I'm not reconfiguring my LAN because Plex can't identify remote traffic accurately.
I use Jellyfin now but still think it’s an overall downgrade compared to the plex experience. Plex just works without any setup in my experience where I have always had hiccups with Jellyfin.
Even though I bought my lifetime membership years ago, I think it’s time to explore other options. I don’t like this.
One is that they don't really want to sell a lifetime subscription, but it'll look bad if they discontinue the option. This way, they effectively don't sell them anymore, but there aren't people all screaming "They've discontinued lifetime subscriptions. How long until they take away the ones they sold before?!"
Another possible explanation is that it's just a ruse to sell more subscriptions. They probably sold a ton of subscriptions last time a price increase was announced. So, if they need a cash infusion, just announce another price increase. Then, when it turns out nobody buys at $750, decrease the price later on to return to normal.
I’m curious how they determined $750 is fair. Is it just N * Annual_Price and if so why is this value of N fair? But they likely won’t say
I have no idea who will ever buy a lifetime pass at 10x what I paid for Plex in 2019. I struggled with the decision to pay $75 back then. There were effectively zero competitors to their product then.
The big thing is time investment. It is not for people who need it to "just work" - it is very much a tinkerer platform at this point.
Oh and user management is local, which I prefer.
as a bonus, I have a old version Emby Theather (the windows form based one) that plays 4K with no issues on my computer unlike browsers that fail at that.
i just use kodi for my content. Data is on my router's hard drive, and before that it was some USB spinning rust attached to the ISP's router, and it just works (Well, TV series needs to be stored with the required folder structure / names to be recognized, but that's it)
That's my usecase, so i never got the PLEX appeal (if i'm outside i just stream from the usual sources)
This is a feature I use multiple times per week with friends who live states away. I can’t believe they just dropped it.
Ultimately Plex "just works" for the most part, including channel information for live TV. Jellyfin is very impressive, for free.
It is just hard to sustain multiple apps across platforms, when you have little to no income to hire developers.
Anecdotes aren't data and all that.
Jellyfin has no such solution that I can tell. Stuff like give them access over Tailscale is not the same user friendly option that Plex has. When there's an actual alternative for easily sharing with friends, I'll consider it. Til then I've had a lifetime Plex Pass for around a decade.
Ironically, every person I've tried to get to sign up so they can view my content failed, because they all would put in a different email address than the one they were invited to use (presumably one they use for signing up stuff). I then have to either re-invite them or tell them to sign up with the original email address.
All but one just gave up. These are somewhat technical users, so perhaps they're too smart for it?
I need it to work on Roku.
I need it to work on my phone.
Working on XBox is nice.
The last time I tried it, it couldn't handle a folder with hundreds of videos. I don't remember the problem, but I think clicking on one video would play a completely different video.
And their DVR support was really, really bad (I heavily use Plex for OTA DVR - it is awesome).
I definitely would like to use Jellyfin as an alternative, but it's never "just worked" for me.
I'd have to set it up and tell all the consumers of my server to move apps, and not all of them are tech literate. It would take a lot of enshittification to force me to move.
It is currently $250 until July 1, 2026.
It was $100 when I bought it back in 2022.
Triple in price is crazy, especially that high of a price to stream your own content!
At that price, I would be worried that they aren't doing too well financially. I would be worried that I paid that much only for the company to go under or limit its use a couple of years later.
They obviously want to shift people to a monthly plan, but still give that lifetime. If I were to buy today vs when I originally, it would still be cost effective.
There are alternatives, so users that don't want to shell up the 150$ now can jump over to. It's closed source software and the users have the opportunity to shift (or build a competing software that meets more of their core needs).
I got mine for $250. Plex worked great. Then they added streaming tie-ins and promotional services I didn’t ask for, making them opt-out instead of opt-in.
They changed how my apps worked.
They made my users sign up for Plex accounts instead of letting me manage them locally.
They then tried making it appear like users had to pay to use my library, even though I had paid for a lifetime pass.
Then they actually did make it require a Plex Pass to stream remote content.
It’s my fucking content, Plex, and this nonsense is why I stood up Jellyfin as an escape hatch.
Good fucking riddance.
With how it's been stagnating recently, even the current prices are a hard sell for me, especially given how "lifetime" with tech companies tends to mean "~five years". I switched to Jellyfin and haven't looked back.
Would we all call it an upgrade?
