Yep, definitely heading for bankruptcy.
Hmm, perhaps I should sell my lifetime pass. I won’t, but I should. (Switched to Jellyfin long ago)
To be clear, you still need your own HW and electricity, right?
Jellyfin
Jellyfin Lifetime Pass continues to be better value.
As if there weren’t enough reasons to use jellyfin already.
almost a fucking grand for a media server that you host yourself, and only really rely on their login servers for. Can anyone else say “enshittification”?
They provide the apps, metadata servers, and relay service. It’s a lifetime pass. IMO that’s worth the price it used to be, $70 or whatever. The new price is just absurd, they want you to pay periodically for life because people spend more that way.
Do they provide the metadata services though? Pretty sure that’s still handled by imdb and such
Been looking at jelly fin. I have a lifetime with Plex but it feels like they’re headed for bankruptcy anyway.
And seems the same. Only problem is that the docker server keeps crashing on my Synology unfortunately
They have a sorta proprietary metadata service that is presumably based on imdb, thetvdb, etc. but they also handle detection and collection of metadata regardless of where the information ultimately comes from. It’s nothing that Jellyfin doesn’t do though.
I’m sticking with Plex since I have the lifetime pass too, but the writing’s on the wall, I’m ready to switch to Jellyfin whenever Plex dies or ruins itself
That’s where I’m at. Ride my <$80 lifetime license till the wheels fall off and see where jellyfin is at that point.
Exactly my sentiment too. I already paid for it, may as well use it until they make some move that makes the jump to Jellyfin worth it. Not to mention Jellyfin is still fresh on the scene and I personally think it still needs a few more years to make a more seamless changeover from Plex for me and everyone else I’ve granted access to.
I think software subscriptions are a scam, but I don’t mind buying a perpetual license that is only good up to a certain version with additional fees for newer versions. It’s also fair to charge a recurring fee for something that has recurring hosting costs like a VPN, cloud storage, etc.
If they weren’t such dipshits, the “lifetime pass” should have been a perpetual license you can keep using as long as you want, but charge an optional fee for newer versions if you want to upgrade and get more features. They should also have offered a hosted service to make your instance available to others and charge a monthly fee for that. I think people would’ve been fine with all that.
I’ve always thought the licensing for Jetbrains IDEs is a pretty fair way of licensing software. If you stop subscribing you still get access to the last version of the software you paid for but you don’t get new versions anymore. And if you stay subscribed you get a loyalty discount after your first and second years. So it provides an incentive to stay subscribed long term but if you do leave you still get access perpetually to the last version you bought
I think thats really fair too. I might adopt that for my startup.
I use a package at work that lets you update within the major version. So you won’t get the bells and whistles of the new one, but you’ll get security updates and big fixes for 2 years or so. After that, you’re using a mature and polished product that you can ride another 10 years if you want.
Well I don’t like seeing well reasoned, thoughtful comments in my hate thread. We are supposed to be kicking them while they’re down! Not pointing out how a small change would ameliorate the issue and fix everything!
Couldn’t pay me to use that software lol
Used Kodi and now using Jellyfin.
my lifetime pass for jellyfin cost me $0, pretty good value
Apparently they are going to DOUBLE that amount every year! Outrageous!
I didn’t get into self-hosting until recently, and people recommended Jellyfin, so I don’t even know what I’m missing with Plex, if anything. It feels like Jellyfin does everything I need.
You’re missing the early days when plex lifetime pass was ~$50usd and jellyfin wasn’t a thing (that I know of). I believe Kodi was the only real competitor at the time, and it was much less friendly.
Plex has slowly moved in a less user friendly direction, but still meets my needs and I’ve easily gotten over $750 in value from the…almost 20 years, wow…I’ve been using it.
You’re missing getting to pay for it. Imagine how good it would feel to see $750 less in your bank account.
I mean Plex definitely has a value add. Around here people will scoff but Plex is far easier to work with for non technical users.
If you shared your library externally Plex was definitely easier it’s just that they have started to extract value from that which does suck.
