Plex now want to SELL your personal data

I don't know why everyone in the selfhosting community still even mentions Plex or uses it.
It's closed source, not free; Jellyfin is a no brainer yet people still go to Plex??
- The sunken cost of buying a plexpass on sale for 39 dollars 15 years ago.
  
  I bought a Plex pass for 90 or something. I officially dropped Plex about 4 months ago now. For 90 bucks I got something like 8 years out of it. I'll call that a win, I don't feel like I wasted my money, I don't feel like I overpayed. Just moving on now.
  
  Plex is easier to run on older NAS systems, but yeah - that was me :) but i switched to jellyfin, finally
  
  I stuck with Emby for way too long for this reason. I spent $50 in 2017. Gotta get my money’s worth no matter how broken their app was.
  
  Hence the term "sunk cost fallacy".
- Jellyfin is hardly a no-brainer. I set it up out of curiosity a few weeks ago and my first question was how do I give access to my friends and family. So I searched, and all of the results were talking about setting up a VPN or a reverse proxy or whatever. Man, I just want to tell my mom "install this app on your tv and log in", which is exactly what Plex does.
  I get that Plex is enshittifying, but pretending Jellyfin is a drop-in replacement is delusional.
  
  Seconded it’s not a no-brainer. I spent days trying to get it set up with Docker on two different computers and three different distros. It wouldn’t install, if it did install it had errors, if it would even open at all with anything other than a black screen. Hours trying to search how to fix it. I gave up and installed it as a standalone app on a common distro. Not as convenient, but FML it finally worked. Really felt like I wasted my time. Personally, this is the exact bullshit linux fanatics completely ignore when they insist on how great linux is vs whatever. I’ve got a shitload of patience, willpower and modest skill to try to get something like this working, but 99% of the population doesn’t. That’s why linux will stay on the back burner. And if it ever becomes just as easy as Windows…guess what? You’ll have many of the same problem as Windows.
  
  I just want to tell my mom “install this app on your tv and log in”
  I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd start to suspect that the large multimedia corporations building walled gardens of apps in closed Smart TV ecosystems don't really want you to be able to easily tell your mom how to watch shit for free. I mean they'll let you, if you really insist on having that app available, but someone will have to pay THEM money instead first (and probably let them spy on you). That's their racket.
  The reason Plex can do it is because they do make money, doing shitty stuff like this to their users, so they can use that money to open these doors into SmartTV-land. The root of the problem is that your SmartTV itself (and your mom's) is a locked down proprietary piece of shit, designed exclusively for shoving all proprietary content these media companies develop down your throat, and there are few convenient workarounds that are available to us, because of course they make workarounds as inconvenient as possible.
  Unless you're willing to ditch everything proprietary and insist on open technology for everything, which is hard on its own, you're going to end up with a janky mix of proprietary and open systems that always require some compromises, because the proprietary stuff forces us to compromise. It's literally a "this is why we can't have nice things" situation.
  
  I'm not a hardcore tech person and this is exactly the issue for me as well.
  I want to be able to stream my music collection when I'm away from home without having to get an associate's degree in networking.
  
  Since you need to self-host Jellyfin, then you are responsible for making the service public.
  
  Jellyfin is a fully self hosted drop in. That means it's up to the server operator to handle everything. You would still tell your mom to just install the Jellyfin app on her TV with the one additional step in your server address which you would tell her.
  But yes, you as the operator have to do some extra things like implementating a reverse proxy and if hosting out of your home make necessary network configuration changes to accommodate this access.
  
  There is one thing I want from jellyfin. It is to be able to login from their Android app to watch or set something to record without jumping through a bunch of hoops.
  
  “install this app on your tv and log in”, which is exactly what Plex does
  Yes, but that person has to create an account. Everyone has to create an account. With Plex. Some people I know immediately say no, others are annoyed that plex would try and shake them down for money.
  If you configure Jellyfin, all that goes away. THEN they can simply download the app and login.
  
  So I told people download app enter this url and login. I even send out an email inviting them so they can click the link and create their own username and password. Then if they forget their password they can ask for a reset link.
  
  and all of the results were talking about setting up a VPN or a reverse proxy or whatever. Man, I just want to tell my mom "install this app on your tv and log in",
  This is why I use Yunohost. It makes all of that just a "click buttons" affair. Then you can tell your Mom the same thing. Only the domain is yours so Jellyfin can't hold it over your head.
  
  So I searched, and all of the results were talking about setting up a VPN or a reverse proxy or whatever.
  The best thing is, you can't use a reverse proxy with it, it doesn't even support it.
- For me it's PlexAmp and the few tech-illiterate friends I have who use my server for video streaming. 99% of the time, I just watch movies on my desktop with VLC player but I've yet to find a self-hosting music player half as good as PlexAmp
  
  Yeah, the sad reality is that Plex’s setup experience is much smoother. And when you’re trying to convert people, the single largest obstacle is often social inertia. So lowering the barriers to entry is extremely important. My mother-in-law would need to sideload the Jellyfin app onto her TV, but Plex is available right on its app store.
  Luckily, you can run both side by side. Jellyfin for me and my more tech-literate friends, Plex for those who don’t know/don’t care to learn.
  
  Plexamp is pretty great. It's my streaming music player of choice.
  After gpm shit the bed.. I vowed to never have another streaming music service.
  Plexamp it is.
  
  Maybe you've tried it already, but navidrome is a great purpose built music streamer. I was using subsonic back in the day, then airsonic, then airsonic advanced. When I first got on navidrome it was a tough pill to swallow since I never maintained my tags, but I gave a little time here and there to comb through it and in the end it feels like a worthwhile investment. It paid off a little bit more when I adopted lyrion music server and squeeze players for local playback around the home since this organizes by the same tags (mostly), so the whole library is kind of plug and play with things that honor the same tags.
  
  I just use Jellyfin for this too, not sure I follow the issue but I haven't used Plex since migrating
  
  For me it’s chromecast support. Maybe Jellyfin has that now but it didn’t last time I checked.
- "still even mentions plex"
  I've been using plex for a LONG time, and bought a lifetime plexpass 12 years ago. I'm pretty sure I haven't started a thread on Lemmy regarding Plex, but I'm sure I'm not alone as a LONG TIME user. Plex just works for me and cost me $75 in 2013. Right now I've got no pressing reason to switch.
  If they remove my plexpass features, or start showing me ads / making my user experience worse, then I'll probably look to change, and won't participate in these awful 'plex' posts.
  P.S. we should encourage as much new content on Lemmy as possible if you ask me.
  
  Same with me, 12 years, about $70, and it still works just as well as ever. I turn off any new features I don't want, my friends and family can still stream from me for free since I have plex pass already, and it's easy to share without having to pass around my IP address.
  
