cross-posted from: https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/2333639
I was just forwarded this someone in my household who watches our server. That’s it folks. I’ve been a hold out for a long time, but this is honestly it.
They want me to pay to stream content that I bought from my hardware transcoded also on my hardware.
I’ll say it. As of today, I say Plex is dead. Luckily I’ve been setting up Jellyfin, I guess it’s time to make it production ready.
Edit: I have a Plex Pass. More comments saying “Just buy a plex pass” are seriously not getting it. I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.
And for the thousandth person who wants to say the same things to me:
- YES I know I’m unaffected as a Plex Pass owner.
- My users were immediately angry at it, which made me angry. Our users don’t understand what plex pass is, and they shouldn’t have to, that’s why I had it. The fact that they were pinged even though it should have kept working is horribly sloppy
- Plex is still removing functionality. I don’t care that “People should pay their fair share”. If Plex wants to put every new feature behind a paywall, that’s completely okay. They are removing functionality.
- “But they have cloud costs”. Remote streaming is negligible to them. It’s a dynamic DNS service. Plex client logs in, asks where server is, plex cloud responds with the IP and port of where server is located. That’s it.
- “Good luck finding another remote streaming” - Again, Plex just opens up an IP and port. Jellyfin also just opens up an IP and port (Hold on jellyfin folks I know, security, that’s a separate conversation). All “remote streaming” is is their dynamic dns. Literal pennies to them. Know what actually is costing them money? Hosting all of that ad-supported “free” content that they’re probably losing money on.
In short, I don’t care how you justify it. Plex is doing something shitty. They’re removing functionality that has been free for years. I’m not responding to any more of your comments repeating the same arguments over and over.
Dropped this for jellyfin years ago
Jellyfin users have been warning about such things for a long time, but very few actually listened. Well, here we are, hope more people migrate now
Same. Plex is wack
I’ve had them side by side in preparation for this day.
Us jigglers tend to prefer jelly
Indeed we do. Big fan of your work btw.
Its my honor
What’s the jellyfin experience like nowadays?
It is still more spartan than plex, more of a media library serving framework only. However even people who aren’t particularly well adjusted to tech (like my 75 yo mom), don’t seem to have an issue using it once it is set-up, and younger people with marginal tech expertise seem to be able to set up a server, and clients, with a little time on google. People complain about it not working on a lot of smart TV OSs, but I have not run into this, at least with the most popular ones, Roku, WebOS, TVOS, Google tv, Samsung, Vizio, however I have not tried it with an Apple TV. The biggest complaints I have personally received are mostly secondary features like polished library management interfaces.
So let me get this straight: you own the content, you host the content on your machine, you pay the electricity and internet and plex says it can’t afford to let you share it to others without a subscription fee?
I mean making plex a one time fee if it’s good turnkey solution is fine but subscription…
I don’t see this talked about much anymore, but the day Plex added telemetry in 2017 was the day I became five-alarm desperate for an alternative. Had to wait a 2-3 years with Plex’s telemetry IP’s and domains blacklisted before Jellyfin was mature enough for me to make the change.
How Plex users can be comfortable with any telemetry is beyond me.
Heloooooo Jellyfin!
Oh no a paid, proprietary, piece of shit software does something shitty. Who could’ve ever saw this coming?!
I’ve said it for years anytime anyone mentioned running a Plex server. As soon as you install that on your server or your homelab it’s no longer your server. Proprietary software is malware
I hope more people realise this.
If it’s not Open Source, I don’t want it
B-b-b-but my convenience!!!
The worst part for me was reading that they monitor everything you do, and what you streams and who looks at your stuff.
Wtf
I never got the idea of selfhosting but paying (except for enterprise-grade support or donations) anyway.
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You know all the certs and security and port stuff you need to do? Plex does that. You just download the app, point it at your folders with media, and you’re all set both at your home and beyond it.
I am just gonna read your comment until here, Plex does shit if you are CGNATED, and as it is 2025 I suppose most users are, I still needed to expose through IPv6 with a reverse proxy, using a VPS or a VPN to access my Plex Server, so yeah, Plex hasn’t helped me at all since many years ago with the noob friendly approach they have.
EDIT: Oh and their relay feature is garbage, even for Plex Pass users, and I happen to be a lifetime one.
I LOVE Jellyfin but can only imagine the amount of work I’d have to do if I tried to get my parents and in-laws successfully using it. We all just split the cost of lifetime Plex pass the last time it was on sale.
can only imagine the amount of work I’d have to do
Insert url. Insert login credentials.
What’s a url?
