I bought Plex pass years ago for £79. The new price of $749.99 is INSANE.
No wonder all the cool people are using Jellyfin.
I do wonder if this is a last ditch effort cash grab before they go under or a “we really thought we’d be acquired by now so now we have to plan ahead” move.
who is this for?
those unicorn users who make 150k++ a year and pirate all their media and then wanna share it with their friends that they don’t have?
travelling salesmen who pirate all their media??
Plex works just fine without a subscription. What is the subscription even for?
If you host a server and have a lifetime pass, you’ll be able to share your collection with anyone. It will allow hardware encoding so less lag on your users end. You can also locally download content on your devices to watch offline.
So no useful features for me.
I don’t want to share my media with anyone and see no reason to stream from outside my house, it’s not like I can take my home cinema with me. Also, why would you want to re-encode and lower the quality?
Even now - at the peak point of the Memory/SSD price bubble - about 1/3 of that lifetime pass buys you enough dedicated hardware to do it yourself for at least the next decade, probably more.
Been on jellyfin since day one. Works fine, UI is great and gets the job done. TV UI maybe not top notch, buy usable. Mobile UI just fine and usable.
Also, exposed on the internet (reverse proxy, OIDC, https the works) for years now with zero issues whatsoever as well .
There are a few users always throwing thrash on jellyfin, maybe pissed off users that paid for Plex, or Plex shills that like to denigrate jellyfin, I don’t know.
Just ignore them.
Jellyfin is perfectly usable, yes you need to setup port forward, VPN or whatever, but it’s exactly our target audience so move along and stop bitching, Plex shills.
Stay with Plex, use jellyfin, whatever fit your bill.
Anyway plex does not fit my concept of self hosting to be free from cloud lock ins.
If you’re on Android TV (I guess Fire TV works as well), try out Wholphin. It’s miles ahead of the official TV app. Also, Findroid works great on mobile.
Moonfin is also pretty great on Android TV too imo
Wholphin
thank you for the suggestion, will try it out! I am using a Fire Stick
How am I just learning about wholfin now? They need to add that to the third party clients list on the main site because at a glance that’s easily top 3 best looking jellyfin clients
I happened to setup jellyfin when i had first heard about it while I was already hosting plex, so when plex decided to charge for remote streaming years later I was already halfway there.
Lifetime single pay subscriptions don’t make financial sense at all for a company. As much as I hate subscriptions, it’s the only way to get long term support, which software needs.
They managed years without going to a subscription model. This is about shareholder needs not software upkeep.
If Jellyfin can fill most Plex features for most people, maybe it’s not that they need to charge money to survive. Maybe it’s that their product value proposition has eroded.
Certainly, but open source projects rely too heavily on the goodwill of volunteers who still need to feed their families. Hopefully Jellyfin’s incoming users contribute to the project.
jellyfin: hey here i am you can have me for free. i even run on your own server.
Yeah but I hear they recently decided to raise their pricing by like 30%.
Joke being 30% of 0 is still 0
I tried Plex once, before I knew about jellyfin. I just wanted an open-source self-hostable media server with my own media.
When I tried it, after installing Plex, I was presented with a login for a Plex hosted account. Iirc that was optional and I skipped it, after that came the nags for Plex pass. Piss off. That’s exactly the opposite of what I wanted out of something like jellyfin.
My breaking point was to pay for transcoding.
Paid for the android app which allowed HWA but then I wanted to watch it on my chromecast TV. Welp gotta pay or bust.
So I bust, went through the early adopter pain (early 11th gen Intel Xe gpu, no actual knowledge of linux or docker, little experience with linux and docker) and set it up.
Working great since then.
Currently restreaming japanese IPTV with jellyfin via an m3u stream at work (and through a mobile VPN router)
Not the most stable stream but sufficient
Oooh. Can you give some more details about how you did that? I have a Japanese friend coming to visit for about 2 months and she might want to watch TV during the day.
Something something akariko something netgenx on google.
My stack is including dispatcharr for managing m3u streams (and fallback sources) and jellyfin to watch it.
Oh yeah and apparently you can’t stream remotely without a subscription either? If it were a feature they had to spend time on I’d still not want to use it, but I’d understand at least.
From the application’s point of view, there is no difference between internet and intranet access. I just saw that downloading the media you already own, using your own infrastructure, requires an even more expensive subscription.
How tf did people stick around with this shit for so long.
Remote streaming costs money because relay servers cost money. You don’t get worldwide nat traversal without a vpn or wide attack surface for free
If the owner of the Plex server has lifetime and other users that don’t have Plex pass at all and want to watch it remotely, they just need to be part of your home.
They don’t even need to be a part of your home. The server owner just needs to have a Plex Pass. None of my users are in my home group and can still stream remotely since I got a Lifetime pass back when they were, I think, $99.
Haven’t used it myself, but wouldn’t something like Tailscale solve the remote access limitation?
It does, but the limitation just doesn’t make any sense.
