I bought a “Lifetime” pass from PlayOn. They literally just renamed the product (all the old naming is still permeated through the code) and then said the license was no longer valid, killed the working features by forcing an upgrade to their new product, and suggested I purchase a new subscription instead.
“Lifetime” license is a never again purchase for me, but I hope Plex users fair better.
I ran a plex server for about a dozen years just to watch local movies and photos on a couple of rokus. No matter how they pushed, I never created an account because I didn't like the idea of remote access proxied through them.
It ran on a desktop pc that we would just boot when we wanted to watch something. It met our needs. Considered a lifetime pass back in the day just to support the project, although the constant churn of "look at me!" stuff made me quickly realize that their goals were not mine.
A few months ago I finally got around to building a NAS, and discovered that plex won't even run now without a pass. Moved to Jellyfin and never looked back. Getting hardware accel configured took a day or so, but we now use it 10x as much as the old plex server.
I had a jellyfin server on the same machine as my plex. I really tried to use both, the jellyfin experience was so much worse overall.
It had one technical feature that I valued (the ability to tone/color map dolby vision content for non dolby vision devices), but that was such a minimal feature for me (very little of my content is in the proprietary dolby vision colorspace).
FYI, getting hardware acceleration for Intel working with Jellyfin is pretty straightforward. The key thing is that you have to put the server acct into the render group, then pass through the dri device. I also pass through the video group, but I don't think that is strictly necessary. NVIDIA seems a bit different but I can't speak to that. Docker compose file looks something like the following (uids and gids may vary)
> I didn't like the idea of remote access proxied through them
This is not and has never been required. If by remote access you mean actually streaming from the public Internet, their proxies are a low-bitrate fallback in case you can't connect directly - and it can be disabled altogether IIRC.
It's been death by many cuts for me with Plex. This follows the recent change where if a device on your network is not in the same IP range (say you have some clients on 192.168.1.x and some on 192.168.2.x, but on same subnet), Plex considers this to be remote access and demands payment now. I believe this is a response to users who run Plex on their own VPN rather than pay Plex the sub fee for their remote access solution.
I'm not reconfiguring my LAN because Plex can't identify remote traffic accurately.
I'm kind of feeling similarly, albeit I've been a Lifetime holder for a while now. So on the other side of the coin is what it would take for me to finally leave. In retrospect, Plex has probably been work $750 for the way I've used it, which I've been doing for easily 15 years now, but if I was not currently a Lifetime subscriber, I'm not sure I'd see the value. That said, I don't want to move platforms, nor do I want to have to set up the family members who steam from my server on something else.
My favorite feature of Plex is that it resets the subtitle track to `None` when the next episode in a series starts. I love manually switching on the same named subtitle track every 30 minutes! $749 is actually too cheap for such an amazing feature.
How can they justify an exponential price increase like this? The blog post doesn’t really mention new features aside from bringing features from the desktop website to the mobile app…
Even though I bought my lifetime membership years ago, I think it’s time to explore other options. I don’t like this.
One is that they don't really want to sell a lifetime subscription, but it'll look bad if they discontinue the option. This way, they effectively don't sell them anymore, but there aren't people all screaming "They've discontinued lifetime subscriptions. How long until they take away the ones they sold before?!"
Another possible explanation is that it's just a ruse to sell more subscriptions. They probably sold a ton of subscriptions last time a price increase was announced. So, if they need a cash infusion, just announce another price increase. Then, when it turns out nobody buys at $750, decrease the price later on to return to normal.
TFA outright states that they don’t want to sell the Lifetime option anymore but don’t want to rug pull customers that want it, so they’re increasing the cost substantially to a price they’d be happy with
I’m curious how they determined $750 is fair. Is it just N * Annual_Price and if so why is this value of N fair? But they likely won’t say
Jellyfin continues to be a noticeable downgrade from Plex, but it is chugging along to being as good. If you're already a Plex lifetime subscriber the only logical move is to make sure your library is setup in a way that is compatible with both. There is no reason yet to switch away from Plex, unless you've had that terrible UI forced on you on Roku. I can switch at any moment when ever some MBA decides to enshittify something important.