Do you mean the Facebook thing? I tried to Google the internet from the Facebooks and it didn’t work. I called Comcast and I told them the problem and now I have 400 TV channels. They took your computer box, said it was bad for security. Something about shredding it. Anyway, can you get the internet to Google for me?
I see you know as much about Jellyfin as you do about my in-laws.
I’m sure he doesn’t know your family as well as you do, but as for jellyfin, that’s exactly what you do, open it in a browser and stream, I don’t understand what’s your objection to that
The giant unsecured barn door that is the Jellyfin backend
@MaggiWuerze@feddit.org nailed it. Jellyfin has security issues. It’s better than it used to be, but it’s still bad.
I run into you again! This time I get to wholeheartedly agree with you! You are spot on and nailed it.
I use Plex for exactly the reasons you said because when I set it up I didn’t know anything about self hosting a media server and I wanted to share with family in other locations. I keep it because it’s so easy for my older, less tech savvy family members to access so I don’t have to be their support person for it.
I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
The biggest thing about this is I don’t get why OP is so annoyed. If you have a Plex Pass you’re not impacted, you can still share and your users can still access your library for free, they can’t share with you without a Plex Pass but who cares.
I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
It’s about as plug and play as any other website. They just open the app, type in the URL, and log in with their credentials and…that’s it.
After setting up an elaborate VPN scheme
No such scheme required
So you’re telling people to expose Jellyfin to the internet?
Jellyfin or Plex, needs to be done if you want remote connections without a VPN
I’m not telling anyone what to do, I’m just saying the VPN is not necessary. Mine is exposed.
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How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)
I suppose having Plex handle users is easier than creating an account but barely imo.
Not shitting on Plex either, gotta do what you want I think the problems with this kind of thing is the change, people had a free service for years and now they have to change or pay. People hate change, lol
I’ve been “collecting” content for many years now. I learned most of what I needed to know about ripping and transcoding over the years, such that each time I need to deal with a new video format, or a new application, it’s not too hard, because I’m building on everything I’ve already learned.
And each time I was learning new things, it’s not like there was a risk that all my previous content might suddenly become unusable or inaccessible.
Meanwhile, a couple years ago I was finally able to build myself a proper NAS. While I know my way around Linux somewhat, I never kept a Linux-based daily driver because most of the apps I use regularly are on Windows, and I’m not confident about running them stably in Linux, nor am I confident about equivalent native Linux apps. And I’m not confident about setting up and administering my own server. My past experiences have shown me that whenever you need to do anything complex and specific, it involves a lot of work.
So at a coworker’s suggestion, I got a Synology NAS that turned out to be a breeze to setup. And then I figured out how to get Plex server on there (not available in the Synology package manager, but the “manual” process turned out to be simple enough)
And it just WORKS! it’s not perfect, but it’s mostly painless to use. I was happy paying for the lifetime Plex pass at the beginning, because it handles all the routing and discovery that needs to happen to allow me to stream to my phone, or to my parents’ TV when I’m visiting them.
My next NAS might not be by Synology due to their recent announcement about supported hard drives, but I’ll probably be looking for something that “just works” because I can’t be bothered to learn how to be a sysadmin, and risk losing my stuff because I’m making the kinds of mistakes one makes as they’re learning.
Just like, if I owned a car, I wouldn’t be digging under the hood to “tweak the timing” or replacing brake discs. I’d be happy paying someone I trust to do that work, leaving me with a car that “just works”.
Completely agree, and I think it’s fair for them to make it a paid feature. It’s kind of like using wireguard yourself to create a whole network vs Tailscale.
Downvote without explanation. Nice!
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I assume they replied to you after someone downvoted you but before all the upvotes.
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Any time you rely on another company to handle your data, you are beholden to their whims, end of story. Don’t like what they’re doing? Too bad. Give up the convenience and host it yourself, or continue to be a slave to their corporate interests.
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Been slowly chipping away at those for the last decade (could have gone way faster but I’m lazy), and I’m almost completely google-free. I dont use any microsoft products at home (work forces me to), and Apple can eat my ass. My phone is a completely de-googled GrapheneOS device (I don’t have an issue relying on companies for hardware, just software), and hopefully in the future a Liberux or Pinephone linux phone.
I self-host my own movies, music, and cloud storage. I also host my own chat service for friends and family, built on top of XMPP. The services i do use are generally very privacy respecting like Signal for people outside of my social sphere, or freedom respecting like Lemmy (mostly weaned off of reddit).
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Ahh there it is, I knew you’d do that.
I abide by my own lectures, I am actively putting effort into it and am 99% of the way there, which is 100% more than you.
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For a good while, Plex was the only game in town that did the job well, and they put the transcoding feature behind the paywall.