  Same. I bought the lifetime pass on sale many years ago, my setup is still working fine without me having to have touched it for at least the past 3 years outside of applying an update from time to time. I don't stream their free shows or movies and have those setup so that they don't even show up as an option on my tv.
  Do I wish it was still the same company it was a decade ago? Of course... but so far they haven't impacted my experience to the point that I feel the need to replace it with something else. The second that happens I will be spinning up Jellyfin.
  
  Another longtime user here. If you haven't already, you might want to disable autoupdates on all your devices. The "new experience" is not without its controversies.
- Until jellyfin adds better user log in plex will still thrive. I do the self hosting I don't want a call every few days about they can't log in. The one click Gmail login with plex is amazing.
  
  I don't share videos with people using google to log into any site.
  
  i dont get this.. im technically still usin emby, but user management is beyond simple and requirs no upkeep. no one has asked me to reset their passwords and ive got a few dozen people usin my instance.
  
  Sounds more of an user problem than a jellyfin problem? If they can't remember their login I'll just not add them to jellyfin.
  
  You can install a plugin to add SSO.
  https://github.com/9p4/jellyfin-plugin-sso
  
  @Jimmycakes @Selfhoster1728 they learn pretty fast and the calls stop. Everyone says it's hard I have very tech illerate people using it and yes I get some calls but not alot. And they managed to login way easier then I thought. I think everyone is overblowing how hard Jellyfin is. I mean most people know how to login to a website.
  
  I would not let anyone access my self hosted stuff who is not using a password manager and secure passwords.
  
  Tailscale
  
  The overhead of the live library upkeep on Jellyfin is also quite insane, at least for me. I'm talking taking the whole thing down for many minutes at a time for every other service trying to run on the same machine bad.
- I don’t know how people who have gone through the trouble of self hosting and have taken all the time to learn how all of this works still don’t understand that most people are not capable of using Jellyfin and/or do not have the desire to learn how to do it. It’s not turnkey, not by a longshot. Plex is. That’s the reason. If jellyfish were even remotely as easy as Plex, then Plex wouldn’t be so popular.
  You may as well tell everyone to learn how to change the oil in their cars and lecture them about that, or tell people to always make a home cooked meal instead of going out to dinner. Some people are just going to pay for the convenience.
  Anyone who has used jellyfish knows that it is no trivial matter getting it working outside of your network, especially for other people. I can set up a Plex server at somebody’s house in like 30 minutes and get anybody streaming on their devices in half that time. They don’t even compare when it comes to setup and ease of use.
  Edit: I’d like to also add that the only people talking about plex on lemmy are people complaining about plex users. I see more whining and complaining about it here than I see it ever mentioned anywhere else in my life. Some of y’all are so fucking pretentious about this. Plex was a critical first step for me into the world of self hosting.
  Let me ask y’all this: how many of you still use Google in some form? Because that is exponentially worse than Plex.
  
  I don't mean to diminish your comment, but I just went through the setup process for both Plex and jellyfin (moving to new hardware) and there was no significant difference between the setups.
  Maybe this wasn't the case a few years ago, but jellyfin is just a setup, point to libraries, and enable hardware accel.
  
  what? It's not like everyone needs to run jellyfin at home. the only thing you need to use is the jellyfin webapp, which I don't understand how is it more complicated than netflix or any other similar service. you log in, pick a movie and hit play. that's it.
  
  Jellyfin is basically as easy to use as plex within the same network. I’ve set up both dueing the past 6 months. The only big difference is that Jellyfin is much more of a pain to work through port forwarding.
  
  Plex never worked outside my network so I'm not worried about that on Jellyfin
- I'll switch to jellyfin as soon as it works nearly as well.
  But for the moment it's missing a lot of features compared to Plex.
- I would switch in a heartbeat if Jellyfin didn't... kinda suck, honestly.
  But the difference in usability is enough that it's just not an option.
  For the record, I updated Plex today and I haven't seen a notification like this anywhere, although that text snippet does match their privacy policy ad data opt-in settings blurb that has been in place for a while. I may need a bit more context here.
  
  Only issues I've had with Jellyfin are reduced flexibility in naming/organizing files and inability (for me at least) to detect personal media.
- What's actually bad about it?
  Like, this is something you opt into and is only relevant if you're watching their ad supported stuff, which I don't know anyone who watches that over their own media on Plex.
  And honestly, every "bad" thing I've ever heard about Plex has been the same thing, something that sounds horrible until you understand it
  
  Because Jellyfin users like to feel superior. Accepting that other people have other requirements from software is hard, especially when you feel like you choice is the only valid one.
  As a long time Plex user, who has a Jellyfin running in parallel, just not shared, I will keep using Plex until they either force me off of it or Jellyfin manages to make accessing servers remotely easier and more secure.
- I have Plex running alongside Jellyfin.
  When transcoding video, Plex uses an extra 5 watts of power. Jellyfin uses an extra 55 watts.
  Jellyfin also has security holes for accessing videos via URL without being authenticated.
  I don't feel like Jellyfin is ready for being exposed to the internet.
- Because this is the selfhosted community, not the FOSS community. There is some overlap, but they are different. There are many reasons to not use Plex, it not being free and open source are not among them.
- Probably because it works well, and has working clients on everything at this point. For some, a one-time fee was worth it when it was cheaper.
  Sharing is also easier, as your friends just sign up to a plex account and you share your library with them. No need to send them an ip address and port, or fqdn that you have to maintain if your isp changes your ip address. It has its benefits, tbh, and the core sharing features still work for streaming. All the extra crap you can just turn off.
  That why I think its still popular.
- There's no jellyfin app on my TV.
- It’s already setup, and a lack of motivation/time/energy/urgency to make the change…
- I completely agree. I thought Plex would be fast in the collective rearview mirror as soon as they started forcing connections to their servers, pay-walling, etc. I also had issues with the database corrupting and causing huge slowdowns. I spent days trying and failing to preserve my ratings, watch data, etc.
  In the end, I switched to a much simpler setup of an NFS/CIFS share accessed by Kodi on my Nvidia Shield TV. If Kodi chokes (happened once since 2017), I can just wipe the app and/or reinstall and then import the local metadata (XML or NFO IIRC). That takes about five minutes. It just works. Kodi also gives me access to the IAGL, so that's a huge plus.
- Jellyfins UI being only mouse based is garbage. Using it on Xbox for instance is terrible. Using it outside of the house is also a pain in the ass.
- The point for me is, that I have an acient synology NAS (ds214play) which acts as my media server. There is a community made plex package which I can install easily. As far as I have seen, there is no way to install jellyfin on this NAS, as it doesn't support docker
- I host a Plex server for close to 70 friends and family members, from multiple parts of the world. I have over 60TBs of movies, tv shows, anime, anime movies, and flac music, and everyone can connect directly to my server via my reverse proxy and my public IPs. This works on their phones, their tvs, their tablets and PCs. I have people of all ages using my server, from very young kids to very old grandparents of friends. I have friends who share their accounts with their families, meaning I probably have already hit 100+ people using my server. Everyone is able to request whatever they want through overseerr with their Plex account, and everything shows up pretty instantly as soon as it is found and downloaded. It works almost flawlessly, whether locally or remotely, from anywhere in the world. I myself don't even reside in the same home that my Plex server resides. I paid for my lifetime pass over 10 years ago.
  Can you guarantee that I can move over to jellyfin and that every single person currently using my Plex server will continue having the same level of experience and quality of life that they're having with my Plex server currently? Because if you can't, you just answered your own question. Sometimes we self host things for ourselves and we can deal with some pains, but sometimes we require something that works for more people than just us, and that's when we have to make compromises. Plex is not perfect, and is actively becoming enshittified, but I can't simply dump it and replace it with something very much meant for local or single person use rather than actively serving tens to hundreds of people off a server built with OTC components.
  
