What kind of moron uses a paid service in 2025?
If it's paid, you do not own it.
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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If it’s paid, you do not own it.
Did you meant to say "free" here? Because that makes no fucking sense.
Nope. You're just brainwashed by capitalism.
You pay, that shit's proprietary, you didnt make it, you can't see the insides. Why would any self respecting sociopath give you something without including a backdoor, data logging/tracking, and a string to pull it back?
You steal something, or download more anonymously, it isn't immediately connected to you, it may not have the backdoors activated, and you probably cut that string when you acquired it. You might even have to fuck around in the guts and modify shit so it can't be remotely bricked tracked etc.
Applies to housing too. The state wants me out, I'm out. Can happen for a lot of reasons, and no amount of obedience keeps you 100% safe. In a squat, ive already defended myself, proven their power, at least what they're willing to exercise, cannot dislodge me. The place is truly mine.
You buy from the company store, you don't own shit.
Alright buddy, make sure to keep on that tinfoil hat.
Boot lickers like you make every sadvance of oppression at least very funny. I wonder how youll rationalize the next thing taken from you.
The only thing taken for me was the time and braincells from having to read your mental diarrhea.
Plex's remote play works for me when I'm away from home - which is on starlink. Jellyfish does not, because starlink uses cgnat. 🤷
Find a proxy?
Before the influx of "just use jellyfin" bros come in let me get ahead of it.
I ran Plex for a decade and loved it, had the subscription, was happy to pay for software I found value in. This however was the kicker, not because it i was directly affected (not because I had a lifetime subscription), but it signaled the end of Plex that I knew from before.
So I did switch. It was not easy or painless like people here claim. Metadata is stored in different ways that made conversion difficult. I tried multiple conversion tools and none of them worked for me, or left my library in a half state. I ended up just staring from scratch, and it was a couple of months before I was happy with it.
That being said, I think it's worth it. It's pretty much at feature parity, but mostly because Plex hasn't been doing anything for server owners while jellyfin devs have been for years now. I'm happier with jellyfin than I was with Plex.
So, to the "I use jellyfin LOL" guys here, no that's not helpful, and it's condescending. It pushes people away, but I have a weird feeling they want to push people away (and honestly if that's your only comment it's the same energy as crypto bros).
Instead, I empathize with Plex hosters, I was there, it's not a fun place to be anymore, and I am here to say that yes you can switch, no it's not as easy as Plex, but I personally think it's worth the effort. With all open source things the user interface and experience is definitely lacking, but if you're willing to put in the time it will be worth it.
I never once found plex to be user friendly for me, it required me to leave my laptop running at all times or buy a dedicated pc for it. I find it infinitely easier to just Pirate what I want and put it on a usb stick or hdmi the laptop to the tv. For me plex was always a thing I felt I never had a use for
it required me to leave my laptop running at all times or buy a dedicated pc for it.
Yeah, that's not exactly a software issue ... you can't stream data out of thin air.
find it infinitely easier to just Pirate what I want and put it on a usb stick or hdmi the laptop to the tv.
That's pretty cute, but get's kind of tedious when you have thousands of movies and tens-of-thousand TV show episodes. That's when you'll see the need for a software like plex.
There's no Jellyfin app for my TV, and it's shit in the TVs browser
Use a Roku or another streaming box
The conversion is not the biggest issue. For my dad or Grandmother to stream my content, Plex as a streaming app is something they can easily understand and digest (though Plex's new streaming app has done quite a bit to undo that -_-). I have the subscription, I acquire the content, I choose who to share it with. Now they need a subscription, too? Where's the value? Why wouldn't they just pay for a streaming service at that point? I'm using my hardware and doing all the work and they are paying Plex? And if I accepted payment for the same thing it would be a crime! BUT I'm not sure I'm comfortable opening Jellyfin to the internet, even behind nginx, and I don't want to have to spend time setting things up for them or troubleshooting their issues w/ Jellyfin. I put enough labor into this thing already.
So yes obviously everyone should switch to the FOSS option, but in reality it's not that simple because the services aren't 1:1.
No, you're mistaken. If YOU have a subscription on your server, they do not need to pay anything to stream from you.
They only need a subscription if you do not have one associated to your server.
They do not need a subscription, assuming you (the server owner) have a plex pass.
That is what I thought, until this article. I'd be pleased to find out I misinterpreted.
The title of this article is vague.
Here is the important part
Under the new rules announced in March, a server owner needs to have a Plex Pass subscription, which starts at $7 per month, to grant users remote access to their server. Alternatively, someone can remotely access another person’s Plex server by buying their own Plex Pass
TLDR; there has to be at least one pass in the chain
BUT I'm not sure I'm comfortable opening Jellyfin to the internet, even behind nginx, and I don't want to have to spend time setting things up for them or troubleshooting their issues w/ Jellyfin. I put enough labor into this thing already.
This is still where I'm at too. It's a great service, but the fear of messing something up when opening it up to the internet is too worrying. I'm usually pretty good picking up new tech with easier setups, but when there are 4 different networking techniques with their own pros and cons, at that point it's just easier to just run as a local service.
Yes! I'm glad you mentioned the crime! If you own a DVD and rip it - that itself is a grey area that is mostly acceptable now. However, sharing it digitally is another grey area that providers have been skimming under the radar, but by requiring a subscription that is 100% illegal. You cannot pay for shared content. I think they're trying to get around it but personally, I just want to avoid the whole thing. Jellyfin was a no brainer from that aspect.