I have no idea who will ever buy a lifetime pass at 10x what I paid for Plex in 2019. I struggled with the decision to pay $75 back then. There were effectively zero competitors to their product then.
Same! At first I was wary of using it because the UI looked less polished, but from the start the stability has been vastly superior and now the UI is much better too.
as a bonus, I have a old version Emby Theather (the windows form based one) that plays 4K with no issues on my computer unlike browsers that fail at that.
Since everyone hates Plex here apparently here's a positive feedback. I bought the lifetime pass for $90 a few years ago and didn't even use it that much at first. I just launched Plex Server from my MacBook from time to time to watch movies on my TV that were not available on Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+ (I subscribed to all three), because it was apparently the easiest way to watch a movie on TV from a laptop without using an HDMI cable.
With time passing and the pricing of 3 platforms becoming more and more ridiculous for less and less convenience, I completely migrated to Plex 2 years ago. It's been working flawlessly so far. The UX is not perfect but good enough, it syncs with my phone and iPad, I can download episodes in advance when traveling, I can share access with friends easily... Probably the best $90 I've ever spent for a lifetime pass.
Maybe Jellyfin or Emby would work just as well, I honestly don't know. But Plex is fine.
I run Jellyfin because I want my media on my network and I don't want some intermediary getting any data about me or my friends or controlling what I can do.
I’m still salty that their last app platform rewrite dropped Watch Together as a supported feature. Server still supports it, browser clients still support it, as well as the older Plex apps if you were prescient enough to turn off automatic app updates and manually keep refusing to update the Plex app.
This is a feature I use multiple times per week with friends who live states away. I can’t believe they just dropped it.
Jellyfin have that feature now working well. Presumably this is the one where if you pause to go to the bathroom it pauses for the other person too and doesn't go out of sync even if one connection has slow internet for example.
Because Plex provides a way for me to share my server with my friends. They're mostly not very technical, but they can handle "sign up for this free account and install an app and you can stream from my basement like it's Netflix".
Jellyfin has no such solution that I can tell. Stuff like give them access over Tailscale is not the same user friendly option that Plex has. When there's an actual alternative for easily sharing with friends, I'll consider it. Til then I've had a lifetime Plex Pass for around a decade.
For me, constant streaming hiccups, when the two were on the same physical network (Cat6 end-to-end). It may be the Apple TV Jellyfin app, but all the advice online is "re-encode your content so Jellyfin works correctly" (with everyone suggesting a different "correct" format).
Ultimately Plex "just works" for the most part, including channel information for live TV. Jellyfin is very impressive, for free.
It is just hard to sustain multiple apps across platforms, when you have little to no income to hire developers.
I have content in mkv and mp4, SDR and HDR, 264 and 265. I stream from a Jellyfin container with an onboard Intel GPU passed through for transcoding as needed. The client is a 8 series NUC on gigabit using the Flatpak Jellyfin app on a Fedora 44 install. I've yet to encounter any issues with any of my library.
Historically, Plex was the only show in town - and the only non-DLNA server you could access from most streaming devices. That's changing now, but it's not changing that fast. I believe our older google streamers still don't have a jellyfin app (though I could be wrong). We simply run both services in any case.
I believe of Plex/Jellyfin/Emby, only Plex has a app for PS5. From what I gather Sony are rather strict about who they allow to develop PS5 apps, and Plex is a "strategic partner" ($$$).
There's little reason at this price. I run both, Plex for people who are already used to it, and Jellyfin for myself and anyone new. At around ~$100 I think the Plex experience was better enough to justify it, personally.
Some of us already have a lifetime subscription, why move to Jellyfin?