Much like USA Mobile carriers treating hotspot data differently than the phone’s own data, under the ancient premise that phones use less data than PCs - something that hasn’t been true for well over a decade.
The same reason most foss projects are barren. Plex focuses on ease of use and giving people what they want. Users mostly don’t care about the sub. It’s easy to use and works.
Meanwhile jellyfin doesn’t have a remote first interface that isn’t absolute dog shit and I need to set up a reverse proxy and potentially idp to get the ability for my family to log in.
This shit isn’t hard. The answer to the community is, make the product better, and start bundling shit in. But I’m sure I’ve already offended some nerd who thinks this is all just so easy and requires no work to tell me I just need to learn Linux better. And that putting in a reverse proxy by default will make maintenance a pain and I just have to put portainer and LE to fix it.
The shit y’all are bitching about is the problem.
This shit isn’t hard
Well it certainly would be hard for me, as I don’t know anything about the UX needed for these features, and very little about networking in general, and probably close to zero about the networking concepts required to make something like you describe work.
But it sounds like you know a lot, jellyfin is a project that is 100% volunteer developed. Maybe you could contribute your expertise either via code or by providing a concrete action plan to the jellyfin team?
Be the change you want to see and all that.
It really, honestly, is super easy to get going. All you need is a folder with your media and a compose file you can find in plenty of tutorials.
The thing we Linux nerds often forget, I think, is that we know what we’re doing (most of us at least I hope), and regular people don’t.
I can read a simple compose file and pretty quickly notice if there’s something off.
If you wanted to do that, you’d first have to read up on containers and compose and all that stuff. You can, of course, just grab a compose file and run it, but that’s generally not a great idea if you don’t know what you’re doing.
This is peak Linux nerd shit.
No. I payed $200 and Plex is better. My needs have been perfectly met for the past 10l5 years and foreseeable future.
Second, fuck off with this attitude. I came here answering a question how, ‘ohhhh it’s so fucking complicated why normies might want to pay’ with 2 concrete use cases and you immediately go off with that nerd bullshit that I need to contribute more.
I had 3 prs hit main in Apache last week. Fuck off, your nerd shit isn’t helping adoption asshole.
Bro flexes Apache contributions and still can’t paste 10 lines to make a reverse proxy
No my time is just more valuable to me and I have money 🤷♂️
Love offending the nerds with no familyies hunched over a desk all day 🤣
Good old case of “mad cuz bad”
Tipster is that you?
Most FOSS projects are barren? Huh
I’m here to say it’s all very easy and requires no work.
Seriously, you literally just install Jellyfin (or run it in Docker), set up nginx with certbot and make a port forward on your router. Zero maintenance at all.
Any LLM can give you a complete step-by-step guide that takes 10 minutes to follow if you don’t know what you’re doing.
I cannot understate how bad of an idea it is to expose something to the Internet when you don’t know what you’re doing.
Jellyfin is not designed to be exposed directly. They have a number of outstanding security issues. You should really use a VPN to access your local network instead.
I expose plenty of services. I like to live life dangerously 😎
ADHD linux zealots will argue anything, no matter how stupid, if you dare hold any comparison to a commercial product. It’s literally built into their ADHD brains need to argue and be right.
They will sit there and argue insane shit and pretend like most people have a desktop sitting in their living room much less setting up an entire *arr stack with reverse proxy. And then scream at you when you say that sounds like work I don’t have to do for less than a hamburger meal.
It’s easy bro, just learn docker, get it set up so that services boot at launch, and I’m sure nothing will never break or need to be updated again.
yup people forget about convenience. its why I’ve been building retrovibed for the last year. that *arr + plex/jellyfin + vpn + reverse proxy nonsense is insane. yes you can do it… but seriously who the fuck wants to manage that many moving parts.
Meme material.
You are absolutely right about all of that, I did it exactly like that, had ChatGPT tell me what to do and done. I am not an IT person, but I still like messing with tech. But that’s more than 95% of people are willing to do, and that’s why people use plex. Takes literally a minute to set up and it just runs. That’s why people choose Apple. Simple and easy, little to no maintenance. That doesn’t make it a great product, but an accessible one, and that’s what counts for most people
When I first used Plex, it didn’t even have accounts. I don’t even understand what the account is for.
You know that even if you paid that ridiculous amount, it still wouldn’t be the last time they try to get money out of you, either.
After 16 years of having a lifetime pass (and nearly 20 years of administering multiple Plex servers), I know this to be false. And, unless you have one yourself, you could not possibly know. Especially because, with a lifetime pass, there’s no other way that could possibly ask for money from a user. It’s literally impossible.
But, if I’m wrong, show proof of your lifetime pass, and the solicitous emails you received subsequently. I know you can’t.
If you’re going to speak from such obvious ignorance, it should be easy to admit when you’re wrong
Most Lemmy users, however, never find such a thing so easy…
How about when they “accidentally” sent that email to all your users saying that they NEED to buy Plex Pass to continue to use remote streaming? Or when they had that “bug” in the app shortly after that, where remote streaming would give an error message saying that need to buy Plex Pass to stream your content?
