I think software subscriptions are a scam, but I don’t mind buying a perpetual license that is only good up to a certain version with additional fees for newer versions. It’s also fair to charge a recurring fee for something that has recurring hosting costs like a VPN, cloud storage, etc.
If they weren’t such dipshits, the “lifetime pass” should have been a perpetual license you can keep using as long as you want, but charge an optional fee for newer versions if you want to upgrade and get more features. They should also have offered a hosted service to make your instance available to others and charge a monthly fee for that. I think people would’ve been fine with all that.
Well I don’t like seeing well reasoned, thoughtful comments in my hate thread. We are supposed to be kicking them while they’re down! Not pointing out how a small change would ameliorate the issue and fix everything!
And they’ll likely “forget” you are lifetime as often with them as they did with us early adopters who got it for cheap.
There’s a reason I use Jellyfin, now. Well, more than one.
Plex kept trying to charge me again, and every time I looked at it there was more clutter and spam being forced in front of my face by their “partners.”
Kodi on device, great interface especially when you are using touch, if I need remote access I swap to Jellyfin. There’s even plugins to sync between the two so your stats and history don;t get messed up by using both.
I saw this email and it just read as a desperate cash grab for a company that doesnt plan to be around in 3 more years. Pathetic.
People still use plex?
It’s just a matter of time before they convert the “Lifetime Pass” to a subscription. Absolutely nothing prevents them from following the Adobe playbook and declaring that they’ll be dropping support/updates for the “lifetime edition”. Future feature updates & security fixes will then be gated behind a $29.99 monthly subscription
Couldn’t pay me to use that software lol
Used Kodi and now using Jellyfin.
never been a plex user, Jellyfin from the start, but if people are buying this for remote watch, tailscale is pretty easy to deploy, or wireguard is on a lot of routers these days
Yeah, they clearly should charge for what they provide, dynamic DNS and user experience. It’s just about the cost/benefit, which is debatable
Someone is getting greedy.
If I knew what plex was this might bother me I guess
my lifetime pass for jellyfin cost me $0, pretty good value
Apparently they are going to DOUBLE that amount every year! Outrageous!
I didn’t get into self-hosting until recently, and people recommended Jellyfin, so I don’t even know what I’m missing with Plex, if anything. It feels like Jellyfin does everything I need.
You’re missing getting to pay for it. Imagine how good it would feel to see $750 less in your bank account.
I mean Plex definitely has a value add. Around here people will scoff but Plex is far easier to work with for non technical users.
If you shared your library externally Plex was definitely easier it’s just that they have started to extract value from that which does suck.
Easier sure, but it comes at the expense of all traffic (even streaming to a device on your local network) going through their servers. If you have an internet outage or their servers go down, you can’t even stream media locally with Plex. No such issues with Jellyfin.
Edit: apparently my frustrations about this were based on something I set up incorrectly, so +1 point for Plex working locally without internet, -1 point for ease of use/setup if I had this wrong for years without knowing it or finding the fix on my own.
This is incorrect, bordering on outright FUD. Plex only uses their servers for the initial server discovery. When you sign into Plex, your device basically contacts the central plex discovery server and goes “hey, which servers do I have access to? And where are they located?” Plex’s server then passes that info back to the device, so the device can reach those servers directly. No actual content hits Plex’s servers by default. Hell, Plex wouldn’t want content hitting their servers by default, because it’s a truly astronomical amount of bandwidth that would be required on their end, for no real benefit.
You can technically use their relay option to bounce the video stream off of their server, but they specifically say that it’s a last-ditch workaround for troubleshooting. Because their relay server is intentionally bandwidth-capped and will throttle your video quality. So the relay is only really meant to be used for troubleshooting and edge cases.
“Aha! But you need to contact their server to get access even on LAN! So it will stop working when your internet goes out!” You can just configure the device to use a direct connection instead. This will allow you to connect directly to a server on your LAN. No need for their handshake server.
Thank you, it needed to be said.
You can totally stream locally without internet, I’ve done it several times. I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that Plex doesn’t do direct streams, especially locally?
I got that idea from the times when I couldn’t stream to my TV in my home while my internet was down. Switched from Plex several years ago though
I like shitting on Plex but you absolutely can stream entirely locally without internet.
There is a server side setting you need to switch off. If I remember correctly it deals with the way you sign into plex.
I won’t doubt that. I’ve just had Plex for at least 6 years and never had the complete inability to stream directly when the internet is down. It has always fallen back to local streams in my experience (when I had Comcast, this was a frequent occurance and would have otherwise resulted in me returning to emby).
I tried to use it about 3 years ago on an apple tv. It tried finding the server on my LAN and never could do it reliably, so I found it more annoying.