Given it wasn’t that expensive for a lifetime pass a number of years ago (I remember it was cheaper than a game anyway) and they still seemed relatively user-centric at the time, many people like me felt like they were supporting developers building something that was useful to us.
I still run my Plex server since it’s not really costing me not to, but I’ve been running Jellyfin too for a little while and it more or less can do the same job these days
Yup, for the time it was worth it. I got about 7 years out of my “lifetime” plex pass, and I got it on sale. All in all, I won’t say the money was wasted.
It’s 100% a waste if anyone pays for that BS monthly streaming fee though.
Wait so you’ve got a lifetime plex pass already? Then literally nothing changes for you or anyone that is streaming from your server.
Yeah, they’re just bitching. Pretty funny imo
I put my chips (£100) on Emby.
I haven’t regretted my purchase. I can’t sell anyone on much either, because Emby does all the same as other services, except they’ve kept adding features while Plex kept doing the Google thing and taking them away. CPU transcoding is free I believe, as is remote streaming up to 10 devices for each user… Idk I paid pretty early on, but lifetime license is where it’s at. Subscriptions just open your asshole for greedy CEOs to fuck you. Best to keep subscriptions voluntary, like donating on Github or Patreon
Emby was borne out of classic workplace toxicity, in that Jellyfin was becoming too corporate so a couple devs forked off to keep it clean.
I think you have that backwards. Jellyfin is a fork of emby
Indeed I did, I removed my speculative comments…
In the case of plex, it’s not 100% selfhosted. There’s a dependence on plexs public infrastructure for user management/authentication. They also help bypass NAT by proxying connections through their servers so you don’t have to setup port forwarding and can even easily escape double NAT situations.
I can understand paying for that convenience, but cost keeps rising while previously free features continue to get locked behind paywalls.
Tbh, having users required to authenticate with plex.tv was enough for me to look elsewhere. The biggest reason to self host for me is to remove dependency on public services.
The central user management is not a feature, it’s a hook to force people to pay for self-hosted software.
Can’t say I disagree.
Take HomeAssistant for example: you’re free to use it self-hosted, but as soon as you want to expose it securely through the Internet, there’s need for infrastructure that has costs, both in materials and labor. In HomeAssistant’s case, it’s NabuCasa that does it, and costs money, and helps fund the work of HomeAssistant’s developers.
Having things free (libre) and open source is a blessing, but we have become used, entitled, even spoiled, to enjoy the work of very specialized people for free. That’s not always feasible.
Another example, Zabbix, is totally open source and free, they only charge for support and training if you ask for them. It has worked for them for many years, but if they start to struggle with funding, I’d understand if they charged for it.
Home Assistant doesn’t require to pay for anything at any point in time for any reason. If you want to expose your instance to the web, they have all the documents on how to do it yourself. There’s absolutely nothing “hidden” behind a paywall. The only reason to say is if you want Nabu Casa to handle exposing your instance to the internet and various cloud services like Google Assistant/Alexa. The reason to pay Nabu Casa is if you don’t have the technical know how (or lazy like me) and to help fund Home Assistant (which I want).
That’s all to say that Plex and Home Assistant are not similar in their pay scheme. It’d be more akin if Jellyfin started charging users to allow a one click way to stream outside the home with no obligation to.
With Plex, you’re getting the easy ability to grant access to users. You get a single pane that can search across multiple Plex instances, and NAT traversal/port forwarding. Jellyfin makes you figure that out yourself.
It’s not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don’t see the value for the cost; if you’re even considering self hosting a Plex server/instance, there’s a list of basic knowledge you should have or learn (like what you mentioned).
Its not difficult for technical people like you or me, but my friend who just wants to watch their favorite show on my Plex on their TV won’t know how to traffic engineer the traffic over a Tailscale network to my network. My mom won’t be installing Tailscale on her laptop and phone.
As long as the technical person does all of the setup on their end, the non technical person only has to enter a domain and port in their jellyfin client.
If you want to be on the hook for all IT requests from folks you share with, this is a fine approach. There are people out there who honestly don’t have a problem with that and more power to them. I doubt they are the majority, and a lot of selfhosters completely ignore this aspect of software. There is a reason non-free services exist beyond just “capitalism bad.” I mean, capitalism indeed bad, but your time is worth something.
I guess I haven’t noticed that. The non technically literate folk I know use smart TVs, or can download Jellyfin from an app store. Then they just use the URL when the app asks for it.
There’s no other configuring to do on their end.
They also need to run a VPN client.