  It's not fair to characterize jellyfin as being unable to scale, and it's just downright wrong to cast it as being built "for one single local user".
  Jellyfin has great support for setups that include numerous users. The entire dashboard is basically designed around this concept of an admin keeping track of dozens upon dozens of users.
  You seem like you have many reservations about specific functions in Jellyfin, but you were vague in explaining thrm - what specific things are you worried about?
  
  Can I guarantee? There are no guarantees in self hosting. By this logic you can never move away from Plex. There's always unknowns. There's always new issues to trip over. Plex is hardly without it's own warts, but because they're 'known' to you and your users nothing else will ever be able to measure up.
  It's a logical fallacy and a trap.
  I set up Jellyfin basically overnight when the Plex pass changes occurred. Reverse proxies are trivial, as are docker containers, don't let the anecdotes about things being hard or VPN being needed intimidate you.
  There were absolutely bumps in the road. I had to make users for each person and email them customized sign-up links. Yes, that kinda sucked, but that's the price for running and controlling the authentication yourself instead of though a 3rd party service that can and absolutely will eventually use that data to snoop.
  Most of the time, once sent the link the users were fine, 9/10 of my users had no further issues and quickly adapted. For the last 1/10, I had to trouble shoot a few things and eventually ended up recommending a different device to connect with (it was an old TV with a really old version of Plex for TVs, they ended up buying a $40 Google TV device from Walmart and got set up that way).
  The whole time I was running both Plex and Jellyfin so the migration process could happen at my speed.
  My point is this: no, it wasn't painless to switch. Yes, some tech support was required. Yes, the user who was getting hundreds of dollars (annually) of streaming services effectively for free had to shell out a paltry sum to upgrade and actually enjoys their experience much more now. No, that didn't make it impossible or not worth doing.
  I'm not saying what's best for you and your users, and I'm absolutely not guaranteeing you'll have no issues beyond these, but I hope you understand your hands aren't actually tied, you're just boxing yourself in.
  
  That's just the nature of service migration; of course for people like you who are very dependent on it, it's not a no-brainer, but for anyone who wants to start hosting one of the two, yes it will be.
  In your case yes Plex is more appropriate but at the same time the clock is ticking for Plex if they continue on this route...
- I don’t use either service. Do they serve the same purpose?
- Because it works. Call me in a few years when movies, TV shows, dvr recordings, live TV (with free, built-in guide support), and working picture support shows up. Oh, commercial removal too (again, built-in, just check a box). A not-shit setup process would be nice, too.
  I've tried jf three times now across as many years, and it's still got that 'Linux developer feel' of a tool where the devs got what they need the most mostly-working, and just don't give a fuck about anything else - or a decent UI. No, blue boxes on a black background is not a decent UI. It wasn't when W8 launched, and it's not now. And when W8 is winning the competition, you've already lost.
  Feature parity or the argument is moot.
- My TV doesn't have a Jellyfin app, only a Plex app. I'm not buying a new TV just to use my preferred media server, sadly :-(
- I don't know why people use dishwashers. It's in the kitchen. A lawn mower is a no brainer, yet people still use dishwashers??
- It might be because of security.
  https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
- Can't access remote unless u setup port forwarding, NAT rule etc etc. Too much work with jelly bin, plus it looks like 1990s UI created by illegal IPTV distributors

Relevant XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/743/
- Every day of my life trying to explain to friends they need to quit using spoon fed software. Sigh.
  
  And spoonfed news, food..
  
  Exactly why on so many things it's like... even when it looks like they are getting it, they don't get it. Kind of like watching bluesky rising right now. Unless I'm majorly missing something here. It looks like it's kind of open and kind of federated...
  Except in a form that no one can feasibly create their own node. One change in leadership or goals of leadership away, and it can turn into the same neo nazi trash that people are joining it to get away from.
  
  spoon fed software
  That's a new one. I like it.
- This hit so hard I wanna puke diamonds. Damn.
- America always does what's right, after they've tried everything else. - Someone

Jellyfin is the way. Costs nothing other than the hardware needed and nobody is selling anything about you.
Our personal streaming library with Jellyfin is bigger than any public service and we can add to it from VHS, DVD, Blueray, though extra equipment was required for the VHS/Blueray.
It’s also available anywhere we go and we can set up separate accounts for different family members. There’s even a phone app.
- But not Fire tablets (kids profile) or Samsung TV or many others that Plex currently supports.
  JellyFin android phone app's UI is a little weird at times, but does work pretty well for me.
  ...
  What I would adore from any app would be an easy way to upload specific content and metadata via SFTP or to blob storage and accessible with auth (basic, token, or cloud) to more easily share it with friends/family/myself without having to host the whole damn library on the Internet or share my home Internet at inconvenient times.
  Client-side encryption would be a great addition to that (eg. password required, that adds a key to the key ring). And of course native support in the JellyFin/other apps for this. It could even be made to work with a JS & WASM player.
  
  Checkout 3rd party jellyfin android apps. Findroid is working pretty well. Theres another one called Streamyfin which is catching up and a third one called Fladder, which is maybe a bit too early in development.
  
  on the tablet it should work fine in the browser. maybe that would also work on the TV, that's exactly what most TV apps do anyway.
- How big is that library supposed to be that it is larger than all public ones? There are some with 10'000s of videos.
  
