Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

The biggest problem with Plex (I'm a user) is that you need a network connection just to use it with your local media unless you do a little research to figure out how to bypass this. Why is this a problem? You don't notice it until there's a network outage and you want to watch something. Or if the Plex servers are glitching. It's needlessly complicating the process of watching your media.

the idea of signing up at plex is somewhat antithetical to a lot of selfhosters.. theres nothing plex is doing that cant be done for free with better software.

Jellyfin was forked from emby (emby is similar to Plex, jellyfin is open source) in 2018 when emby went closed source, and they implemented sync and remote streaming if I recall correctly.

It's a principle thing mostly. Plex just keeps ignoring features users want and trying to push some monetization model.

They regularly implement what I'd say most would consider anti features.

For example, I remember the push back on the mandatory "recommended" tab. It's the first thing you see when navigating to a library. Wow. Neat. Some bean counter at Plex is "recommending" what I should watch on my own library. No thanks.

There was also the fiasco with emailing your friends things you've been watching. Just what you want where you store all your legally owned DVDs with your legal streaming rights to your friends.

Then there was also a thing where they began collecting data on your media libraries to their servers.

There's also mandatory Internet connection if you want to have local users :). Lots of people barked at this and they ignored it and tried to spin it as an ok thing. You cannot have other people in your family have different watched status and stats without connecting to the internet. Oh did your Internet go down? So did Plex. At that point how's it different than Netflix. Not to mention we're the ones doing the hosting. It's in our network. This should not be reliant on an Internet connection.

The list goes on.

It works pretty well and I've thus far been too lazy to change, but jellyfin is open source, and doesn't have evil people behind it.

I never messed with Plex but Jellyfin is pretty easy to muss with so it's definitely worth giving it go.

Jellyfin is FOSS as well, I assume Plex isn't since it's doing.......all this. lol

Jellyfin is great and open source. I've never tried Plex, but I've heard that Plex has apps on more platforms.

Also, I'd recommend checking out Findroid if your on Android. Its UI is native instead of the usual web interface in the official apps. Iirc iOS has a similar project.

Its not better, but its worth it for not being dependent on internet

Depending on your server, and how you install you might have a bad experience. I’ve had issues where it wasn’t finding the film/series metadata, having plugin issues, and being incredibly slow (slow UI when anything is being done, slow scanning folders, slow loading saved metadata, etc). Jellyfin, like a lot of open source software, feels like jank. The devs know about a lot of issues, but they’re swamped with so much, with this big of a project.

People criticise Plex, rightfully so with some of their bad decisions, but it still works better. For me, Plex runs so much better, and without issues. I won’t be moving away to Jellyfin in the foreseeable future, but I’ll be glad when I am able to.

It's the app availability, LG TVs don't have jellyfin which is awkward for me.

Yes, finamp. I have it installed. I haven't tried it.

Exactly, there's no way the studios are going to let them sell actual ownership.

They could stick to public domain & indie titles. They won't, but they could.

Plex is definitely trying to monetize and I am wary of how they will reconcile all of the discount lifetime passes that were sold over the years

But I still think it is "good". Yes, they are adding in hooks for different services and are technically a service of their own (every month there is a "free" movie they offer that I tell myself I will watch and then I never do). But all of that can pretty easily be hidden if I just want access to my library and the libraries of my friends. Its very much a case where the extra features are not getting in the way of the core functionality.

I have "see if jellyfin is viable" on my todo list and have been checking in for years now. Basically every time I do it is "This looks better than it used to be but X or Y is still a headache". Hopefully that will change if/when Plex shits the bed. But they haven't so it isn't really a concern for me.

Regarding free dev time: Donations can be made as a means to thabk and compensate the project.

This would be awesome, but I just don't see it happening this way. They have to work with the copyright holders who set those kinds of terms and who have the majority of the leverage in negotiating those terms. Unfortunately, I don't see any reason this kind of deal would be made.

The business model is to force consumers to purchase and repurchase the same content over and over. Changing only the format, or distribution method, or platform of consumption. This kind of deal would undercut that business model.