Because you’re not putting bare jellyfin on the internet, right? You shouldn’t be doing that for most services in the first place, but doubly so for something that has a bunch of APIs that require no authentication: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Immich has a weird “buy a licence” model which literally does nothing.
Immich, I believe, is linked to Futo. And Futo has a license model that’s basically “if you like this app, and want to support the development, consider buying a license.”
Sounds like it might be similar with Immich.
Better than “donate to this project”, since a license seems more like the user is getting something out of it, even if it’s basically a glorified donation 😂
Instantly bought the server license. Support your favorite FOSS, people.
You can selfhost for free however you want but software developers have the right to ask for money to use their software. I selfhost about 60tb of media and have paid for Plex monthly for about 10 years now. They are still so far above the competition for ease-of-use that I wouldn’t even consider switching at this point, even to save $7/month.
They have the right to ask, but I don’t have to pay. I’ve been playing with Jellyfin for about a month now, and I have to say, it’s just as easy as Plex is. The only thing I had to do myself was make my own users. In fact, I tried Jellyfin a few years ago and was unimpressed - now all I see is Plex making stuff to make advertisers happy while Jellyfin is adding stuff to make it’s users happy, to the point where I think Jellyfin has surpassed Plex.
But would you / do you voluntarily donate to Jellyfin’s development?
I get it, it is (& a lot of things are) free… but at some point the developers need to recoup something…
Otherwise Jellyfin’s development will eventually dry up as raw enthusiasm runs out.
Jellyfin refuses donations so even if I (not the one you’re responding to) wanted to, I would not be able to.
Pretty funny one has to keep reducing features and increase prices, while the other is actively refusing funds because they have enough already.Not quite. Jellyfin does take in donations, but they intentionally hide this feature on their website – first you need to go to their
Contributepage, then you need to read “Find a way to contribute” blurb and notice and clickOther, then you need to clickHelp Pay for Expenses, then they give you a speech practically asking you to reconsider:As a project, we generally do not like asking for donations - we are entirely volunteer-run and intend to keep Jellyfin free as in beer, as well as free as in speech, forever. We do not wish, support, nor intend donations to privilege any user’s voice or priorities. That said, if you do want to help us cover some operating expenses like our VPS hosting, domains, developer licenses, metadata API keys, and other incidental expenses, check out our OpenCollective page to donate. Our entire budget as well as all expenses are publicly visible there.
And then you have to click that link and intentionally donate money – any amount you want either one time or monthly. The level of integrity compared to Plex – who take in VC money hand over fist and are descending into nickel-and-diming their customers – isn’t night-and-day: it’s the surface of a star and the center of the Boötes Void.
Exactly. This is a bet that Plex is going to lose with the proliferation of Jellyfin.
I dunno about that. Plex has lots of market share and plenty of “well I bought the pass when it was $60/$90” people aren’t gonna be personally affected by them locking more and more functionality behind the pass. So they’ll keep using it and recommending it and talking about it, and the centralized account management stuff (which Jellyfin won’t copy, because not having that is the point of selfhosting) will always be more convenient than setting up VPNs or other tools like external auth for Jellyfin sharing over the internet.
Discourse about this everywhere always boils down to the same comment: “I bought the plex pass and honestly I’d do it again for $300 just to not deal with handling my own authentication system, plex remote play Just Works”. Or something like “I refuse to use a $20 HDMI android TV box instead of my ad-ridden smart TV or PlayStation 5, and those don’t have apps for JF”. These guys are literally in this thread, on Lemmy, the Reddit for people so FOSS-friendly they use Lemmy instead of Reddit.
Lol “Your Friends at Plex”
get fucked, assholes, Jellyfin is better anyway
I fucking hate corporate speak.
Jellyfin is better anyway
I wish this were true, but as a multi-year Plex-to-Jellyfin migrant, I have to point out that Plex was the better software.
I still choose to run Jellyfin for other reasons (don’t like the commercial path Plex is taking, among others), but I still do miss the better reliability and larger feature set in the Plex software stack.
Doesn’t jellyfin just not do this at all? Like if you want to stream remotely you need to figure out a vpn solution to do it?
You can stream remotely via jellyfin if you expose your server to the internet. VPN is safer but not the only option.
Yeah, no way. Jellyfins Backend is like an open barn door. And with the kind of content most of us here offer through either Jellyfin or Plex, I wouldn’t want to open up like that.
Anecdotal but I’ve run Jellyfin publicly without any issues for around 5 years. It even has its own domain name.
Isn’t there an assumption it would be behind a reverse proxy… At least I hope that’s the assumption.
Doesn’t do shit when large parts of the Backend are not authenticated
What kids of things?