With Jellyfin/Swiftfin I do have to punch in the hostname or IP, but it works fine for me and the people in the house. The only annoyance is getting signed out every few months, but I’m not sure of that’s a server or client issue on Apple TV and happens infrequently enough that I have not bothered to look up the reason.
Edit: should have said that I used to use Plex before ~2012-2018, and with more ease that after the updates that dumbed down the interface. Maybe its changed and better now, but no reason for me to care.
You got the arr stack up too? Feels like magic when it’s all setup
It does feel magical :D
No, not yet. I took forever to manually rip what I have, which was a lot, and I’m still working my way through boxes of music (which I’m also hosting on Jellyfin). I’ll figure out that step next.
If you haven’t already, you may want to look into FileBot. It’s the only reason I was ever able to properly rip and rename all of my files so Plex/Jellyfin can automatically detect them.
Oh my god, you mean I didn’t have to do all this manually? I’ve spent so much troubleshooting time fixing file names.
Ah fair, just take your time and feel free to ask
Trash-guides will be your savior
Wow, this is so much good info. Thank you
Jellyfin is amazing for a lot of things, but it shouldn’t be available externally. There are a few critical security concerns that devs have openly stated will never be patched. And that makes it a non-starter for sharing with people who can’t figure out how to use a personal VPN connection. It may be fine for me and my household… But there’s no way I’m going to be able to walk my tech-illiterate grandmother through it over the phone.
In contrast, Plex makes sharing server access very easy. Since they run a centralized server to handle all of the “which servers do I have access to, and where are they located” automatic discovery traffic, sharing content is as simple as sending an invite link. That centralization flies in the face of what Jennyfin stands for, so they won’t ever implement it. I even have a burner Plex account that already has access to my server, which I can use to sign into TVs when I don’t want to bother with the whole account setup process. Handy for things like parties, because I have a few “just hit play and drunk people will enjoy it” types of playlists ready to go.
Basically, Jellyfin for yourself and your household. Plex for everyone else. Luckily, the two will happily run side-by-side without any issues.
I’m not confident enough in my knowledge to ever open up my server externally, even after reading some methods that are allegedly safe (or relatively safe). I’d just rather not take the risk of me misunderstanding something or failing to keep current with vulnerabilities.
I suppose I see the appeal if Plex handles that without hassle, but man… not for $750. Lol
This is a concern if you just port forward through a router. This isn’t a problem if you simply use a reverse proxy, which is standard and normal and expected and not difficult at all.
It’s a concern even with a reverse proxy. The reverse proxy encrypts your connection from A to B, but does nothing to stop the various security concerns that have been noted. Because those concerns don’t rely on intercepting unencrypted traffic. If you can reach Jellyfin’s main log in page, you can exploit it. Full stop.
The only way a reverse proxy would stop someone from being able to exploit it is to include a separate login on your reverse proxy, meaning attackers wouldn’t even be able to hit Jellyfin’s landing page unless they know your proxy’s password. But notably, this breaks basically everything except for browsers. All of your smart TVs, mobile apps, etc would stop functioning, because they’d bounce off of that reverse proxy login page.
I don’t proxy the port, I proxy the routes needed for auth and interface. This isn’t that hard.
EDIT: ah I see what you’re saying, you’re talking about the app surface rather than the raw admin API. The risk is small enough with the remaining attack surface that I’m not particularly worried, though obviously I’d like it to be better.
I felt the same way with my Kodi installs, I had a pi in every room that used a shared library db so I could pause in one room and resume somewhere else, nfs shares for media, a config file and done.
I bought a lifetime Plex pass a decade or so ago and shifted everything except my music to Jellyfin about a year ago. Now I’m looking into dispatcharr to round everything out.
Dispatcharr is pretty neat for m3u streams.
Working great with jellyfinNice! I’m giving it a go with some dumb free m3u’s now and so far it’s been pretty great. I haven’t tied it into Jellyfin or Plex yet but one I decide on a decent iptv provider it’ll be happening.
Hahahaha….yeah.
Turns out, lifetime is difficult to budget for
It would be fine if Plex wasn’t hooked on VC capital and needed to make the line go up constantly. Most self-hosters like me have zero interest in what they are funding with subscriptions.
I paid… $74.99 for a lifetime plex sub in 2014. Is this the same service?
Yes, if you bought the lifetime pass years ago, you still have it. This price increase only affects people who don’t already have a lifetime pass.
No it’s worse. Old accounts are grandfathered in to downloads when a library is shared with another user. Otherwise the library recipient needs a plex pass too.
Afaik, if you didnt have the lifetime pass
Original lifetime Plex Pass for $74.99!