  We have over 15,000 videos in TV episodes, alone. Not counting movies.
  So…yeah.
- feels so much more illegal than just streaming for yourself tho
  
  I mean you are literally hosting pirated content for anyone to see, is it denial or is it really less illegal? Yall mention multiple user accounts, if ppl pay you in any way you are now a bootlegger?
  
  Cute of you to make such assumption based on zero evidence but just your feels.

content being watched) on my device(s) and share that information with Plex’s advertising partners
That is a honey pot rights holders will be falling over themselves to pay Plex for access to once they hear about it.
Been telling anyone that would listen that they need to get out of Plex since they implemented that first iteration of trying to require you to sign into your own self hosted server with a Plex.tv account. They were telegraphing what direction they were going in with that kind of user hostile move.
Lots of responses about how it was easy to get around so no big deal (or worse that they liked it for some coping mechanism reason) and that nothing else was as easy and feature rich as Plex so it was worth it.
Well now a few years down the road from that they are now going to use that beach head on everyone's Plex server they can to collect what is being watched and sell it to the highest bidder.
- Boy am I glad I just switched to Jellyfin
- I joined Plex after I already needed to have a login to plex.tv to be able to stream. I understand that that already was problematic, but Plex was leagues ahead of its competition in terms of ease of adding users, as well as polish. You must be forgetting how awful Jellyfin was in comparison, even just 5 years ago. I've been keeping up on Jellyfin and it's amazing how far they've come. Now Jellyfin has great theme options, a simple-to-install skip intro/outro plugin, an app option with built-in jellyseerr integration, decent collections support (still needs some work here on feature parity with Plex, but it's on the way) and with Wizarr, onboarding new users is as easy as sending an invite link, just like Plex. All this came in the last 5 years, and were pretty much requirements for my use cases.
  Sure you can say that I'm picky, but Plex really was the best option until like, this year. I started to accept the need to switch when they added the social media aspect to it. They completely ignored what their users actually wanted. Since then, they've been making worse and worse decisions, which is crazy because now more than ever their competition has reached their level. Hell, by pushing all their users away, Plex is only going to accelerate the development on Jellyfin.
- Yep I see this as the end game of Plex MPA purchases the data and goes after people.

Seeing the replies in this thread it kinda makes me wonder what Plex actually has to do for these zealots to quit using their platform.
Like do they literally have to steal naked pictures of you and pass them around the office? Like wtf.
- I'm slowly building up Jellyfin to replace it.
- Need a jellyfin PS5 app
  
  And a Samsung TV app. There’s an entire branch of Samsung TVs that require side loading to get a Jellyfin app installed.
- My guess when the MPA buys plex data and they have what movies everyone has on their servers.
- FWIW apparently this is talking about their free content, not about user content.
  
  And that makes a difference to you?
- Tbh, the way people push Jellyfin every single time Plex is mentioned is so extremely annoying that I'm now even less inclined to use it, especially the way the JF zelots completely ignored the legit reason that most people use it.
  
  Not sure if you understand this or not, but you using, or not using jellyfin doesn't affect anyone but you. 🤷‍♂️
  If you don't wanna use it, then don't use it. You're still wrong, but that's up to you lil buddy.
- You can literally click “I do not agree” lol. Also the “personal data” is a hashed email (so they don’t get your email), ip address, and watch history. Not very “personal”, and not anything that violates your privacy or is of any concern to you.
  
  If you connect to the internet from 2 or 3 different locations, the hashed email will be the same, so they just need to compare the locations to those from another service like Instagram and they know who you are and what you're streaming.
  
  I have no skin in this game, but IPs are definitely not anonymous data. Also there is a lot of great info out there about de-anonymizing seemingly random data. Interestingly enough, this is similar to the Netflix prize dataset that was one of the more famous ones. Maybe a good introduction to that would be https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/anonymity_and_t_2.html
  
  Idunno why you don't think having an unique hash attatched to your data is no biggie. Especially if that hash is easily cracked in a few years by quantum computers.

It is as if it is a general rule at this point that centralization breeds corruption. No matter how many statements people make early on in social engagements, centralization leads them to screw people depending on these systems. When making long term commitment to anything, check if it is centralized or how easy it is to unshackle yourself from it.
- Welcome to the enshittification phase of the economy. Everything will be enshittified, even the economy itself.

Me eating 🍿 and reading the comments of Plex users arguing with Jellyfin users, while myself being a user of Kodi which has it's own problems..
- Kodi ain't a self host tool, nor a server though but it is a great player, and I happily use the big 3, Kodi, Stremio and Plex (I'd add Cloud Stream as a runner up).
  
  Right. Personally I don't stream and only access my library from my TV at home. So Kodi is all I need for now. Though I'd like to try Jellyfin one day when I don't have so much other stuff to do. I actually don't know what exactly I'm missing out on.
  
  I haven't set up Kodi, but I would assume the go-to here would be a minidlna, samba, or nfs server w/ Kodi providing the FE.
- Kodi and mythtv for me. I feel like I am the slowpoke meme.
- Library scans and picking up added/removed media, kill me. I love kodi, but how such a basic function can be so squirrely I'll never understand. Maybe it's just a quirk with NFS back ends.
  
  I let Radarr and Sonarr handle that (including creating NFO metadata and fanart files), Kodi now only parses/syncs that local data.
  This change was a huge improvement for me, though I am using SMB and not NFS. (But I assume NFS would be more robust than SMB.)
- I've never seen Plex users argue in support of Plex. only comments along the lines of, "I use it because...."
  the jellyfin users are generally the ones getting bent or upset because people still use Plex for their own personal reasons. they then accuse the Plex users of not contributing to jellyfin because they still use Plex. "if only you used jellyfin, xyz feature would be magically finished because you are a part of the community!"
  point is, the only people arguing here are jellyfin users. Plex users are gonna Plex.
- I use the Kodi plugin for Jellyfin
  
  I have absolutely no experience with Jellyfin, what does the Kodi plugin do?
  Or do you mean you have the Jellyfin addon installed in Kodi, so you can accsess Jellyfin from within Kodi?
- there are dozens of us!

Meanwhile, poor Jellyfin just quietly doing the job.

This is specifically related to watching their free content. You can opt out of the sale & sharing of said data, which is used to play you targeted ads when watching their free content. I am not a big fan, but this is the typical "free" TV spiel. Was there something that changed recently or is it just being recognized now?

