Selfhosted

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

Meanwhile, poor Jellyfin just quietly doing the job.

"Updated “Who does Plex share or sell Personal Data with?” to include the Plex activity that you share based on your account visibility and activity settings as well as sharing/sale of certain Personal Data to third parties.

Nothing changes for Plex Accounts created before March 20, 2025 unless you change your preferences here.
If you are a new user and created an account after March 20, 2025, you can update your preferences here.
The types of data that we may share has not changed
We do not and will not collect information about content or titles in your personal media library or what you’ve played.
Personal media users: we do NOT, and will not, share or sell any information about the content and titles on or your use of a personal media server.
Consent is required by all Plex Accounts created before March 20, 2025 for the sale of their data."

Seems like it's just for their other services, which I already assumed they were tracking and selling view counts.

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?

"enshittification wont happen to my software of choice"

hahahaha... those ppl with discord, iphones, windows,plex....they wont learn.

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??

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!

Relevant XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/743/

I might actually have to switch to Jellyfin then...

I say that as a paying plex pass customer

I assumed they already were.

No chance Plex wasn't making money from those who didn't pay for Plex Pass.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Stopped using plex, replaced with jellyfin

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 😕

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.

Got rid of Plex a long time ago. Trash ass program

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.

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

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.

Can someone clue me in on the reason why anyone would prefer Plex instead of Jellyfin?

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

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!

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.

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

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..

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

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?