I'd have to set it up and tell all the consumers of my server to move apps, and not all of them are tech literate. It would take a lot of enshittification to force me to move.
For me, and despite the constant enshitification of Plex, the apps are still better.
But I'm really close to the tipping point, I've been tinkering with making Kodi not suck but custom themes really seem like piles of unsuported plugins.
as someone who bought a lifetime pass years ago when it was cheap, I'm more concerned about this indicating that they are in desparate straits and are heading towards going out of business.
I like plex, I've tried jellyfin and emby and plex has always come out ahead (handling the metadata and the general user experience) and if plex goes bellyup i guess I'll move, but I'll be sad. At least I feel I've gotten my value out of my lifetime plex pass.
The writing was on the wall years ago. Those of us who have seen this film before knew where this was going.
A few years ago I went full Jellyfin for my media server needs and never looked back. Yes, some people complained Jellyfin client apps weren't as polished. However if you want to pay you can get the likes of Infuse or sign up for a Netpute beta.
There was no arguing with Plex fanboys though and I think even the most ardent fans will slowly start to give up over the next few years. This is a win for Open Source. I can only see the Jellyfin ecosystem advantages starting to compound.
Triple in price is crazy, especially that high of a price to stream your own content!
At that price, I would be worried that they aren't doing too well financially. I would be worried that I paid that much only for the company to go under or limit its use a couple of years later.
i just use kodi for my content. Data is on my router's hard drive, and before that it was some USB spinning rust attached to the ISP's router, and it just works (Well, TV series needs to be stored with the required folder structure / names to be recognized, but that's it)
That's my usecase, so i never got the PLEX appeal (if i'm outside i just stream from the usual sources)
Smart move. Lifetime passes are not very sustainable for a business. Especially when they own and run a lot of the flow. This prices out most purchases and gets folks funneled into regular payments.
I use Jellyfin now but still think it’s an overall downgrade compared to the plex experience. Plex just works without any setup in my experience where I have always had hiccups with Jellyfin.
Honest question, I haven't looked in a while - what does Plex offer over Jellyfin that would make it worth a monthly payment, or even $250-$750 one-time? When I ran the calculus a few years ago I came up empty.
I gave up on Plex and just vibe coded a couple quick solutions instead:
- Direct streaming 4K blu-ray atmos rips to home theater: just connected a PC via long HDMI fiber optic cable
- Library organization: tinyMediaManager is awesome for this.
- Watching ad hoc on iPad/iPhone: built a simple Next.js app that lists my movies and and a python script that encodes movies as MP4 and creates HLS playlists. No more real time transcoding.
- Downloading movies to my iPad for long flights: vibe coded an iOS app Claude handled all the AV code to download the same HLS streams.
Happy to continue paying annual for Plex as I think it's worth it, but I'm definitely also installing Jellyfin alongside and starting to look at what really limits swapping completely. Currently that's mostly things like missing PlayStation apps, need for plugins to handle certain features, more complex accounts/auth story, etc.
I'm hopeful that with AI development (on a short leash), the Jellyfin core contributors can increase velocity somewhat and really close the gap.
If Jellyfin had a PS5 app I would switch to it instantly, it’s the only thing keeping me on plex right now. Are there other similar apps for streaming your own media to a playstation?
God Plex sucks now. The mobile Photos app is basically abandonware that threw out 80% of the functionality from when photos were handled in the main app. Still glad I snatched up the lifetime pass when it was $150, but they're doing their best to make it money wasted.
Yeah, no, that price does not justify the service.
I got mine for $250. Plex worked great. Then they added streaming tie-ins and promotional services I didn’t ask for, making them opt-out instead of opt-in.
They changed how my apps worked.
They made my users sign up for Plex accounts instead of letting me manage them locally.
They then tried making it appear like users had to pay to use my library, even though I had paid for a lifetime pass.
Then they actually did make it require a Plex Pass to stream remote content.
