- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
Plex has announced a massive price increase on the service’s Lifetime Plex Pass. On July 1, the lifetime subscription option will go from $249.99 to $749.99, an increase of 200%. The price hike will only apply to new subscribers, with no changes to monthly or annual subscription pricing.
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My Jellyfin server goes, “Burrrrrrr!”
Honestly, I made the switch about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back once. The Jellyfin native Android TV app is a bit lacking, but I recently installed Wholpin and find it much better!
My only other gripe is that Plex allows you to set subtitle and audio language preferences per library while JF only allows one preference for the whole server. This is annoying for those of us enjoying foreign language films, where I often end up having to play with the settings every time I want to watch a foreign feature.
I’ve also heard that some people miss the syndication of Plex, where you have one account connected to many servers. I only connect to my own, so don’t know much about this.
There is a syndicated Jellyfin project. Not tried it.
Ooohh. Language preference per library would be so nice. Not having to fuck with languages on anime would be so convenient.
Literally 10x the price I paid for mine
Early adopter club 🙌🙌
Early rejector club. Jellyfin gang.
I have underwear older then jellyfin. Plex was the only option for some time
Edit: Alright, alright, it wasn’t the only option, but it was the cleanest/easiest way to make a home server feel like a streaming service that I knew of at the time
It was?
I started streaming video in around 2001. Over SMB. Using VLC as the client.
Then I switched to using iTunes as a server.
Then came XMPP/Kodi.
And eventually, Jellyfin.
Every few years, I’ve tried Plex, and it’s never done quite what I wanted, and required security/privacy compromises. About the only thing it has going for it is that the client and the server will run on just about anything.
XMPP
I think you mean XBMC.
I do indeed :D
Although I still use XMPP.
Y’all half a step from star wars over telnet over here if you’re using xmpp to steam movies.
And plex still does some things better.
I have underwear older then jellyfin.
I was using MythTV long before Plex came around.
I guess what I should have said was “only one of its kind”. As far as I knew, it was the only one that did all the metadata stuff to give it the “streaming service” feel. Being able to share my library to others outside my home without hassle was also big
That was before the streaming services or most of the current VPN recommendations existed and Myth was mainly competing with TiVo. So, you could set up a front end remotely, but it would have been painful.
They’ve always done metadata collection though. What Plex added was the connection so you don’t need to set up a VPN for remote access.
There were and are plenty of alternatives to Plex. Plex was never, “the only option”.
What about Emby?
The scary part and the reason I never paid is because I think they will shut down plex soon. No one is paying for streaming services anymore and those giants will start coming down on the gov to do something about it. EU is coming down pretty hard on IPTV and torrent sites already.
That’s just gonna drive lazy people to learn how to use something open source like Jellyfin.
Lazy ones will just keep paying monthly. Industrious ones might move to jellyfin. The main thing this will do is
separate a few fools from their moneyget people to stop buying lifetime passes.It’s safe to say they want people to be stuck paying monthly so they can have more consistent income i guess.
At least when paying monthly it’s easier to see the worth in swapping to Jellyfin (because you aren’t trying to maximize the 1k you dropped for lifetime).
I don’t know why anyone would pay that instead of using Jellyfin. I’ve had my server up for years now and it works great.
Last I looked, jellyfin auth and public facing security were less than ideal.
How far has that come in the last few years? I have plenty of people using my Plex and it’s been secure. I had heard a public facing Jellyfin wasn’t super secure.
Honestly, 95% of the reason I use Plex is so I don’t have to manage user passwords and troubleshoot issues for my friends and family. I just grant access.
I only need my server to work locally so I haven’t messed with that part personally. But I’ve read that setting up tailscale is straightforward and works fine. There are many other solutions to the problem. I would definitely invest a lot of effort before paying for Plex.
Great; how do I setup Tailscale on my mother’s Roku TV?
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar300m/
Configure one of these to sit between the TV and your mother’s network and pass all the tv traffic through an exit node on your jellyfin network.
Most smart TVs have a tailscale app you can install directly on device. Roku is an exception to that.
Nope. How do I do it on the TV directly?
I bring this up every time someone parrots off the Lemmy line of “Jellyfin” because that’s all you all know. Not what’s best for the use case, just ram Jellyfin in there shortcoming and all.