I’ve never worried that much because it’s not critical data and it’s containerised in Docker, but I am curious about specifics because large numbers of people expose it to the internet (through reverse proxies).
“Very easy” assuming you aren’t trying to share with non-technical people or your elderly parents.
I’ve walked them through using tailscale. You install it once and forget it.
How do I install it on my mom’s Chromecast or my sister’s LG TV?
Also Wireguard, which is what Tailscale uses.
Dude how the hell am I supposed to walk my mom through setting up tailscale on her Roku?
And what if you have multiple friends all sharing each others libraries?
This is not a feasible solution let alone a “very easy” one.
I was thinking a computer! Multiple people can connect to your tailscale and jellyfin at once. That’s not so much an issue. Other than that, there’s not so much more than installing the app and signing in with email or Google then sending them a link. I use a shared email and pass to speed up the process.
You completely ignored his question, Tailscale is not a valid solution for your mom’s Roku
Completely unreasonable to need to walk people through this. It’s OK to say jellyfin can’t do remote access.
Well, I never said it did out of the box. I was giving people the example of how I did it, in case they wanted an easy option for PCs. No offence meant, my friend.
You’re replying to a message that literally says that, so it makes you sound like you think Tailscale is somewhat integrated into Jellyfin, because the message originally said exactly that you needed a third party app to solve this issue in Jellyfin
Mate chill, I already implied I misunderstood and apologised. I’m human and allowed to make mistakes.
No. You have to expose your server to the internet in some way bit you don’t have to set up some sort of VPN. There are plenty of people who will tell you how awful of an idea it is but if you make smart choices it’s not a big deal.
Well, as an application it has a huge attack surface, it’s also able to download stuff from internet (e.g., subs) and many people run it on NAS. I run jellyfin in docker, I didn’t do a security assessment yet, but for sure it needs volume mounts, not sure about what capabilities it runs with (surely NET_BIND, and I think DAC_READ_SEARCH to avoid file ownership issues with downloaders?). Either way, I would never expose a service like that on the internet.
This is also true about Plex which must also be exposed to the internet
No that’s the thing. Plex can also use their infra as a tunneling system. You can have remote streaming without exposing Plex publicly and without VPN. It is slow though.
Plex doesn’t even work properly unless you set it up with network mode host, otherwise it always considers your service to be remote because they’re not on the same network as anything you try to watch it from. Jellyfin requires lots less access, and you’re so worried about it you can add a Tailscale mod to the container and isolate it completely so it’s only accessible via Tailscale similarly to what you think Plex is doing (which doesn’t harden security as much as you think)
I presume you mean running Plex in host namespace. I don’t do that as I run the synology package, but I can totally see the issue you mean.
Running in host namespace is bad, not terrible, especially because my NAS in on a separate VLAN, so besides being able to reach other NAS local services, cannot do do much. Much much much less risk than exposing the service on the internet (which I also don’t).
Also, this all is not a problem for me, I don’t use remote streaming at all, hence why I am also experimenting with jellyfin. If I were though, I would have only 2 options: expose jellyfin on the internet, maybe with some hacky IP whitelist, or expect my mom to understand VPNs for her TV.
(which doesn’t harden security as much as you think)
Would be nice to elaborate this. I think it reduces a lot of risk, compared to exposing the service publicly. Any vulnerability of the software can’t be directly exploited because the Plex server is not reachable, you need an intermediate point of compromise. Maybe Plex infra can be exploited, but that’s a massively different type of attack compared to the opportunities and no-cost “run shodab to check exposed Plex instances” attack.
That’s correct
That is not correct. A VPN would be one method but you can also just expose the service to the internet in a number of ways and accomplish the same thing Plex provides.
You probably shouldn’t just expose jellyfin to the internet quite yet though. There are some ongoing efforts to fix unauthenticated endpoint problems.
You’re 100% correct. I always find it funny how hardcore some people are with jellyfin vs Plex. I’ll probably end up getting downvotes on this but imo Plex is way simpler to setup and keep running, and as a lifetime pass owner, I’ve very rarely felt like my experience has been deteriorated by any of the changes that the jellyfin crowd freaks out about. Plus plexamp is honestly such a great music player. I’ll happily keep running Plex for the foreseeable future.
Ditto to all of this, except I don’t know anything about plexamp
If you have music on your server, I’d strongly recommend checking it out. I believe it was started as a side project by the Plex devs and it’s a way better music player than the one built into the Plex apps.
I appreciate this recommendation. I’ve been trying it out for like 5 minutes and I’m very impressed! This could be life-changing and lead to me axing Spotify. Thank you kind stranger!
Enshittification marches on.