It’s my fucking content, Plex, and this nonsense is why I stood up Jellyfin as an escape hatch.
Steep price, but honestly makes a lot of sense. Lifetime licenses are never sustainable when you own a lot of infrastructure. Plex owns the auth, the reverse proxy infrastructure (to make it dead simple to setup), and a ton of development overhead and backend licensing deals.
They obviously want to shift people to a monthly plan, but still give that lifetime. If I were to buy today vs when I originally, it would still be cost effective.
There are alternatives, so users that don't want to shell up the 150$ now can jump over to. It's closed source software and the users have the opportunity to shift (or build a competing software that meets more of their core needs).
> Today we’re announcing an important pricing update. Starting July 1, 2026, the price of a new Lifetime Plex Pass will increase to $749.99 USD.
> …
> You have until 12:01 AM UTC on July 1, 2026, to get a Lifetime Plex Pass at the current price of $249.99 USD here. If you’ve been considering it, now’s a great time to buy.
Are you kidding me? This is ludicrous.
> As mentioned in the messaging above, this adjustment ensures that the price of a Lifetime Plex Pass continues to more accurately reflect its true value. Over the years, as our software and product has evolved, the breadth of features and benefits included with your Plex Pass has expanded. This increase ensures we can continue to invest resources into building and maintaining the Plex personal media software, while continuing to offer a Lifetime option.
I don't know how much engineering time is spent maintaining this app, but I haven't wanted (or used) any features added since ~2014 when I found this be a great app for locally streaming my massive Blu-Ray and DVD library. Streaming television, music, whatever else they've added is completely ignored.
I bought a "lifetime" Plex pass for about $75 way back when, and within 6 months they'd banned my account for using a VPS for my media server. No way to appeal, no recourse. You'd have to be mad to give these scammers $750.
So soon after an abysmally bad and unpopular redesign? Why would I make a long term commitment to a platform that removes features and worsens over time?
Plex has slowly been going down the drain. I could be convinced to buy a lifetime pass for $90 (even if it's just for paying to watch my own content), but $750 is strictly "get outta here" territory.
With how it's been stagnating recently, even the current prices are a hard sell for me, especially given how "lifetime" with tech companies tends to mean "~five years". I switched to Jellyfin and haven't looked back.
I bought a “Lifetime” pass from PlayOn. They literally just renamed the product (all the old naming is still permeated through the code) and then said the license was no longer valid, killed the working features by forcing an upgrade to their new product, and suggested I purchase a new subscription instead.
“Lifetime” license is a never again purchase for me, but I hope Plex users fair better.
I ran a plex server for about a dozen years just to watch local movies and photos on a couple of rokus. No matter how they pushed, I never created an account because I didn't like the idea of remote access proxied through them.
It ran on a desktop pc that we would just boot when we wanted to watch something. It met our needs. Considered a lifetime pass back in the day just to support the project, although the constant churn of "look at me!" stuff made me quickly realize that their goals were not mine.
A few months ago I finally got around to building a NAS, and discovered that plex won't even run now without a pass. Moved to Jellyfin and never looked back. Getting hardware accel configured took a day or so, but we now use it 10x as much as the old plex server.
I had a jellyfin server on the same machine as my plex. I really tried to use both, the jellyfin experience was so much worse overall.
It had one technical feature that I valued (the ability to tone/color map dolby vision content for non dolby vision devices), but that was such a minimal feature for me (very little of my content is in the proprietary dolby vision colorspace).
FYI, getting hardware acceleration for Intel working with Jellyfin is pretty straightforward. The key thing is that you have to put the server acct into the render group, then pass through the dri device. I also pass through the video group, but I don't think that is strictly necessary. NVIDIA seems a bit different but I can't speak to that. Docker compose file looks something like the following (uids and gids may vary)
> I didn't like the idea of remote access proxied through them
This is not and has never been required. If by remote access you mean actually streaming from the public Internet, their proxies are a low-bitrate fallback in case you can't connect directly - and it can be disabled altogether IIRC.