Can someone clue me in on the reason why anyone would prefer Plex instead of Jellyfin?
- There are a LOT of pros and cons.
  Pros:
  Developed by a professional, multi-disciplined full-time team with some security oversight.
  Hosted caching of The Movie DB for faster lookups
  Provision of SSL communication to and from your server without any special setup
  FREE EPG data caching
  Centralized server management from the web
  Low-speed relay for those stuck behind CGNAT.
  A REALLY solid mobile audio*** player (sorry, but plexamp beats the pants off the JF alternatives)
  Centralized Login for your friends and family with email-based password reset
  2FA already set up
  A nice reflector gauge to see if your* ports are open and what your limits are
  Great client support on a LOT of devices
  Search is fast out of the box, even with extensive collections
  Their clients tend to do a better job supporting all the decoding features on every player
  Very reasonable Tuner support (but somewhat ugly) **
  Cons:
  Not free
  Not Open
  They have a lot of your historical data and will eventually sell it when they sell the company. This is not going to be optional. That data is worth a lot and they likely already have enough EULA rights to sell it to whoever asks. Imagine if the MPAA gets in on the fun.
  Their security history is quite dicey
  The lifetime membership will eventually be enshitified as it's not economically sound in the long run
  They constantly change the terms of the agreement.
  They constantly remove features people are using
  They constantly push to share data between users
  They constantly push Ads
  They are making previously free features pay.
  Their investors are starving, which makes them a liability.
  Their clients are generally slower.
  edit: * a word ** forgot to shout out for the tuner support *** replaced media with audio for clarity
- I am a die-hard Jellyfin user, but I still haven't found a proper way to index and stream my music library with it. As far as i know, Plex is still better at that.
  
  Navidrome and Airsonic advanced provide a better music experience than jellyfin for me anyway and both are free.
  
  I've recently had really good luck with Finamp on Android at least. With the recent support of time lyrics in Jellyfin and Finamp's redesign I've been using that to stream my Flac audio files. Works quite well with separate collections as well. Though, to this day I still have to force close it more times than I like to get the UI to refresh after closing it. Plexamp was tough to lose when I swapped many years ago, but the third party space has slowly been closing that gap over the years.
- I think it mostly comes down to sharing stuff with others.
  There's a lot of stuff in Jellyfin you wouldn't want to expose to the internet.
  No idea if Jellyfin even has a client for my dad's shonky old 4K TV, but I certainly wouldn't be able to set up Wireguard or anything on it.
  
  I wouldn't expose Plex to the internet either
- People commonly cite more polished clients and clients available on obscure platforms like legacy smart TVs and such
- Years ago, I tried out Jellyfin (Emby at the time) and it couldn't do chromecasting with subtitles (probably fixed by now, this was a long time ago). Since I wanted to watch anime, I bought a Plex lifetime subscription instead, and I'm too lazy to switch.
  
  It is a matter of time before they will get to you
  I am in the same boat but jellyfin ain't there yet for my use case
  
  It can Chromecast these days
- End user management.
  Essentially, accounts and passwords are not my problem.
- The lack of a PS5 app makes Jellyfin useless to me. We have a dumb TV with no casting ability so the PlayStation is out media box.
  
  Have you even tried the web UI?
  
  Chromecast. Regular is cheap, and grab the 4K one if you wanna stream higher quality movies. Cost you less than $100.
  
  $30 Android box solves this
- They're going to sell the data to movie companies so they can find out what is being pirated
  I fuckin guarantee it.
  Trakt did the same thing I bet
  
  It's not hard to find out what's being pirated, BitTorrent isn't private.
- TV apps.
  
  What is wrong with Jellyfin's TV app? I use it on my Android TV and I don't have any problems
- It just works and has a native app for basically everything.
- Sunk cost. It took me loosing my Plex watch history to say fuck it I'm going to Jellyfin.
  
  I saw several solutions on Github that could migrate it.
  Assuming you use/-d trakt you could use that to re-import the watch history
- Because Jellyfin et al are all still very much "open source projects" in terms of UI/UX and it is still "missing" so many features.
  For me? The big reasons why I just use plex boil down to:
  Maybe 80% of the time, I can cache an episode or a movie locally on my tablet when I am going on travel. This is great if I am doing a rewatch of something or don't super care about The Experience and just want to watch the next few episodes of a show in the evening. With Plex, this is trivial. With SOME of the third party jellyfin apps, this can be sort of worked around but then becomes a hassle to sync watch statistics (which episodes were watched or even where I left off because a buddy wanted to go out for drinks).
  Remote watching is similarly a mess. Plex has pretty okay-good systems to treat my home server as a "cloud" resource with a single forwarded port. While even that is very questionable security wise, Jellyfin is still "figure it out yourself". Which can be done with setting up a vpn or using Tailscale but adds additional complexities.
  Plenty of other "quirks" along similar lines
  My personal opinion? For something that only "tech savvy" people are using more or less locally, Jellyfin is fine. For something that "just works"? There is no competition with Plex. And considering how many of the Jellyfin workarounds end up being "just download a copy of the file locally and watch it in VLC"... why would I use Jellyfin at all in that case when I could otherwise just mount a samba share or use Kodi (that is the latest incarnation of XBMC or whatever the samba share frontend we all used to watch porn on our playstations was, right?).
  To be clear. I check in on Jellyfin probably every other year at this point? I WANT an alternative to Plex. But... Jellyfin ain't it.
  
  I feel exactly the same as you, but i'd like to add a number 4 point: Plex has an offical app for every system/SO
- Because Plex used to be good but new it's just pure enshitification.
- User sharing without opening my Plex server to the public internet. For Jellyfin I would have to become a VPN provider and allow people into my private network to share it safely, since you wouldn't want to have Jellyfin available to the internet with their stance on security
- Can I ask why nobody recommends Emby? I've been using it for years with zero issues. The only thing I can think of is that Jellyfin exists and is free. Emby is sort of a middleground between Plex and Jellyfin; it has a paid license (lifetime option exists), but it's closer to Jellyfin than Plex on the whole.
  
  Emby rugpulled their users, that's why jellyfin exists at all.
- I’ve been a Plex user. Honestly it was mostly because I chose Plex years ago before a lot of the recent controversy. Plex always seemed like it had a nicer interface, though I never really gave Jellyfin a try. As of late, Plex has started to add a lot of bloat to their interface, so at this point Jellyfin’s UI might actually be a pro.
- Jellyfin is not as easy as Plex to use. Many of us are not that technically advanced
  
  If you are advanced enough to run a docker image with Plex, you can do the same with Jellyfin
  
  I use samba (file sharing) and vlc.
  
  I went to the Jellyfin landing page, went to the install instructions, copy pasted and ran literally one command, opened it in a browser, made my local account, clicked a button to point it at my media folders and then I was done.
  What isn't easy?
- I've tried Jellyfin and the Live TV / tuner interface sucked so bad I didn't want to bother with it any further. Maybe I could have found plugins or some shit to make it more usable but I've had a lifetime Plex pass for almost a decade and it still works great
  Yes, they've made a number of decisions that truly suck in that time but it's still better than the experience I had with Jellyfin or Emby, even recently.
  