Maybe they don’t solicit from you, but they use dark tactics to trick your users, and that’s not acceptable in my opinion.
Show me these emails. I never received them.
Show me proof of your accusations, or stop making them.
Edit: below is a charlatan, pretending that their make-believe stories equal proof. Even children are not stupid enough to believe that crap.
You should have gotten it on May 1 2025, subject line “Remote streaming changes you need to know”. I got it and I wasn’t even using Plex any more, let alone with other users.
This isn’t proof. This is bullshit, pretending to be proof, and fooling only the most stupid people. But, at least, you already admit that you lied about what it said can’t you even keep your lies straight?
I asked for proof, not the “word“ of some angry and highly biased Internet rando
That’s like Donald Trump claiming he passed all of those mental health exams just because he said so
Provide proof, or stop making these absurd arguments
That did happen, lots of confusion with the users. Don’t know why you are calling those other people liars.
I think you’ve lost track of who you’re replying to.
For now
We’ll see.
I’m not immune to changing my tune. But only with good reason. And this isn’t it
I think it’s more that they’re implying the company is likely to get worse in the future and start trying shit, not ehat they’ve already experienced. The price now being nearly 10x what it once was is a pretty big red flag, after all.
I won’t argue with your cynicism, but increasing the price on something that almost nobody ever purchased anyway really isn’t a red flag at all
Especially when all other costs remain unchanged
If Plex starts some crazy Fuckery, I’ll be right on board with you.
As another decade-long lifetime Plex pass holder and watching the generally downward spiral of Plex development, I’m right there with you. I don’t agree with a lot of the direction they’re going in, but they have never once tried to upsell me after getting the lifetime pass.
The system works, it’s a lot easier/more available for viewers than JellyFin, and until those things change I don’t see much reason to get out the pitchforks. However if they do, mine’s ready.
I have been following the development of Jellyfin for years. I’ve deployed a couple of servers just for testing with my users. I am very, very, very interested in the development and future development of Jellyfin. I’ve even contributed money to the project.
But I’ve been a Plex user for nearly 20 years. I administer multiple servers with more than a couple of dozen users, and I can say this: Plex offers users a far superior experience compared to Jellyfin.
That said— I fully support support the Jellyfin project in creating an open source replacement for Plex. I really do. And I’ll switch to it as soon as it’s good enough to meet my needs and the needs of my users.
But that’s gonna be a few years from now. Plex didn’t get as awesome as it is immediately. It took 20 years to get there. Jellyfin isn’t gonna get there overnight. I closely track it progress, and as soon as I can switch to it, I will.
Was any justification provided for a nearly 10x price increase!?
Glad I started with Jellyfin
It’s because lifetime licenses aren’t sustainable. I’m surprised they still offer it.
Plex is an actual company that has an office and employees, so they have recurring costs every month. A lot of people already have lifetime licenses that they’re not likely to receive any more revenue from. It’s likely they’re increasing the price to help recoup costs or convince people to subscribe to a monthly subscription rather than get a lifetime license.
Why do they have an office and employees? It’s a damn ffmpeg wrapper.
They’re already charging comparible amounts as Netflix but they don’t do half the things that Netflix does. $750 at $10/month is over 6 years. That’s more than double what is reasonable. If I pay for 3 years of software development, shouldn’t I be allowed to keep the software?
Anyways, I use Jellyfin and donate to their development.
EDIT: meant years not months
Nah, they increased the cost to drive people to the monthly subscription. I’m guessing in a year or two they’ll announce the lifetime subs have been revoked and everyone needs a monthly sub.
Not saying you’re wrong, but I wonder how many people that were willing to pay 250 dollars for lifetime would actually pay more than 3 years of subscription.
I believe most lifetime buyers do it for FOMO. They pay it believing that they won’t ever need to worry about it again and that they’re making a good or safe deal… but most of them won’t be using Plex that much anyway.
With this price hike Plex is basically killing the lifetime option. Sure, they might get more subscribers at first, but in the other hand they will also lose a lot of impulse buyers that will hardly pay them 250 dollars in monthly subscriptions at the long run. At least, that’s what I think…
deleted by creator
Hey guess what software I don’t need to use
Tried it once, it’s features and quality were so lacking I stuck with Jellyfin. I’d charge Plex $4999.99 monthly to let their software stay in my devices.
I’m still using it because I already have a lifetime license. I’m just using it for music and local TV though. I use the DVR feature with a HDHomeRun tuner to record the local news and a few other shows.
I think Jellyfin has some music apps, but last I checked they’re still not as good as Plexamp.
Navidrome and symfonium(paid) have been amazing to me for the last year. I’ll never go back.
Imma use the lifetime pass forever lol. Shits wild.
Gouge?
You spotted my deliberate mistake. Have a star ⭐