It's been death by many cuts for me with Plex. This follows the recent change where if a device on your network is not in the same IP range (say you have some clients on 192.168.1.x and some on 192.168.2.x, but on same subnet), Plex considers this to be remote access and demands payment now. I believe this is a response to users who run Plex on their own VPN rather than pay Plex the sub fee for their remote access solution.
I'm not reconfiguring my LAN because Plex can't identify remote traffic accurately.
pretty sure you just add the list of networks that should be considered local to the plex settings in the admin page and it's done. Works for me.
I'm kind of feeling similarly, albeit I've been a Lifetime holder for a while now. So on the other side of the coin is what it would take for me to finally leave. In retrospect, Plex has probably been work $750 for the way I've used it, which I've been doing for easily 15 years now, but if I was not currently a Lifetime subscriber, I'm not sure I'd see the value. That said, I don't want to move platforms, nor do I want to have to set up the family members who steam from my server on something else.
You can configure what networks are considered local in the settings.
My favorite feature of Plex is that it resets the subtitle track to `None` when the next episode in a series starts. I love manually switching on the same named subtitle track every 30 minutes! $749 is actually too cheap for such an amazing feature.
Set your caption prefs globally at the account level in the web interface.
It’s not a server or session level setting for some reason.
How can they justify an exponential price increase like this? The blog post doesn’t really mention new features aside from bringing features from the desktop website to the mobile app…
Even though I bought my lifetime membership years ago, I think it’s time to explore other options. I don’t like this.
I can think of a couple of possible explanations.
One is that they don't really want to sell a lifetime subscription, but it'll look bad if they discontinue the option. This way, they effectively don't sell them anymore, but there aren't people all screaming "They've discontinued lifetime subscriptions. How long until they take away the ones they sold before?!"
Another possible explanation is that it's just a ruse to sell more subscriptions. They probably sold a ton of subscriptions last time a price increase was announced. So, if they need a cash infusion, just announce another price increase. Then, when it turns out nobody buys at $750, decrease the price later on to return to normal.
TFA outright states that they don’t want to sell the Lifetime option anymore but don’t want to rug pull customers that want it, so they’re increasing the cost substantially to a price they’d be happy with
I’m curious how they determined $750 is fair. Is it just N * Annual_Price and if so why is this value of N fair? But they likely won’t say
Jellyfin continues to be a noticeable downgrade from Plex, but it is chugging along to being as good. If you're already a Plex lifetime subscriber the only logical move is to make sure your library is setup in a way that is compatible with both. There is no reason yet to switch away from Plex, unless you've had that terrible UI forced on you on Roku. I can switch at any moment when ever some MBA decides to enshittify something important.
I have no idea who will ever buy a lifetime pass at 10x what I paid for Plex in 2019. I struggled with the decision to pay $75 back then. There were effectively zero competitors to their product then.
JellyFin is janky, but free. When something goes wrong, you can fix it.
The big thing is time investment. It is not for people who need it to "just work" - it is very much a tinkerer platform at this point.
Plex is trending worse, though (Oh, I see you've mentioned the non-web interface. Carry on then.)
Jellyfin hardware transcoding is free, where Plex isn't. Biggest reason I originally switched. Iirc Plex library management and indexing is better.
Oh and user management is local, which I prefer.
Ya this is what I remember alienated me from Plex. Zero complaints with Jellyfin all these years.
yeah, this only applies to lifetime subscribers
Happy I went with Emby, it's been solid for several years now.
Same! At first I was wary of using it because the UI looked less polished, but from the start the stability has been vastly superior and now the UI is much better too.
as a bonus, I have a old version Emby Theather (the windows form based one) that plays 4K with no issues on my computer unlike browsers that fail at that.