  It works pretty well for me personally. What was the problem?

"enshittification wont happen to my software of choice"
hahahaha... those ppl with discord, iphones, windows,plex....they wont learn.

Aww come on guys, my JF boner can only handle so much /s
Seriously though, why did they even give you the option to disagree, you know they're just going to force it 3-6 months.
- The disagree is for soft walking things. They give you the choice so people feel like they have one and don't complain, then in the future they will continue to ask everything anything changes and if you accidentally agree they will never ask you again.
- They legally can't for European users

I’ve had a lifetime plex pass for several years. Once I tried Jellyfin a few months ago it was all over. My “I’ll run both just in case” period lasted a week or two.
The downside is that Jellyfin will take more setup on your end, especially if you want to let other people connect securely to your server.
The upside is performance and responsiveness. Once I started using it I decided Plex had to go, even if I have to drive to each family member’s house to fix their shit. It was like moving between Linux and Windows, as far as one being designed to work and the other being designed to satisfy dozens of corporate KPIs.
Fortunately the setup for the end user is just as simple once your server is good to go. They just need URL, login, and password.
And since it’s all open source, there’s some fun diversity in clients. I use Finamp specifically for music, and there are audiobook focused ones.
- There are a lot of people here who simply cannot be bothered to figure out remote access
  A weird one i saw today was actually "jellyfin took too many resources scanning my library" and 'if it doesn't have an SSO my family won't use it'
  I think a lot of people just enjoy plex better and will accept any minor inconvenience as justification. That's fine though. I'll swear up and down that apple products are not worth the convenience, either, but there will always be people who simply like them more than others, and thats fine
  
  There are a lot of people here who simply cannot be bothered to figure out remote access
  I think being apprehensive is natural when you're entirely left on your own for security, knowing that you could leave yourself vulnerable if you do it incorrectly. Add to this the fact that half the info you'll find on the process is people claiming you just need to open some ports, which you know to be wrong, and it's easy to see why it's hard to trust any advice you find.
  
  "jellyfin took too many resources scanning my library"
  That’s a strange one to me. In my experience Jellyfin scans my libraries in about 1/10 the time Plex used to take on the same machine.
  
  I find it how many useres here almost scream "The year of linux" every day for every little grain of news Windows comes up.
  And yet they do literally the same with Plex.
- Plexamp is what keeps me in the Plex ecosystem. I really like the “Mixes for you” and generating mixes based on listening habits. Have you found anything on jellyfin to do that for music?
  
  Not listening habits. But symphonium can do genre and general mix.
  And honestly it keeps you from hearing all the same stuff in every mix like Spotify (and seemingly Plexamp) does
  
  Same.
- Also a lifetime Plex holder. Plex wouldn't let me watch my local content without authenticating the other day... But my internet went out and I couldn't. Decided I'd swap to Jellyfin the first chance I could (couldn't that day because no internet)... So that's what I did today. It was painless and I'm never going back to Plex.
  Disclaimer, I don't need access outside of my house so I didn't set any of the remote stuff up.
  
  Yeah, if you’re 100% local, that’s basically the ideal use case for Jellyfin. Plex really shines when it comes to remote access. But if you never use that, then there’s very little reason to use it over Jellyfin.
- My suggestion: Get Symphonium in addition/to replace Finamp.
  Much more advanced in what it can do.
  Only downside: You can't exclude libraries. If you have a soundtrack-like library separate from the regular music library, it can't be separated.
  
  Thanks for the suggestion. I will try it!
  Is it good with gapless playback? It isn’t as crucial for me as for some people who listen to live recordings etc, but it’s always nice to have and is a good sign for the quality of the player.
- I don't even use remote sharing local access only.
  What I cannot do without is, resume and watch history.
  Skip intro.
  Category management of the library.
  Does jellyfin support these 3 items?

Just downloaded Jellyfin! Been a Plex user for years. Noticed they’ve stated to add a lot of crap to the Plex interface. I just want to stream my media library. I’m a little disappointed that Jellyfin doesn’t have a native Apple TV app, but SenPlayer looks really nice and their price model is a one time fee. So no subscriptions!
- I use infuse for the Apple TV. You can add the jellyfin source and I believe it syncs watch progress. It can’t do prerolls, but it have intro and credits skipping.
  
  I looked at Infuse, but as soon as I saw it was a subscription I decided no. They have a lifetime option but I don’t trust those anymore. If it’s good software with a one time fee of $40 or less, I’m there, but anything $10/month or $100 lifetime is a dealbreaker for me.
  Edit: I totally misread the price. It’s a way more reasonable $12.99/year not what I said above
  
  I can't imagine what an Apple TV can do that a $30 Android box can't.
  I can imagine lots of things the Apple TV can't do that the $30 Android box can.
- Infuse is also very good !
- There is a native Apple TV app, I didn't migrate from plex until there was and I migrated over 18 months ago. It's called Swiftfin.
  
  Ohhh I did see that but the name threw me. Didn’t realize that’s the official app
  
  Swiftfin is basically a pre-beta release: it's barely usable and doesnt' support HDR or DolbyVision. The lack of an AppleTV app isthe only thing that is stopping me switchwing from Plex. I tried infuse and worked perfectly, but sadly it doens't support multi-profiles (on Plex i have a separate profile with kid's movies)

best bet for your home theater PC is STILL old computer parts with high capacity storage

For those who aren't quite ready to delete their accounts get, this link buried on their privacy page can let you opt out: https://www.plex.tv/vendors-us
Not sure why "us" is in the URL, I'm in Canada

Selling IP address info. Huh.
- Incoming lawsuit in 5..4..
- I swear, I found it all on a hard drive laying in the streets, officer!

also: water is wet.

I think people feel loyalty to Plex and I understand why. I even understand why they're charging for self-hosting considering their costs of delivering the dynamic DNS, software development, content info, etc. But being closed source, VC funded, and with their core product an increasingly small part of their business, it's all a powerful recipe for enshittification. Tech Altar has talked before about how enthusiast brands often betray their users. Jellyfin was not a trivial set up for remote access, but I've really been happy with it, and I like having the peace of mind of having control over how it works
- I set up tailscale for remote access and it was pretty easy and painless. Maybe not as "average user" simple as plex, but no harder than setting up lan games to play across the internet that non techy people were doing in my high school 20 years ago.
  
  Yeah with VPN it's more straightforward. I wanted it accessible without which was more involved. Honestly the average user doesn't even know what tailscale or wireguard are, so you are already advanced using those
- I got concerned when people started buying Plex hats. And being excited about that purchase.
  I noticed that Logo on Hats people who are willing to pay for them is often a bit concerning.
- It was easy considering I was already using custom domain for Plex.
- Jellyfin was not a trivial set up for remote access
  So, forwarding a port on your router was a difficult process?
  