That’s what their email said. So my understanding is I must have been grandfathered into the pay one time and have it forever thing.
I thought the last couple moves were the nail in the coffin, but this might be it 🤣
Unless, like me, you got it for $49.
Still, jellyfin.
Exactly, got mine with an Nvidia shield purchase, still moved to Jellyfin like a year ago and never looked back
Was the conversion easy? Could you keep your watchlist and whatnot?
I have… a lot of data.
Option 1: Sync to trakt, then backsync to jellyfin
Option 2: Use something like yamtrack to track it externally
Yamtrack can ingest plex and jellyfin. Just no backsync :/Thanks for the tip.
Um honestly I didn’t even try to port shit, I’ve only got about 12 TB of stuff anyways so it was easier to just start fresh
Lucky you. I’ve got almost 750Tb the transition might be rough.
750TB!!!??? Good lord, how much did your RAID array(s) cost?
Uhmmm so, yeah. It’s… a significant investment. Let’s say, I look for HDD sales constantly and I’m eating less these days to feed my habit.
For the curious, I run on Synology hardware. Most of the drives are 20-24TB each.
I have their 12 bay sever with two 12 expansions (36 total) and then another 8 bay server with two 5 expansions.
I started with the 8, and when I quickly hit 18 total drives with redundancy… I realized this was going to be a lot more than I had initially planned for.
These are also direct disc rips. No downloads. That’s actual discs in hand, ripping, saving, typing. It’s mostly from my amazing city library, the local video store, borrowing, and then the rest are purchases.
And I’ll answer the next question, dual income no kids… and my partner shares my interest (or at least benefits!). They always know what to get me for a present.
Holy smokes that’s a lot of data
Holy shit! That’s downright impressive!
He must’ve downloaded all of One Piece
I thought the last couple moves were the nail in the coffin, but this might be it 🤣
I got it for 20 bucks! Good times!
37.5X price hike
I think it is. A price hike this massive can only mean they‘re banking on panic buyers who think they can save hundreds of bucks if they buy it now. Meaning Plex probably knows it‘s over and they just want to make as much money as possible before filing bankruptcy or something. At least that‘s what it looks like to me.
My guess was almost this. They obviously want to cash in on the panic-buyers. But I don’t think it’s because they’re going under. I think the goal is to put the lifetime pass out of reach for most people, meaning they’ll default to the subscription instead. Because Plex wants people on subscriptions. They’re more reliable income, which the company can more accurately budget for. There’s a reason everything is moving towards SAAS, and Plex is doing the same. This is simply an attempt to push/lock everyone to the subscription model instead of the single purchase.
I have to agree with this, I think they bet on more people subscribing as a result of their external connection subscription requirement, didn’t and are panicing because they don’t want to downscale enough to be able to be maintained.
the plex lifetime pass is a solid “stop beating him he’s already dead” scenario for me because I lost any interest in it like 4 price ups ago now.
I never had the chance to try Plex, but how does it compare to Jellyfin? What kind of features does Plex have and Jellyfin does not and vice versa?
Examples of basic features I’m missing in Jellyfin:
- Create a user-defined collection (like group of favourite movies)
- Adding user-defined tags
- Filtering by tags or any meaningful filtering
- Filtering by languages (however this could be done by using combination of 2 different plugins that add tags and create collections)
- [Important] No movie/show relations (e.g. The Lord of the Rings 1 -> 2 -> 3)
- No way to know if movie/show belongs to any collection
You can’t make collections in Jellyfin? It’s available on my server
Kodi has movie group/collections. I don’t remember about Plex, it’s been a long time since I used it
I use Plex
- Create a user-defined collection (like group of favourite movies)
Collections exist along with ratings.
- Adding user-defined tags
I think you have to be admin to do that bevause it’s part of the library metadata. Shared libraries would have to use playlists or collections which are per user. I don’t use Jellyfin so I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
- Filtering by tags or any meaningful filtering
Filters work well. Similar to iTunes. The filters aren’t listed in alphabetical order for some fucking reason, though.
- Filtering by languages (however this could be done by using combination of 2 different plugins that add tags and create collections)
I think you can filter by movie language? Never done this. I don’t think it cares about the languages available in the audio streams.
- [Important] No movie/show relations (e.g. The Lord of the Rings 1 -> 2 -> 3)
None on Plex.
- No way to know if movie/show belongs to any collection
There’s automatic collections but there isn’t a UI element that shows if a movie is missing from a collection or vice/versa.
You can filter by audio and subtitle languages. Most of my movies have more than one language track and it identities them correctly.
Oh neat
given they finally finished their database refactor, maybe they’ll finally start adding some of these
(copium)