Since everyone hates Plex here apparently here's a positive feedback. I bought the lifetime pass for $90 a few years ago and didn't even use it that much at first. I just launched Plex Server from my MacBook from time to time to watch movies on my TV that were not available on Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+ (I subscribed to all three), because it was apparently the easiest way to watch a movie on TV from a laptop without using an HDMI cable.
With time passing and the pricing of 3 platforms becoming more and more ridiculous for less and less convenience, I completely migrated to Plex 2 years ago. It's been working flawlessly so far. The UX is not perfect but good enough, it syncs with my phone and iPad, I can download episodes in advance when traveling, I can share access with friends easily... Probably the best $90 I've ever spent for a lifetime pass.
Maybe Jellyfin or Emby would work just as well, I honestly don't know. But Plex is fine.
I run Jellyfin because I want my media on my network and I don't want some intermediary getting any data about me or my friends or controlling what I can do.
I’m still salty that their last app platform rewrite dropped Watch Together as a supported feature. Server still supports it, browser clients still support it, as well as the older Plex apps if you were prescient enough to turn off automatic app updates and manually keep refusing to update the Plex app.
This is a feature I use multiple times per week with friends who live states away. I can’t believe they just dropped it.
Jellyfin have that feature now working well. Presumably this is the one where if you pause to go to the bathroom it pauses for the other person too and doesn't go out of sync even if one connection has slow internet for example.
Why pay for Plex when Jellyfin exists?
Because Plex provides a way for me to share my server with my friends. They're mostly not very technical, but they can handle "sign up for this free account and install an app and you can stream from my basement like it's Netflix".
Jellyfin has no such solution that I can tell. Stuff like give them access over Tailscale is not the same user friendly option that Plex has. When there's an actual alternative for easily sharing with friends, I'll consider it. Til then I've had a lifetime Plex Pass for around a decade.
For me, constant streaming hiccups, when the two were on the same physical network (Cat6 end-to-end). It may be the Apple TV Jellyfin app, but all the advice online is "re-encode your content so Jellyfin works correctly" (with everyone suggesting a different "correct" format).
Ultimately Plex "just works" for the most part, including channel information for live TV. Jellyfin is very impressive, for free.
It is just hard to sustain multiple apps across platforms, when you have little to no income to hire developers.
I have content in mkv and mp4, SDR and HDR, 264 and 265. I stream from a Jellyfin container with an onboard Intel GPU passed through for transcoding as needed. The client is a 8 series NUC on gigabit using the Flatpak Jellyfin app on a Fedora 44 install. I've yet to encounter any issues with any of my library.
Anecdotes aren't data and all that.
https://neptuneplayer.com/
https://firecore.com/infuse
Historically, Plex was the only show in town - and the only non-DLNA server you could access from most streaming devices. That's changing now, but it's not changing that fast. I believe our older google streamers still don't have a jellyfin app (though I could be wrong). We simply run both services in any case.
I believe of Plex/Jellyfin/Emby, only Plex has a app for PS5. From what I gather Sony are rather strict about who they allow to develop PS5 apps, and Plex is a "strategic partner" ($$$).
There's little reason at this price. I run both, Plex for people who are already used to it, and Jellyfin for myself and anyone new. At around ~$100 I think the Plex experience was better enough to justify it, personally.
If you have to ask the question you're probably not the target demographic.
Some of us already have a lifetime subscription, why move to Jellyfin?
I'd have to set it up and tell all the consumers of my server to move apps, and not all of them are tech literate. It would take a lot of enshittification to force me to move.
Plex works.
For me, and despite the constant enshitification of Plex, the apps are still better. But I'm really close to the tipping point, I've been tinkering with making Kodi not suck but custom themes really seem like piles of unsuported plugins.
Plex has been completely broken for many people recently because they keep hitting Let's Encrypt API limits.
as someone who bought a lifetime pass years ago when it was cheap, I'm more concerned about this indicating that they are in desparate straits and are heading towards going out of business.