I love their routers but that one doesn’t have tailscale support, even if you did manage to install it (I did so on a mango) I think it would run extremely poorly
Funny enough I actually meant to link this one, which is specifically for this purpose. https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt5000/
That’s okay though because the guy I was replying to didn’t actually want the help. He just wanted to complain that people aren’t recommending his preferred software.
Unfortunately, that’s probably not gonna happen without some new hardware.
You could setup a wire guard at the router (can you setup tail scale on a router? idk). If she’s renting the ISP router, replacing that could save a 100+ a year, depending on how much the isp is scamming her for it.
or you could repurpose a minipc/nuc from bay and set up a jellyfin streaming box with tailscale.
If you have the extra hardware, you could also setup a local server with her jellyfin and use wiregaurd/tailscale to remotely connect to it and run backup/sync during off-hours.
You could also set up a reverse proxy in front of your Jellyfin and hook a domain up to it. That way you don’t have to worry about the client at all.
Still have that nasty vulnerability where people can delete your data remotely.
The data for me is shared read-only to the Jellyfin container, so that’s not a problem.
Can you explain more about that vulnerability? It would necessitate a pretty serious privilege escalation to be possible.
So, no answer because I can’t. I’m not replicating buying hardware for all of the people who are on my plex account to move them to some free software because all y’all who shout “Jellyfin” do so because you do t want to pay for anything.
Why doesn’t anyone ever mention Emby? Oh, right, because you have to support the project and no one wants to do that.
Plex isn’t in the right here, but yelling Jellyfin ever. Single. Time. Is like using a hammer to tighten a screw; it’s not always the right tool for the job and tall look like morons for just blindly parroting what others say.
Are you OK? I didn’t realize my comment was so inflammatory. I just love Jellyfin and don’t appreciate Plex’s actions over the years. You love Emby. That’s cool! Use what works for you.
Byeeeeee
Bro, if you want to use Emby, nobody is stopping you. Jellyfin is the popular solution because it is open source. Emby isn’t a project, it’s a product just like plex is a product. Both Emby and Plex started as free methods to host your media and converted to a paid closed source solution. Jellyfin is a fork of Emby from before they moved to closed source and remains free and open to this day.
I moved from the default jellyfin login method to using Authentik as the identity provider. Now its part of my homelab setup where all services have SSO, and I don’t have to create/manage an account for each person for each service.
Does that break Jellyfin apps on smart TVs or media devices?
A lot of people seem to have concerns with how Jellyfin handles access control and some have stated that the developers marked some major issues as “won’t fix”. Is there somewhere I can catch up on that?
I haven’t checked in on Jellyfin for a while now, but don’t they still have issues with hardware transcoding support?
Not to mention the lack of software clients on other platforms for just playback that Plex has been established on for years and even multiple device generations like with PlayStation, Roku, Fire Stick, etc.?
Also you have to configure your own reverse proxy / Tailscale set up to securely access a content library remotely, right - as opposed Plex’s relatively simpler remote access configuration?
Surprise, surprise, a paid product with salaried developers has more features than a volunteer project!
More people using Jellyfin, more people who will contribute, through code or donations. It’s worth a downside to swap over.
Hopefully that gets better - I run both side by side pointed at the same folders so the exact same media is available in both. I offer all my friends the choice and list every alternate app I know of, inevitably they all prefer Plex.
Because default settings arent always ideal…
Some goes for the TV they use and whatever codec they can digest.What defaults are you talking about? If you meant to reply to my other comment, I’m talking about hardware transcoding codec support settings on the server, it has nothing to do with what codec is chosen for a client - that decision is made separately. Once the codec the client needs is chosen, the hardware transcoding setting only changes whether they codec is decoded using CPU or GPU/quicksync by the server - it has no effect on codec selection. The only reason you would disable hardware transcoding for a codec that your server is capable of hardware transcoding is if your hardware is faulty or produces undesirable output for that codec when using hardware transcoding - most people don’t do this, it’s a fairly uncommon edge case. And disabling it won’t stop clients from accessing that codec, it just means that your server will CPU transcode it if requested instead of using hardware acceleration - so again it has nothing to do with client support or TVs because all it does is switch your server between hardware and software encoding / decoding. The only sane default for that setting is to hardware accelerate codecs that your PC is capable of hardware accelerating if hardware acceleration is enabled. There’s no reason not to automatically detect hardware capabilities like Plex does, instead of the current “default” where you enable hardware transcoding and then have to figure out what your hardware supports to be hardware accelerated.