  Nginx/caddy, dynamic DNS, buying a domain, setting it up with cloudflare is well outside the capabilities of most people. Took me a few hours to figure out

The downfall of Plex needs to be compiled into an 80 minute YouTube video with sponsors spaced in for NordVPN and Viagra

I miss when you could use something without it turning into spyware. Jellyfin it is then.

I might actually have to switch to Jellyfin then...
I say that as a paying plex pass customer

"Hashed emails". Besides the fact that they can match up a hash from one source to a hash from another source to link them to the same person (they never said they'd salt them), emails often have enough predictability to break the hash. Assuming they all end in "@gmail.com", "@outlook.com", or "@yahoo.com" will get you the vast majority of emails out there. Unlike a good password scheme, people don't shove a lot of random data into their email addresses.
- The hash:
  liamg@9696yddadgib
- Was about to say this.
  I saw a small-time project using hashed phone numbers and emails a while ago, where assume stupidity instead of malice was a viable explanation.
  In this case however, Plex is large enough and has to care about securiry enough that they either
  did this on purpose to make it sound better, as a marketing move,
  did not show this to their security experts,
  or chose to ignore concerns by those experts and likely others (turning it into the first option basically)
  There is no option where someone did not either knowingly do or provoke this.

It's interesting to see the different kind of comments here and on Redshit.
Here, people are smart and they are switching to Jellyfin. On Redshit, if people mention Jellyfin in a comment they get downvoted right away.

If you're watching their "free" content and agree to that box...
The title made it seem waaaaay worse than what the screenshot actually says

Man Plex when fully enshitified FAST!

Stopped using plex, replaced with jellyfin

We are altering the deal. Pray, we do not alter it further.

Thanks for the headsup. This is the final push I needed. Been running Jellyfin for 6months or so but need to put more time into it. Plex has been great, and I’ve also been paying (though felt a little conflicted) a sub which I’m willing to do if it keeps a worthwhile project on an honest trajectory aligning with my needs and restrictions, for a good service or product. However they're now doing exactly why I started on the self hosting path. Who’s to say the third party is jot going to be a heavy handed industry body, corrupt authority , let alone the problematic world of adsales? They’re walking a very strange line and seem very confused about their purpose. Other than the all ruining ‘growth’. Seeya plex.

How else can they afford to stream samurai cop 3 and other things you never asked? You guys need to support them in becoming the best corp they can be! They want to be big boys now.

Last shit they pulled I moved to Jellyfin. Today I deleted my Plex account.

python -m http.server is still my media server of choice. It's never let me down.

Even if you can mental gymnastics into believing this won't affect you, we know that's the way Plex is going. How long until it does?

hashed email xD, if someone has email it's just hash(email) == email. given how many emails leaked producing hashes of 90% of population emails is not a problem
- Assuming they're not salted hashes.

I assumed they already were.
No chance Plex wasn't making money from those who didn't pay for Plex Pass.

Force PlexPass first, get money, then change terms.
Coordinated big-brain evil.
Big plus - identify all accounts interested in privacy. Thus = suspicious accounts.
This is the path for Plex to become Digg, Playon, and reddit.

Oh, you expect proprietary software to behave nicely? That’s cute!
I’ll just be over here with Jellyfin, watching the chaos unfold with my popcorn!

I can imagine this data would sell for quite a bit of money. Networks love to winge about how much they lose to piracy

I’m a big fan of Jellyfin. I would say it is easily family approved. That is for my family in my household who is using it on our home Wi-Fi.
But I am not about to expose it publicly. I have WireGuard set up on my immediate family’s devices and that is mostly ok (until you get on a public Wi-Fi that fails because you haven’t gone through their portal and can’t because the vpn is on, or you are on an airplane’s Wi-Fi with no internet trying to watch their movies and it doesn’t work until you turn off the vpn). Explaining this to my wife has been a nonstop battle.
I’d like it open it up to my siblings families, especially because I have the ersatztv plug-in to create approved child stations, but so many smart tvs and devices don’t support a vpn. How have others handled that situation?

honestly for my purposes, jellyfin is more than enough. Does everything I want. Even got the icons of the series I watch implemented in the player

I would simply click I Do Not Agree and then throw the computer in the trash
- I just hit no, and everything still works fine afaik
  
  Perhaps. The issue I perceive is that, for corporations, evil deeds are only illegal if you get caught and the government actually pursues you. Then, the most the corpos face is a fine, and remember: if the penalty for doing something illegal is a flat fine, then it isn't a punishment, it's a price.
  Thus, this corporation has indicated its clear intent to sell me to the highest bidder. I would not give them a chance to do so. A "do not agree" button is just that: a "do not agree button".

Damn. They’re really ripping the copper wiring out of the walls.

I have a lifetime Plex pass but still I am considering switching. Currently I have both Jellyfin and Plex on the same libraries but Jellyfin doesn’t have support for chromecast (on iOS and Firefox) nor support for offline . (Not) covering neither my at home nor travelling use cases 😕

So expected. Now anyone who's able to support the non exploitative alternatives like Jellyfin please do. It's how you keep the good things going.
- I'm not even against Jellyfin or anything, but as long as I have to build elaborate VPN solutions to continue sharing my content I'll stick with Plex. Not even starting with the availability of clients on different platforms and the general lack of polish in Jellyfin first party UI (player and config).
  I could live with most of that stuff if there was a way to share my library without becoming tech support for half my friends circle
  
  Your reply just raised so many questions but most importantly why would you need a VPN with Jellyfin? I mean it's just server like any other which means install, add certificates or reverse proxy with certificates and if you're behind NAT you would need to setup port forwarding.
  I mean if you're worried about server being exploited if not updated then opening it to the internet wouldn't be good but isn't that the case with Plex already?

If we find out "I do not consent" opts out, I'm fine with it. If we find out "I do not consent" leads to a "Close our account" page, it's time for pitchforks, especially since they recently had a huge sale on lifetime memberships.
- If we find out "I do not consent" opts out, I'm fine with it.
  Why? They don't need more money. Jellyfin proves how much of their service can be done for free
  
  I don't disagree at all, but morally and legally speaking if "no" means "no", I don't actually see anything wrong with the prompt or the idea itself. If no means "later" or "limit this data", or even "anonymize this data", it's time to revolt.
  I agree Jellyfin's pretty rad and DOES prove what can be done for free, I've used both and Plex is a much more "set and forget" and I personally have had more issues with streams breaking/stopping for no reason with Jellyfin- are those probably my fault? Yep, probably borked a setting or misconfigured it- just saying that's my personal experience.
  I'm just one idiot making noises with my meat flaps. I'm no authority.
  