The more users on Jellyfin the better shot it has at getting more developer attention and users willing to contribute financially even if just occasional one off donation. How it goes with any open source application. More users, more developer interest, more feedback from users, subset of users willing to financially support the project
i love jellyfin. been very good to me so far!
Seems like it was only a matter of time.
20% more will jump to Jellyfin. The other 80% will entrench and talk even more about how great Plex is. I mean Jesus, $250 to watch pirated movies. lol wtf It’s also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware. Like, I gotta pay for my server and then a license to avoid buying DVDs. Fuck it, at this point just buy the fucking movie.
Ya’ll are brain dead. Plex loves you tho.
Yup, read through this thread and it becomes clearer and clearer. and trust me, I’ve been a long time hold out, I’ve been through this many times - but this is the first time I’ve seen functionality removed from Plex to be put behind a paywall. And doing a price hike at the same time. Absolutely shitty. I’ve already migrated off.
You have a plex pass though, so nothing changed for you - you just got all angry because you didn’t read the email properly.
Your users are going to be much worse off now than they were, and you will absolutely lose a bunch of them who don’t want to (or can’t) have to connect to a VPN every time they want to stream from your library.
Why would they need to connect to a VPN every time they connect to Jellyfin?
Jellyfin has some security issues that, depending on who you ask, are either critical vulnerabilities that make it completely unsafe to expose to the Internet or largely unconcerning for regular users.
I’m not overly concerned about my instance running behind a reverse proxy. Perhaps I am just naive…
Honestly yeah. The Jellyfin Backend is basically unauthenticated for a large part, allowing anyone to map and stream your content as soon as they guessed the ids, which isn’t that hard, since they are based on the paths on your device. So if your movie sits in /mnt/media/movies/the_bee_movie that is pretty esay to guess and calculate the id from, allowing anyone to stream that content from your server
if you reverse proxy (w/ proper headers etc.) into a VPN this isn’t an issue
And apart from an undesirable bandwidth usage resulting from someone guessing their way to my file structure, how can this be used to compromise my server?
you will absolutely lose a bunch of them
I always see this and I have to ask: why do you care?
They likely aren’t paid customers of yours, if they don’t follow your rules and the software you like to use, then they are free to use any other method of consuming media.
VPN
Have to agree with the other comment that asks why do you need to use a vpn. Fax
I always see this and I have to ask: why do you care?
Because OP is scared of losing their users because of their incorrect thinking that Plex was requiring them all to buy a remote streaming pass, so clearly OPs goal is to not lose their users, right?
OP asked, we’re answering. That’s kinda the whole point of this thing called Lemmy. We don’t care per se, we’re just telling OP our opinions and thoughts on their questions and proposed solutions.
Have to agree with the other comment that asks why do you need to use a vpn. Fax
If you don’t use a VPN you’re putting yourself at risk. There’s no real way around it with Jellyfin, as others have said.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. When I said “why do you care?”, I didn’t mean YOU specifically with OPs potential problem of losing users.
I meant why do people in general, who self-host software for friends/family, care if their friends/family stop using the software.
E.g. I have friends on Plex, but for whatever reason, I decide I want to move to Jellyfin. My friends stop streaming my media because they dont like jellyfin for whatever their own reasons may be. I personally wouldn’t care about losing them as “users”, because it’s not like they are paying customers. I let them access my instance for free, if they aren’t bothered enough to use it, then thats on them, not me to cater to their needs by keeping Plex around.
Hope that cleared up my meaning. I wasn’t attacking you for caring with your original response.
p.s. you are at risk by hosting Plex too, just in different ways. Plex still requires your server is open to the internet, right? Even if only Plex’s servers can access it, who’s to say Plex themselves don’t get hacked. Always a risk/reward type deal with hosting software, in my opinion, either are fine to expose.
It sounds like OP is charging users to stream from his server, that’s why he freaked out.
It’s also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware.
It’s wild to me that people who claim to be tech savvy don’t understand that Plex Server, the software, is what makes Plex what it is and as popular as it is. No other solution exists that is as easy as Plex and as secure as Plex. Jellyfin, Emby, Kodi, etc are nowhere near as simple to use and don’t have the breadth of app support that Plex does. Plex is basically on every device anyone owns. They sign in and they can stream from everyones libraries. No VPNs needed, no other hoops.
I paid like $100 for a lifetime Plex Pass like 10 years ago. The 2 dozen friends and family that share my server don’t pay a cent and this changes nothing.
This.
I just set up Plex for my mom on her bargain bin cheapo android TV. It had the plex app right there and it’ll play without transcoding.
Can’t do that with Jellyfin.