Especially given the new “lifetime” price. More people will switch to Jellyfin. Plex lifetime might be shorter.
More people using Jellyfin, more people who will contribute, through code or donations.
Doubt.
What about Emby? Why is that never mentioned?
Because Emby is a closed source application and Lemmy is an open source platform with community member who prefer open source solutions to closed source. Your out here screaming at Linux bros “why not choose apple??”
Ok. And sometimes closed source applications work better.
I guarantee that you’re using closed source software So let’s not throw stones.
Especially on non-GPU systems, Jellyfin is slower at transcoding than Plex. I don’t know the internals, but I have both running in the sam machine, and Plex is always noticeably more responsive. Not by a huge margin, but still it is.
I have zero experience with those two products but when it comes to transcoding there are various toggles that affect the quality and speed.
It looks also like commercial products generally optimize for speed while open source tends to be more concerned about quality.
Of course this could be completely wrong in this case but that’s the general tendency I noticed. Do they allow to change settings?
I have not personally experienced any issues with hardware transcoding. My server is an old Dell Optiplex and I use clients on Linux, Android, Roku and Shield.
Yes you are correct about remote access and if that was a priority for me, I would happily learn that part instead of paying for Plex.
What about Emby?
I haven’t looked at Emby in a long time. Last I checked, it wasn’t as capable or feature rich as Jellyfin or Plex
Not as feature rich as plex, sure. Emby be Jellyfin? Emby wins by a country mile.
It’s essentially a one time fee for an indefinite service of handling the vpn side of the setup.
I use Jellyfin on my local network and plex externally because I don’t know how to route specific traffic with openvpn on my phone and can’t be bothered switching it off and on when streaming things 😅
I’m not sure how it’s sustainable, and am surprised they still offer the life pass at all though.
I guess a lot of people buy it who don’t need it?
I still probably wouldn’t pay the current price for it though, I got it about a decade ago lol.
Oh also plexamp has a better UX than jellyfin for music, but I don’t think that alone would justify the current price.
Tailscale is the answer to easily and remotely access jellyfin and your server. Its easy to setup and very secure.
Dude seriously it’s so much easier than anything else. For a personal media server with remote access, jellyfin + tailscale on an old computer you may have laying around plugged into your router is all you need
Yep, exactly what I’ve been telling people. And then they complain that tvs dont have the ability to have the tailscale app on them. So, then buy a cheap android box, even an Onn 4K from Walmart would work for like 25 bucks and install tailscale and jellyfin on it.
I didn’t find it that easy to set up 😅
but I’m sure I would find it easier if I was more motivated e.g. saving $750 by setting it up 😅
It really is easy to set up though lol. I didn’t know anything about self hosting about 2 years ago. There’s so many guides and tutorials to use to help set it up too.
You’re not wrong. I would just rather learn Headscale or nginx or any other option than pay that Plex subscription. But I’m sure there are people out there who have extremely valuable time and wouldn’t hesitate to fork over 750.
ah yeah, I paid $50, not $750 😂
I don’t believe plex pass acts as a vpn.
yeah but it removes the need for one in most use cases
It kinda does when streaming remotely, if you don’t have any open ports it gets routed through Plex’s servers
It’s not literally a VPN no but it does route data
Wait wait wait so… you pay THEM to let YOU share YOUR media? Wha?
An absolutely insane number of self hosting options require a subscription for now fucking reasoning.
Not a one time buy which would at least make sense. No no! Its a monthly fee AND half the time they require a Internet connection and checkin. Just to SELF HOST.
its fucking baffling.
Not a one time buy which would at least make sense. No no! Its a monthly fee AND half the time they require a Internet connection and checkin. Just to SELF HOST.
Yeah, the DRM has to make sure your subscription is up to date. For the service you provide all the hardware for. The service you will personally have to install and maintain.
Not really. What Plex is selling is a relay service, so you can connect to your home media remotely, just like you can do with Tailscale etc. the second thing they are selling is user management, easily share media library with other people. Both of these are hard to set up for many people in Jellyfin
Plex announces that it is tired of having all of these customers buying their software
Would be nice if Plex showed their numbers; what they pay in licensing, maintenance etc and profit
I wonder if instead of Jellyfin + Tailscale, people should be doing Jellyfin + Netbird.
