shit move, but they clearly understand the most valuable feature is not their ad-ridden free content but rather the original value prop of the service to make it easy to share personal media with small groups of friends.
It reeks of "we're routing your traffic through our own servers to check your media for piracy" to me.
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.
The proxy service is also encrypted end to end
Edit: this relies on the Plex system being secure/nice though.
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That $75 Lifetime Plex Pass is looking like a good decision by past me.
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That blows. I just use the Plex app on my TV for free streaming channels. 24/7 Top Gear reruns FTW!
And on that terrible disappointment, back to piracy.
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.
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Does Jellyfin have good skip intro functionality for TV shows? That was the main thing keeping me from switching last time I considered a couple years ago
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I see Jellyfin suggested as an alternative to Plex here. I hope it is one day.
At the moment it’s nowhere close.
I’ve been running Jellyfin side-by-side Plex for two years and it’s still not a viable replacement for anyone but me. Parents, my partner, none of the possible solutions for them come anywhere near close to the usability of Plex and its ecosystem of apps for various devices.
That will likely change because plex is getting worse every day and folks can contribute their own solutions to the playback issues. With plex it’s more noise, more useless features. So one gets better (Jellyfin) and one gets worse (Plex).
But at the moment it really isn’t close for most folks who are familiar with the slickness of commercial apps.
Even from the administrative side, Jellyfin takes massively more system resources and it doesn’t reliably work with all my files.
Again, Jellyfin will get there it’s just not a drop in replacement for most folks yet.
And for context I started my DIY streaming / hosting life with a first gen Apple TV (pretty much a Mac mini with component video outs) that eventually got XBMC and then Boxee installed on it. I even have the forksaken Boxee box.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but in what ways is Jellyfin vastly inferior to Plex? I haven't used Plex before but Jellyfin does everything me and my family need from a streaming service.
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.
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