This place sucks at times as it becomes clear it’s just an echo chamber that we used to call the Donald for.
My users don’t like the UI of Jellyfin as it isn’t as polished as Plex. I do this for my users and although it costs me money, it does save them a whole lot more money and means they’re taken out of some capitalist systems which should be the goal no?
I also have the cost of a VPN too.
Edit: The comment I replied to was on -6 upvotes at the time of posting.
I use jellyfin, and jellyfin is not safe to expose to the internet.
They have a handful of vulnerability and security holes that have been open for like 5+ years now. And the old emby architecture is quite difficult to work with.
And they actively refuse to do anything about them because it would force clients to update. You could just just as well open an unsecured ftp server to your content
A load of those so called vulnerabilities are way overblown and in most cases require you to be logged in anyway.
So you’re saying there are some vulnerabilities which are not overblown and therefore should be a concern?
That is with any piece of software. their will always be some vulnerabilities that are very bad. so by your definition using any piece of software is a concern.
I agree with you, it’s likely this vulnerability is only known because Jellyfin is open source… how many are hiding in Plex’s proprietary source code…
Anyways when has anyone ever been pwnd by this “exploit”, I have seriously never heard of anyone being “hacked” by one of them.
Definitely overblown as far as I am aware… don’t post your instance url all over the internet and you will likely be fine.
Using Plex (is fine, do whatever u want) and giving them your data instead doesn’t really help you (or at least sending your data through them).
My users don’t like the UI of Jellyfin as it isn’t as polished as Plex.
The UIs are nearly identical, though.
Not in the slightest.
On iOS for instance there is a weird thing where it has a set of Ui controls and then if you double tap the screen it turns to the iPhone default Ui controls.
No other solution exists that is as easy as Plex and as secure as Plex.
Entrenchment. This is a profoundly absurd statement.
I paid like $100 for a lifetime Plex Pass like 10 years ago.
You paid $100 to access software hosted on your own devices. That’s wonderful you think that’s a great idea. I’m sure the Plex devs love you and would kiss you right on the mouth.
They sign in and they can stream from everyones libraries. No VPNs needed, no other hoops.
Because you’re vendor locked in… lol.
I paid $100 to play Forza Horizon on my own device too - should that have been free?
This is a profoundly absurd statement.
That no other solution exists that is as easy and secure as Plex? That’s not just absurd, but profoundly absurd? What other solution is there that is?
Your entire argument seems to be that software should be free if it’s on your own device, which is a profoundly absurd statement. The only paid software should be on hardware you don’t own?
I paid $100 to play Forza Horizon on my own device too - should that have been free?
This is a complete false equivalence and I feel that you know that. The idea of a console is to expand it by buying new games. That’s not unexpected.
Your entire argument seems to be that software should be free
I am a software developer. The argument isn’t that software should be free. The argument is that this is an exceptionally poor business model and as a developer I’m disgusted that people are defending it. The VC which owns Plex and other VCs will use this “logic” that you have to move the goal posts further, and further, and further, and further until there’s no such thing as free software anymore. And I think that’s fucked up.
At the end of the day you’re paying twice to avoid buying IP. Just fucking buy the IP if you’re going to be stupid. Movies are like $12. At $250 you’re paying $2.10/mo in addition to your hosting costs.
Just go buy 20 movies for the same price. It’s so dumb.
This is a complete false equivalence and I feel that you know that. The idea of a console is to expand it by buying new games. That’s not unexpected.
It’s not though. The idea of self hosting isn’t to not have any software costs associated with it. Domain names aren’t free. VPNs (that you use to aquire content) aren’t free. Cloud backups aren’t free. Would you prefer everything was free? Absolutely. Do you sometimes have to pay to get the best software for the job? Absolutely, and Plex is that software.
I am a software developer.
Same here! That makes your argument even crazier to me! Someone demanding that your software should be free and should never be changed to be paid even if it means the company goes under is bananas.
The argument is that this is an exceptionally poor business model and as a developer I’m disgusted that people are defending it.
The business model of having the people that use their main product that requires the most development and time and resources, Plex Server, pay either a cheap one off fee (that regularly goes on sale for half price) or a monthly subscription fee in order to use it, is “exceptionally poor”? How so? Is it just that it was free? This business model has been around for eternity. Get people in the door and hooked by offering it for free, then start charging for it. It’s one of the actual best business models around, not “exceptionally poor” lol. You’re looking at it from the “I want it to be free forever” point of view, not the “We need it to be a viable business with revenue to be able to sustain it” point of view.
until there’s no such thing as free software anymore.