  From what Ive seen in arguments about this, Plex generally is more accessible with QoL and easier to understand interface for non-techie people to share with family/friends. Something thats hard for nerdy people to understand is that average people are perfectly fine paying for digital goods and services. An older well off normie has far more money than sense and will happily pay premiums just to not have to rub two braincells together with setup or for a nicer quality of experience. If you figure out how to make a very useful plug-an-play service that works without the end user of average intelligence/domain knowledge stressing about how to set up, maintain, and navigate confusing layouts, you've created digital gold.
  This isn't the fault of open source services you can only expect so much polish from non-profit voulenteer. Its just the nature of consumer laziness/expectation for professional product standards and the path/product of least resistance.
- "I do not consent" is indeed an opt out and you can use plex just as you were before.
  
  Good to know. When I get this prompt at home I'll be watching my Pihole server quite closely for a while to see for sure.
- If we find out “I do not consent” opts out, I’m fine with it.
  That's exactly what it does. I got the prompt on my system, I said no, and it said ok and everything proceeded on like normal.

Plex has always been trash imo. Far better open source options available.

Edit: OP update the title and has my support should they run for public office.
OP is posting misleading hyperbole
This from the Plex site, emphasis mine.
Consent
We take your privacy seriously. If you’d like more details on how we collect, use, and transfer your information, please review our Privacy Policy. Plex is able to provide free-to-watch movies, shows, and live TV by displaying a modest number of ads before and during playback. While it is not possible to opt-out of these ads, you do not have to consent to the selling and sharing of certain information.
We’re never going to get anywhere if people on these communities can’t act in good faith and share correct and information - not sensation. Change the OP or mods delete this misinformation.
ETA: shame on the 63 people who mindlessly upvote this crap without factchecking OP too.
- What part of the op was misinfo? They DO sell the info, even if they claim it's only with your consent
  
  OP is claiming Plex will now SELL your personal data.
  Omitting that the user must provide consent, not like Firefox or Adobe just updates T&C and forces user agreement. OP’s title is upvote seeking, cherry picking to quote certain text which makes it seem like they leave the user no choice, and leaving out the part of the text that stipulates the user does have to consent prior to the sale of information.
  Moreover, the sale of data seems to be in order to facilitate the ads they show in their free movie and tv content, and even then is still opt in. The ads aren’t, but the data sale isn’t.
  For posterity the full OP at the time of this post
  Plex now will SELL your personal data
  Text:
  I consent to Plex to: (i) sell certain personal information (hashed emails, advertising identifiers) to third-parties for advertising and marketing purposes; and (ii) store and/or access certain personal information (advertising identifiers, IP address, content being watched) on my device(s) and share that information with Plex’s advertising partners. This data is used to deliver personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Your consent applies to all devices on which you have Plex installed. You can withdraw your consent at any time in Account Settings or using this page.
  Soure: https://www.plex.tv/vendors/ (Might have to clear cache)
  Can also read about the changes here: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/
- Mate, I'm just posting what is on Plex's own website. Their words, not mine. You might be able to opt out of this if you're lucky, or maybe its off by default - idk. But let's face it Plex is on a heavy enshittification roll, rolling faster than the contestants running for Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling contest. Ain't nothing stopping them from enabling this for all users much like what Roku did last year.
  You can conscent to whatever you like. I'm not touch Plex with a stick.
- Yeah, op didn't say you couldn't opt out of it. It's that they're doing it at all. Every year they ask for a little bit more info, chipping away, making it harder and more obscure to opt out. That's enshittification.
- how dare you bring facts to this community! we just want to shit on anything but jellyfin!

Hello Jellyfin.

I feel like I know the answer but what happens if you click "I do not agree"?

I would probably still want to use Plex due to its superior interface, despite this shit they are pulling. But Plex on my TV is so UNBELIEVABLY slow. I have a large library, like almost 14 TB and still growing. But there's no reason it should take almost a minute (or more than?) for the first content to show after starting the app.
Jellyfin with the same library takes mere seconds before I see the first movie/episode poster cards. It's inexcusable how poorly optimized Plex is.
- Not to rain on your parade, but the Plex App on my TV, with a library of almost 40TB also loads in seconds
  
  No rain here. ☀️👍
  What TV is that? I have an LG OLED TV from 2019 running WebOS, so that's the version of Plex I am using.
  My Plex library loads instantly on my phone and on the web.
- sounds like a poorly optimized system tbh. My Plex instance loads within a few seconds. on roku, android, and web.
  keep in mind I'm using nginx caching and some advanced configs.
  
  I am using the Plex app on my LG TV, to be more precise. That's the WebOS version of Plex. On my phone and on the web, it loads instantly.
- Unfortunately, that is just the system your TV runs on being slow. If you use a dedicated streaming device, you will have much better results.
  
  Jellyfin with the same library takes mere seconds before I see the first movie/episode poster cards.
  How do you explain this? Every other app is very quick to load on the TV... Plex is the only issue.
  If you use a dedicated streaming device
  What do you call a TV? The streaming isn't the problem, it's the loading or processing of data from the server, and/or transitions between views, that are the issues here.
  Streaming is fine. Once I start a 4K HDR 5.1 movie with direct play (full quality), there is no issue, even when seeking. It's only the browsing and loading/displaying of data that is super slow. And only on Plex.

Emby is a good option if you don't want to hop to jellyfin. I have been pleased with it so far. I found the media tag/idenifier to work better/quicker than plex's.

Just deleted my account.
Hey, you reading this? You should too.

My aim is to get my friends and family to stop paying for streaming services and if I have to pay for Plex to achieve this then that’s a win.
Jellyfin is nowhere near as feature complete as Plex and not by a long shot. My users don’t like the UI of Jellyfin and setting up for remote access is no trivial feat. With this in mind and my goals Plex is better suited.
So far have 8 users all saving £10-40 a month not going to streaming services.
- Jellyfin is open source. You could be helping out.
  Best of luck with Plex, though. I would say this is even more writing on the wall but it does not sound like that matters to you.
  
  You’re right I could be helping out I mom the open source side, but I really struggle to even turn on my Pc when not working (mental health) so don’t feel I am the best person to contribute.
  This is why my focus has been on getting friends and family to stop spending money on streaming services as every little helps.
  You’re correct in that the only thing that matters to me is that people I care about save money. That’s it. I’m in awe of people doing more than me, but we can only do what we feel we are able. Together it all makes a difference.
  
  The Jellyfin devs have made it clear, that they will not make changes that invalidate existing clients. Rebuilding the things that make sharing content via Plex so much easier would most definitely break client compatability