Netbird offers a reverse proxy, so you can easily expose Jellyfin to the public Internet and not have to jump through hoops for friends and family…
https://docs.netbird.io/manage/reverse-proxy
At least, in theory… I haven’t tried this setup yet, but I’m thinking about it…
I bought my parent’s an Android TV, just so they could install Tailscale on it. Unfortunately, Android TV keeps killing Tailscale or doesn’t launch it on boot. They’re old, so they can’t really troubleshoot VPN issues.
tailscale also offers a reverse proxy through their “funnel” - https://tailscale.com/docs/features/tailscale-funnel
but I’ve been looking at netbird and might switch, so who knows what i’ll be using a year from now
I use Jellyfin with Wireguard, Caddy, and Fail2Ban https://codeberg.org/skjalli/jellyfin-vps-setup
Honestly if you’re a smaller server, or anywhere decent at tinkering Jellyfin is the better product at this point
I tried switching and I’ll try again. But getting https reverse proxy was a lot of moving parts that I never got working.
The instructions were a long chain of learning:
Install ngnx for reverse proxy
Ngnx only available as docker
Install docker
Docker not working because I don’t understand it.
Install podman
Give up and go back to 3d printing where I have a backlog of stuff that actually needs to be done.
Caddy is way easier than all the other reverse proxies, it handles certificates automatically
Nginx does not require docker…
I think it’s the other way around. Jellyfin recommends docker.
I installed Jellyfin “barebones” on my machine, without Docker, and it works great.
No need to Dockerize everything all the time.
Just install tailscale and run everything behind it. Its so easy to set up.
Can a random person (my mother in law and other non techie family) connect to my tailscaled jellyfin using a Roku or AppleTV? I thought tailscale needs a wireguard client.
It does. People often throw this out there as if it fits all situations, but it doesn’t. Plex is handling the proxying for you which is what makes it so easy.
A better comparison, if running your own reverse proxy was too complicated, would be to use something like Cloudflare Tunnels. However that’s still extra steps, they dont want you media streaming on their free plan, and you still have the issue of Jellyfin not being the most secure code that you really want to open up to the whole internet. That’s why a one size fits all answer is difficult.
This is why I dropped jellyfin immediately. How do I explain / get these extra steps working for family? People should have gotten the lifetime when it was cheap, and I’m surprised they even offer it anymore - some companies are dropping it, i.e Tesla FSD.
Use a reverse proxy and hook a domain up to it. The you just say to grandma “media is now at jellyfin.mydomain.com and not app.plex.tv”
The thing that Plex does for you is reverse proxying so you don’t have to. You can set that up for Jellyfin yourself.
Spoiler: They can’t. There is no Roku Tailscale app. AppleTV recently got VPN support.
Everyone loves to yell “Jellyfin” without realizing all of the shortcomings because it’s free.
Well, I have no shortcomings with it, so yeah I yell Jellyfin. We have both of our tvs on cheap android boxes with it and tailscale installed and our phones with it installed to remotely access. A few extra steps to set it up? Yes, but extremely worth it and easy to access and use once it is set up. Worth the cost savings in the end? Yes. Jellyfin also does everything we need including more that we dont and also has a ton of amazing plugin support to add alot of cool features. Oh, yeah its open-source. So, yeah I think Jellyfin offers alot to be yelled about.
Ok; how do I setup Tailscale on a Roku streamer?
You would have to set up tailscale on the actual server first. Then, for the app on another device, such as the Roku streamer, does it have the Playstore or app store to install apps? If so then you would download the tailscale app and connect it to your newly setup tailscale account. If it doesn’t then as I have mentioned, you could buy a cheap android box, such as the Onn 4K at Walmart for like 25-30 bucks or spend a little more for a better android box and install it on that. Its a few extra steps but way worth it in the end.
I’m willing to work past a lot of shortcomings when the alternative is $750. Plus anything learning how to overcome those shortcomings will have benefits beyond just setting up jellyfin.
Ok; how do you load Tailscale on a Roku streaming box?
Why are people so diehard about Roku boxes? I got a $20 android tv box from walmart that handles tailscale and jellyfin just fine. Sounds like it is a shortcoming of Roku, not just Jellyfin.