That will never happen, because people will always be making free software to put out there for people to try and to use - and many of them will then transition to PAID because it’s not sustainable otherwise. For software to thrive you often have to have full time developers working on it, and full time developers need to be paid.
At the end of the day you’re paying twice to avoid buying IP. Just fucking buy the IP if you’re going to be stupid. Movies are like $12. At $250 you’re paying $2.10/mo in addition to your hosting costs.
Just go buy 20 movies for the same price. It’s so dumb.
I paid ~$100 ~10 years ago for Plex Pass. It paid for itself instantly as I was simply supporting the developers of the software. As a software developer I have no problem doing that. I wasn’t forced to buy it, but I did.
I’m not quite sure where you got this $250 figure from though? What is that, the monthly remote pass x 12? Also most people running a plex server get far more than 20 movies a year lol. Pretty sure I got 20 movies last night.
I dunno man, I don’t care much, when Plex gets shitty enough I’ll jump. But paying for the ongoing maintenance of software isn’t some evil thing, even if I self host it.
But paying for the ongoing maintenance of software isn’t some evil thing, even if I self host it.
But that’s not what you’re paying for. You’re paying for access to that software…
I know. And some of that money, funds development, and some of that development includes security.
You’re not paying for software maintenance, you’re paying a subscription service to a private company that has already decided to cut back on features that others also thought they were paying to maintain.
If you want to actually pay for software maintenance, migrate to Jellyfin and pay them instead, rather than filtering your payments through middle managers and shareholders first.
Many of us bought lifetime passes ages ago though so we’re not paying a subscription.
Problem is jellyfin (apps and server) is shit
You didn’t ask, but if you’ve had a bad experience with the apps, you could try one of the native apps.
My friends on Apple devices think Swiftfin (https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin) is much better than the normal jellyfin app.
I haven’t used this one/know anyone that has: Findroid (third party) (https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid). Mostly because I haven’t had any issues with the official jellyfin app for android, but it would probably give a cleaner experience, being native and all.
For the server, I think it’s fantastic. Never had any problems that weren’t a few clicks to resolve. Pretty much use it and forget I’m the one maintaining it for the most part. I wonder what issues you encountered?
Uninstalled. I don’t mind as much for sharing my library but if I have to pay to stream MY OWN SERVERS CONTENT using your service, that’s a hard pass. My homes all use jellyfin now
“On 21 May 2008, XBMC developer Elan Feingold forked the source code of XBMC and started a new project called Plex”
GPL v2 source.
They’ve long been suspected of being greedy lil GPL violaters.
Wasn’t expecting to see that.
Another reason donating to FOSS is better than paying for proprietary software. Proprietary software devs get to run around stealing whatever code they like from the open-source community and never suffer any consequence because they don’t make their source available. I can think of a select few proprietary projects that have the balls to be source-available.
If you want to intentionally create a system that lets you evade accountability for stealing code, “fine”, but I have zero respect for you or your product, and I’m certainly not paying you a dime. I’ll put my money toward the developers who work to better the world instead of the rat fucks who steal from them to make money and pollute the software ecosystem with proprietary trash.
not a plex user but someone buried the lede here… to me, this is the neon sign that screams GTFO:
we noticed that you’ve accessed libraries in the past
what business of yours is it to notice my private comings and goings?! what other actionable intel do y’all keep in your logs?! bye!
Not the brightest of those, imo: a while back they’ve opted their users in “discover together”, which is basically sharing your watch history with your plex friends. That went over as well as you’d expect: https://www.404media.co/plex-users-fear-discover-together-week-in-review-feature-will-leak-porn-habits-to-their-friends-and-family/
External servers are shared with you, they can just check which owners have libraries shared with them. That’s not some nefarious logging, its information they need to offer that function
Counterpoint: I can access my friend’s Jellyfin servers, and they can access mine, without anyone else in the world knowing what the fuck we’re doing. Saying “It’s necessary” always begs the question “Why did you make it necessary?”
Because Plex handles the initial connection for you allowing the clients to lunch through CGNAT and other shit. Also they handle the authentication, which I would fully agree would be nice to have independent, but that’s the reason
I bought Plex Pass when it was $75 for the lifetime option.
I prefer Jellyfin, but sharing is harder for family members with it because I can’t get them to just log in without existing credentials (Google Account, Apple ID, etc). Trying to convince my 67 year old mother-in-law to enter a URL, username, and password into an app with a remote is like asking my child to eat broccoli.
For now, I’ll keep running dual stack with both. If Plex pulls lifetime passes, even though it’ll be a PITA, I’ll convert everyone to Jellyfin despite the pain.
Ditched this crapware for Jellyfin several years ago. Glad I did. It’s been great.