I like plex, I've tried jellyfin and emby and plex has always come out ahead (handling the metadata and the general user experience) and if plex goes bellyup i guess I'll move, but I'll be sad. At least I feel I've gotten my value out of my lifetime plex pass.
Wow, I just checked and I paid $89.99 back in 2019. What kind of person thinks this is worth $750?
The writing was on the wall years ago. Those of us who have seen this film before knew where this was going.
A few years ago I went full Jellyfin for my media server needs and never looked back. Yes, some people complained Jellyfin client apps weren't as polished. However if you want to pay you can get the likes of Infuse or sign up for a Netpute beta.
There was no arguing with Plex fanboys though and I think even the most ardent fans will slowly start to give up over the next few years. This is a win for Open Source. I can only see the Jellyfin ecosystem advantages starting to compound.
https://neptuneplayer.com/
$750!!!
It is currently $250 until July 1, 2026.
It was $100 when I bought it back in 2022.
Triple in price is crazy, especially that high of a price to stream your own content!
At that price, I would be worried that they aren't doing too well financially. I would be worried that I paid that much only for the company to go under or limit its use a couple of years later.
That's the problem with these Lifetime subscriptions. You never know how long the service will actually be around.
It's 9+ years of subscription cost. It seems like they want to get rid of it and are doing the next best thing by prepaying an enormous amount.
LOL
i just use kodi for my content. Data is on my router's hard drive, and before that it was some USB spinning rust attached to the ISP's router, and it just works (Well, TV series needs to be stored with the required folder structure / names to be recognized, but that's it)
That's my usecase, so i never got the PLEX appeal (if i'm outside i just stream from the usual sources)
Yeah don't even try to compare Kodi with Plex in terms of UX and user friendliness. Kodi is borderline unusable, at least on Android TV?
Smart move. Lifetime passes are not very sustainable for a business. Especially when they own and run a lot of the flow. This prices out most purchases and gets folks funneled into regular payments.
I use Jellyfin now but still think it’s an overall downgrade compared to the plex experience. Plex just works without any setup in my experience where I have always had hiccups with Jellyfin.
Crazy. I'm sure I paid around $40-70 back in 2016.
Honestly Plex has been wearing me down for years but I'm too lazy to move to an alternative.
I'm having a hard time understanding how Plex is even $1 better than Jellyfin and Kodi.
It probably isn't for you in this case.
Honest question, I haven't looked in a while - what does Plex offer over Jellyfin that would make it worth a monthly payment, or even $250-$750 one-time? When I ran the calculus a few years ago I came up empty.
Ease of use. Jellyfin is akin to asking “why don’t people use Linux?” 15 years ago.
I didn't think Jellyfin was any harder to setup in relation to Plex tbh.
I used Plex for a bit years ago but I bounced off as I thought the interface really sucked.
I gave up on Plex and just vibe coded a couple quick solutions instead:
- Direct streaming 4K blu-ray atmos rips to home theater: just connected a PC via long HDMI fiber optic cable
- Library organization: tinyMediaManager is awesome for this.
- Watching ad hoc on iPad/iPhone: built a simple Next.js app that lists my movies and and a python script that encodes movies as MP4 and creates HLS playlists. No more real time transcoding.
- Downloading movies to my iPad for long flights: vibe coded an iOS app Claude handled all the AV code to download the same HLS streams.
Happy to continue paying annual for Plex as I think it's worth it, but I'm definitely also installing Jellyfin alongside and starting to look at what really limits swapping completely. Currently that's mostly things like missing PlayStation apps, need for plugins to handle certain features, more complex accounts/auth story, etc. I'm hopeful that with AI development (on a short leash), the Jellyfin core contributors can increase velocity somewhat and really close the gap.
If Jellyfin had a PS5 app I would switch to it instantly, it’s the only thing keeping me on plex right now. Are there other similar apps for streaming your own media to a playstation?
