Ahoy mateys, it’s time to setup Jellyfin if you prefer not to pay for the privilege of self-hosting your own content.
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/27204525
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
I really don’t see how anyone in their hierarchy thought this was a good idea.
There are at least 3 other competitors that moreorless work better than plex already does, without even having a subscription.
I’m amazed they decided to go this route, especially when migrating is as simple as uninstall plex, install competitor of choice(like jellyfin), and then just specify media locations.
the only real annoying part is remaking user accounts and losing watch progress/history, but there is usually a migration tool for that
The key difference is client app support for various platforms. Jellyfin is far behind Plex on that front, and I say this as a user and advocate for Jellyfin. That’s a huge hurdle for migrating even just family and friends users.
Fuck around with proprietary software and find out.
I’ve never paid even 1 cent to watch something online. Never paid for porn either.
I’m not about to start
I want to switch to jellyfin, I selfhost but I don’t want to open a port directly to my server. I don’t understand how everyone else figures this out and I’m apparently an idiot.
Also do people expect all who use my server to start a VPN each time? What if they leave it on and their other streaming services are using my bandwidth.
I don’t understand and I have looked it up but I don’t see a consensus.
I just use Tailscale when remote streaming.
From their docs:
By default, Tailscale acts as an overlay network: it only routes traffic between devices running Tailscale, but doesn’t touch your public internet traffic, such as when you visit Google or Twitter. The overlay network configuration is ideal for most people who need secure communication between sensitive devices (such as company servers or home computers), but don’t need extra layers of encryption or latency for their public internet connection.
Opening a port isn’t really bad if you have your firewall configured properly. You will have to open a port either way with jellyfin or wireguard. If you have a TLS/SSL certificate then just doing jellyfin is fine (but have good passwords since it’s public facing), otherwise a VPN like wireguard will handle encryption for you.
As for managing traffic on the VPN you can follow this advice: https://serverfault.com/questions/1075973/wireguard-how-to-only-tunnel-some-of-the-traffic
Basically setup your firewall to stop extra traffic on your end, and change accessible IPs in wireguard to your service(s) so the peer knows not to talk on that interface for unrelated things.
I deleted Plex from my barely functional home server.
I’ll give Jellyfin a try. I just want to be able to access my music away from home
Use Finamp for offline Music from Jellyfin
The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature.
What “resources” do you need, exactly, to allow my friends to stream from my server?
for real though, such a dumb decision on plex’s part lol
Developers to keep things up to date and secure. Which I wouldn’t mind paying for, but instead they spend it all on making Plex a social media that emails your friends a list of shows you watch? I can tell you right now that other than “watch together” no one is using the Plex social features on purpose
Paying devs
What does that have to do with my friends streaming from my server?
As long as you have Plex pass it’s all good and nothing changes. That said, this was exactly my reaction. Plex expends exactly zero fucking resources for my server, so wtf is this shit supposed to mean?
I’m pretty sure that’s corporate speak for “we need to drive plex pass subscriptions more so we need to lock more feature behind it.”
This is 100% my opinion too.
I’m annoyed that I supported them and got a lifetime account on sale. At the same time I’m happy that I can take my time testing and moving my family and friends over to something else.
does this mean the server will need Plex pass or each user individually?
Edit:
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CURRENT PLEX PASS HOLDERS: For users who have an active Plex Pass subscription, remote playback will continue to be available to you without interruption from any Plex Media Server, after these changes go into effect. When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge—not even a mobile activation fee. More on that later in this update.
I guess the whole idea of this move is to force self-hosters to pay for a Plex pass. But it’s a funny demographic to try to strongarm into a subscription. Most tech savvy self-hosters won’t think twice about spinning up a Jellyfin instance instead, especially given that it’s FOSS. And for those folks with a lifetime Plex pass this makes no difference.,
Yeah but anyone who is seriously using Plex already paid for one so I don’t get the outrage
I’m actually using Jellyfin but I hate the fact that there’s no easy way to install a client on Samsung TVs (Tizen OS) :(
Soon™ it’ll be on the store. Having to build and push to tizen is the absolute worst part of jellyfin (if you have to) otherwise there’s clients for every platform - even LG’s webOS.
There’s also finamp for music specific playback, so jellyfin can pretty much do everything
There is a alpha client and instructions available here: https://smartdigihere.com/jellyfin-on-samsung-smart-tv/
However as stated further down the article, it’s easier to just use a web browser and access your jellyfin server that way. Login, bookmark the URL (don’t forget to include the port) and then hit full screen.
Note: You may need to tweak (server side) your transcoding and subtitle settings.
Yeah fuck Samsung
Plex has been on a downward spiral for awhile now. This will really kill the service for a lot of people, wonder if Plex sharing will be a thing of the past and people switch to jellyfin sharing
This headline is misleading. If the owner of the server has Plex pass than the users can use remote streaming as normal. If the owner does not have Plex pass, then the users need Plex pass to use that server remotely
Imo a stupid move by Plex, but as a lifetime Plex pass holder, no one that uses mine will have to worry so I’m relatively unbothered.
If you are worried about opening port 443 on your local firewall I suggest trying to get a cheap vps with decent bandwidth and hosting a reverse proxy on it that points back to your local jellyfin over a tunnel.
Ive been doing it for a few months now and finally got all my family off of Plex.
Yet again, FOSS showing why it’s always the way to go vs proprietary tech. So glad I started my self-hosting journey with Jellyfin!
I’m starting mine this weekend, what timing!
Right on!
Just gonna… Drop this here…
They would charge you to watch your own DVDs if they could
… A fee for adding content to each media, capped libraries? What is next?
Let’s brainstorm guys ;D
nice try Plex
That is so sad. I was just reconfigured my hone server with plex last weekend. Seems like it’s time to switch to jellyfin now. Luckily didn’t finish the configuration.
If you have Plex pass (honestly, get the lifetime, it’s worth it, jellyfin is pretty shit compared to Plex) it will not effect users of your server.
How exactly is it “pretty shit”? Running Jellyfin on my network with zero issues whatsoever.
I had Plex lifetime and still switched to Jellyfin as an open source and community driven project will always be better in the future compared to a commercial product
