Is a plex subscription worth it?
I want to unlock the ability to view content on my mobile device. I can do that with a one-time purchase (payed with google opinion rewards) or with a subscription. I want to unlock the ability for my entire family though, across multiple devices. Do I have to pay the "one-time payment" for every device? If so, the plex subscription might be worth it. Is there any other major benefit to having a plex subscription?
You are viewing a single comment
Jellyfin has more functionality but is a lot more technical to set up. I didn’t think it was worth the effort since I already have a Plex server running, but I could see going through that if I didn’t.
Been running Plex with a lifetime pass for around a decade. Worth it for me for sure.
I've run both, and I found both required about the same level of technical understanding for an in house setup.
I started with Plex as it worked nicer with my remote, then moved to Jellyfin when I picked up an Android TV. It was the hardware transcoding (without having to pay) that sealed the deal for me.
The dealbreaker about plex for me was having to use their auth servers and having to route traffic through them.
::: spoiler I haven't used Plex but Jellyfin is as easy as throwing this in Docker:
If you like Ansible and docker, check out saltbox. It's a great project and if they don't have what you need, it's in community. They also use authelia sso. I've contributed to their community repo.
https://github.com/saltyorg/Saltbox
It’s really easy to set up if you use Docker.
I want to use Jellyfin, but the clients just aren’t up to par with Plex and last I checked Jellyfin won’t transcode downloaded media.
Jellyfin does hardware transcoding.
Last I checked, if you wanted to download media to a mobile device to watch later, you could only do that at full quality. Has that changed?
Ah I see, I have misunderstood. I checked and you are correct that it is not possible to download anything but the original file.
If you use Linux Mint, its a one click install from the software manager GUI and the config happens in a web browser. I use a VPN to connect and play videos from it on my phone. I like it and have it set up everywhere I can.
The only thing I can think of when people say jellyfin is more technical. Is there you have to set up port forwarding and some kind of DNS for your server for remote access.
Yes and you'll need to handle security and authentication yourself. Plex is way better in this regard even if it means the very occasional issue when their servers are down.
My main bone to pick with Plex is that I believe that free and open source software should be gratis (free as in beer). You're right about the authentication though. I have mine set up with a simple user name and password over http. I rely on the VPN to limit access to the network through a forwarded port. I don't really like the idea of authentication being done on someone else's machine for privacy reasons, which is why I choose jellyfin that runs on my local machine. I'm not currently sharing it, and if I did I would change some of my security practices.
If you really need public remote access and you can set up jellyfin, it's not much more difficult to set up authelia or LDAP with a reverse proxy and valid certs. I use tailscale and just leave simple auth with jellyfin since it's only myself and family accessing. I used to run Plex for the offloading of authentication to them but I'm with ya, FOSS should be free.