God Plex sucks now. The mobile Photos app is basically abandonware that threw out 80% of the functionality from when photos were handled in the main app. Still glad I snatched up the lifetime pass when it was $150, but they're doing their best to make it money wasted.
Looks like I paid $84 plus tax five years ago for my lifetime pass.
Not sure I understand all of the complaining? I got Plex because it let me host all of my music and had apps that worked without much fuss.
This is still true. Are the problems more related to using it for video?
Boy am I glad to be using Infuse.
Yeah, no, that price does not justify the service.
I got mine for $250. Plex worked great. Then they added streaming tie-ins and promotional services I didn’t ask for, making them opt-out instead of opt-in.
They changed how my apps worked.
They made my users sign up for Plex accounts instead of letting me manage them locally.
They then tried making it appear like users had to pay to use my library, even though I had paid for a lifetime pass.
Then they actually did make it require a Plex Pass to stream remote content.
It’s my fucking content, Plex, and this nonsense is why I stood up Jellyfin as an escape hatch.
Good fucking riddance.
I have both Plex and emby lifetime passes. I dont bother with either now.
The message seems to be: we really want users on a monthly plan, but if they insist, we’ll gauge them.
I think this is fair with the amount of notice being given, but the price increase is very steep
Steep price, but honestly makes a lot of sense. Lifetime licenses are never sustainable when you own a lot of infrastructure. Plex owns the auth, the reverse proxy infrastructure (to make it dead simple to setup), and a ton of development overhead and backend licensing deals.
They obviously want to shift people to a monthly plan, but still give that lifetime. If I were to buy today vs when I originally, it would still be cost effective.
There are alternatives, so users that don't want to shell up the 150$ now can jump over to. It's closed source software and the users have the opportunity to shift (or build a competing software that meets more of their core needs).
> Today we’re announcing an important pricing update. Starting July 1, 2026, the price of a new Lifetime Plex Pass will increase to $749.99 USD.
> …
> You have until 12:01 AM UTC on July 1, 2026, to get a Lifetime Plex Pass at the current price of $249.99 USD here. If you’ve been considering it, now’s a great time to buy.
Are you kidding me? This is ludicrous.
> As mentioned in the messaging above, this adjustment ensures that the price of a Lifetime Plex Pass continues to more accurately reflect its true value. Over the years, as our software and product has evolved, the breadth of features and benefits included with your Plex Pass has expanded. This increase ensures we can continue to invest resources into building and maintaining the Plex personal media software, while continuing to offer a Lifetime option.
I don't know how much engineering time is spent maintaining this app, but I haven't wanted (or used) any features added since ~2014 when I found this be a great app for locally streaming my massive Blu-Ray and DVD library. Streaming television, music, whatever else they've added is completely ignored.
Edit: local => locally
I bought a "lifetime" Plex pass for about $75 way back when, and within 6 months they'd banned my account for using a VPS for my media server. No way to appeal, no recourse. You'd have to be mad to give these scammers $750.
Running anything on your LAN, which calls to some cloud, it's just like you're asking to be hacked.
So soon after an abysmally bad and unpopular redesign? Why would I make a long term commitment to a platform that removes features and worsens over time?
I stopped using Plex when they started forcing the "streaming" of third party content into my network. What are they smoking now?
Use jellyfin and also tell the plex folks to fuck themselves.
Plex has slowly been going down the drain. I could be convinced to buy a lifetime pass for $90 (even if it's just for paying to watch my own content), but $750 is strictly "get outta here" territory.
With how it's been stagnating recently, even the current prices are a hard sell for me, especially given how "lifetime" with tech companies tends to mean "~five years". I switched to Jellyfin and haven't looked back.
plex continues to prove their own irrelevancy
>an important pricing update
Would we all call it an upgrade?
Glad i bought my pass when it was a lot lower (looks like i paid $75 back in 2013...).