If you own a DVD and rip it - that itself is a grey area
In some countries. In others it is legally protected.
Yeah, switching isn't that easy. Especially if you have a lot of "unique" media types with different requirements for scraping metadata. Things like anime, audio books, or comedy albums.
TBF Plex doesn't handle those all that well either from a stock install. It was a lot of work to get it to handle everything well.
But also, Plex's proxy service for remote streaming, is it's killer feature that prevents me from switching. I need to access my media from networks where my private domain is blocked.
fair assessment. there are two major features i still miss from plex:
- bulk editing metadata
- smart playlists
also setting up users with tailscale is a struggle, even the ones relatively tech literate.
Security is definitely a tradeoff, and you have two good features missing. I think they'll make their way over, but it's a pain for sure.
How are you doing remote streaming with Jellyfin?
tailscale is the easiest option. learning curve isn't too bad, but definitely a hurdle for users.
I can write my own iptables so the learning curve isn't really a problem, but making it easy for users is a lot more important.
I'm in the open, but have a proxy and a nested domain so it can't be automatically port scanned. It's a tradeoff I made for simpler setup for my family, and so far it's been fine. I could do tailscale, but there's no way my family would be in favor of it.
I have moved my library to Jellyfin as of a few weeks ago. It's really a step backwards in terms of polish and feature parity. It's extremely annoying because Plex was such a set and forget app for me, especially because I was only using it to host content locally on my home network for streaming. I wasn't able to move any of my metadata, poster images or subtitles over so I'm starting from scratch on over three thousand media files.
I'm glad there's an alternative but what's gonna stop Jellyfin from doing this same problem once their user base has grown and is firmly entrenched?
The march towards enshittification rolls on.
Jellyfin is fully open source, and GPL licensed. If the current maintainers start making it worse, the community can just fork it and keep going. They also have no control over what you do with it, unlike Plex which has centralized auth servers they could ban you from.
wasn't able to migrate so much metadata and polish assets
Yeah, that's what you get for taking the corpo solution.
If you paid for it, you don't own it.
Hey look it's One-Face.
tried JellyFin, and it's just not there yet. lots of little things…
Good thing i got a lifetime PlexPass, like, 15 years ago when it was on sale for $35
The tons of bugs, there’s no Apple TV app, remote streaming is janky, the entire interface feels rough and cheap compared to Plexes shine and polish.
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that jelly fin is nowhere nearly as mature a piece of software as Plex is, and it really really shows. I’m not interested in “roughing it“. I’m sure I’ll try jelly fin later, maybe when it’s much more mature, but for now, I’m not interested.
Plex meets all of my needs, and I have a lifetime Plex pass, so I don’t have to worry about subscriptions.
What little things? I've been using Jellyfin for a while now with very few complaints, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing.
As a former Plex user who is on Jellyfin now, I'd say Smart Collections and playlists. Their are tools out there you can use to try to achieve similar results, but the Plex implementation is far better.
Unless I'm missing something, Jellyfin can do playlists just fine for my liking anyway.
What are Smart Collections?
You can essentially create a filter of any media type and then save it as a collection, as new things are added if they meet the criteria they are auto-added to the collection. So an example could be if you want documentaries to be their own collection you could create a smart collection with a filter of genre=documentary.
Some people are using their media servers way more intricately than I am hahaha. Wild to know what features are being implemented to enhance these services.
Interesting. Jellyfin doesn't have something exactly like that afaik, but it does have genre categories. I don't think a more robust category feature is really something I need personally though, so I don't think I'm missing out.
The prices aren't that bad. What is bad is the direction plex is going as a company.
I recently tried using the new Roku interface and holy fucking shit I've never wanted to buy a new TV and switch off of plex more in my life. Plus no /link or qr sign-in option? I am never. Ever. Going to use that app. Ever. My only hope is that it's not a sign of what's coming to other platforms, but if it's not, then they are ok having inconsistent UX across platforms which is also concerning.
It's obvious that plex is actively making user hostile choices in favor of short term profits.
Everyone is either saying I'm staying on plex or Move to jellyfin and I here just enjoying Emby. Its functional, easy to setup, and is a good middle ground for sharing without having to train people how to use it.
Yes, I paid for the license, and I know it isn't foss so the potential for enshitification exists, but for now its fine.
My kids can use it, so can my inlaws, and its been reliable.
Good thing I moved over to Jellyfin
I got the lifetime Plex like 13 years ago. I gave up on it about five years ago.
I’ve basically warned the people who use it that if they enshittify further I won’t be doing anything to try to maintain it.
I gave them a PSA not to get a subscription, because I got a lifetime pass ages ago, but if they do much else I’m out. I’ll maybe, depending on the changes, keep hosting it in case they want to keep using it, but I won’t maintain it properly (it auto-adds stuff from my folders, ofc, so that’ll still happen, but I won’t fix any mismatches and stuff). I’ve already stopped giving new people access to it, as the writing is on the wall.
I’m in the process of setting up jellyfin, but I have zero intention of making that available to anyone other than my partner (in IT, and already has access to my home VPN) because I’ve read how risky that is, and how you need to VPN them back to it or some shit and I’m just not willing to do any of that. Too risky and too much work cuz I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.
I’d love a middle ground, but I’m not sure I’m willing to pay for another closed-source platform, and Idk if any open source platforms are ever going to be particularly good for remote sharing for non-techie users.
Idk why so many people are afraid to share jellyfin servers. Mines been open to everyone and anyone for over a year with zero problems.