Tailscale was suggested above as an easier alternative to setting up a reverse proxy. If tailscale isn’t a good option, then I would push forward with getting a reverse proxy setup.
Well they can if those tvs allow the tailscale app to be installed. If not then Walmart sells very cheap ONN 4K boxes for like 20 bucks and then the tailscale and jellyfin apps can be installed on that.
I already have lifetime but there have been increasingly more and more yellow/orange flags recently.
For you jellyfin folk: Is there a good solution to being able to cache/download episodes/movies ahead of time for “offline mode” with any of the android clients yet? Last time I checked that was a pain point and most solutions boiled down to “just download the file and use VLC”. At which point… why am I running a media server when I can just mount a samba share at home?
My sole problem with jellyfin is the ease of use for remote access. I can’t explain to my 60 year old mom, or 80 year old grandma how to set up a VPN.
I’ve said this exact same thing in the past, and been shouted down by the Jellyfin crowd. There is a lot of apologia in the FOSS community, and Jellyfin is one of the worst offenders. It has several known security exploits, and should never be accessible outside of your LAN. But every time I mention it, I inevitably get some chud responding with “lol I’ve had my port forwarded for years and been fine” as if that is a valid security audit.
And this means your only real option for remote access is a VPN. But that makes sharing with friends/family extremely difficult.
Especially if those family/friends also want to run their own servers, because Jellyfin doesn’t have a centralized “here are all of your servers” home page.
It also means you end up playing administrator to all of the “I forgot my password for the ninth time this week, can you reset it for me” inane requests.
Plex does all of those things really well. Want to share with a friend? Just send them an invite link, and they can access it with their own account. Want to access multiple servers, because you have a few friends who also run theirs? Easy, they can send invite links to you, and you’ll access them all directly through the home page. Family member forgot their password? They can click the button and follow the prompts to reset it themselves.
Especially true on reddit, the Plex hate is real - yes they’re raising lifetime pass, but it’s not valuable to them for you to buy it. That’s why it’s raised until you only want to use the subscription.
It’s especially weird when we mostly agree with them on Plex’ path to hell. But when we ask critical questions or point out a weakness of Jellyfin, they act like we drove over their dog. Or they downplay your concern and deflect
It also means you end up playing administrator to all of the “I forgot my password for the ninth time this week, can you reset it for me” inane requests.
Jellyfin is a self-hosted streaming service. You have just understood the concept of self-hosting, Sir.
your only real option for remote access is a VPN. But that makes sharing with friends/family extremely difficult.
The first part is true. The latter is exaggerated. Yes, it’s more of a hassle than just “install the app, follow a link and you’re done.” That said, if done through wg-easy (a wireguard configuration frontend), it’s “install two apps, scan a QR code, enter a server URL and you’re done.” Also, corporations spoon-feeding users, creating an expectation that tech just magically knows who I am and works on fairydust and rainbows, that’s what got us into this mess. Expecting a modicum of setting up from the user isn’t too much to ask if they can then access somebody else’s services for free.
What flags have you seen?
Yes, an Android app called Streamyfin.
I got a Plex Lifetime Pass mainly for Plexamp + Tidal, but then they removed the Tidal integration. Roon lifetime pass is similar to what Plex is now, which is basically the only other option for this that exists right now.
I really should get around to kicking my setup over to jellyfin and navidrome.
Yes you should. I run both and absolutely love them.
Posted this link earlier and it got deleted with no mod log. Anyone able to explain so I can avoid future issues?
How much longer before the yearly/monthly goes up this much.
I’m just waiting for them to decide all the lifetime members need to pay monthly and kill off the lifetime memberships. Probably by having a ‘new’ version that for some made up reason can only function
on the blood of the unbornon monthly subscriptions. Where the only real change will be a different UI that’s missing features which they will tout as “cleaner”.How much longer until all the current lifetime subscribers have to pay up to the current price to keep it?
Yeah - they know that you are using the service a lot. They know that you are willing to pay. But they are not getting ongoing revenue from you. That is something no MBA manager CEO dude can accept. They will come for lifetime users
as soon as they think the market will bear it
Laugh while you can monkey boy! But in 2037 when its $75000 for a lifetime pass, I’ll be the one laughing then!
If you just live long enough this is an amazing deal! A steal I tell you!
If you don’t see it that way you are timid and weak and don’t have the confidence to survive another 6 or 7 decades!