You got the arr stack up too? Feels like magic when it’s all setup
No, not yet. I took forever to manually rip what I have, which was a lot, and I’m still working my way through boxes of music (which I’m also hosting on Jellyfin). I’ll figure out that step next.
If you haven’t already, you may want to look into FileBot. It’s the only reason I was ever able to properly rip and rename all of my files so Plex/Jellyfin can automatically detect them.
Oh my god, you mean I didn’t have to do all this manually? I’ve spent so much troubleshooting time fixing file names.
Trash-guides will be your savior
Wow, this is so much good info. Thank you
Ah fair, just take your time and feel free to ask
I felt the same way with my Kodi installs, I had a pi in every room that used a shared library db so I could pause in one room and resume somewhere else, nfs shares for media, a config file and done.
I bought a lifetime Plex pass a decade or so ago and shifted everything except my music to Jellyfin about a year ago. Now I’m looking into dispatcharr to round everything out.
Dispatcharr is pretty neat for m3u streams.
Working great with jellyfinNice! I’m giving it a go with some dumb free m3u’s now and so far it’s been pretty great. I haven’t tied it into Jellyfin or Plex yet but one I decide on a decent iptv provider it’ll be happening.
Had some issues with streams not loading in Jellyfin.
I needed to set up a user-agent and streaming-profile like this:
User-Agent:Lavf/61.9.107
Streaming profile:
-> command:ffmpeg
-> parameters:-http_persistent 0 -extension_picky 0 -i {streamUrl} -c:v copy -c:a copy -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt -b:v 4M -maxrate 4M -bufsize 8M -f mpegts pipe:1This is (still depending on your m3u source) to avoid most of the transcoding or double transcoding of the streams :)
The dispatcharr page is mostly self-explanatory but had some issues with the m3u and epg.
Make sure to properly align your streams with the epg guide you are pulling.
Do all (M3U and EPG XMLTV) through dispatcharr
Provide these to Jellyfin:
M3U:http://dispatcharr:9191/output/m3u/ActiveChannels
XML EPG:http://dispatcharr:9191/output/epg/ActiveChannels?tvg_id_source=tvg_id(Notice: I am using docker. I also set up a group for channels so I can de-/activate channels however I please without deleting and recreating them constantly.)
Jellyfin is amazing for a lot of things, but it shouldn’t be available externally. There are a few critical security concerns that devs have openly stated will never be patched. And that makes it a non-starter for sharing with people who can’t figure out how to use a personal VPN connection. It may be fine for me and my household… But there’s no way I’m going to be able to walk my tech-illiterate grandmother through it over the phone.
In contrast, Plex makes sharing server access very easy. Since they run a centralized server to handle all of the “which servers do I have access to, and where are they located” automatic discovery traffic, sharing content is as simple as sending an invite link. That centralization flies in the face of what Jennyfin stands for, so they won’t ever implement it. I even have a burner Plex account that already has access to my server, which I can use to sign into TVs when I don’t want to bother with the whole account setup process. Handy for things like parties, because I have a few “just hit play and drunk people will enjoy it” types of playlists ready to go.
Basically, Jellyfin for yourself and your household. Plex for everyone else. Luckily, the two will happily run side-by-side without any issues.
This is a concern if you just port forward through a router. This isn’t a problem if you simply use a reverse proxy, which is standard and normal and expected and not difficult at all.
It’s a concern even with a reverse proxy. The reverse proxy encrypts your connection from A to B, but does nothing to stop the various security concerns that have been noted. Because those concerns don’t rely on intercepting unencrypted traffic. If you can reach Jellyfin’s main log in page, you can exploit it. Full stop.
The only way a reverse proxy would stop someone from being able to exploit it is to include a separate login on your reverse proxy, meaning attackers wouldn’t even be able to hit Jellyfin’s landing page unless they know your proxy’s password. But notably, this breaks basically everything except for browsers. All of your smart TVs, mobile apps, etc would stop functioning, because they’d bounce off of that reverse proxy login page.
I don’t proxy the port, I proxy the routes needed for auth and interface. This isn’t that hard.
EDIT: ah I see what you’re saying, you’re talking about the app surface rather than the raw admin API. The risk is small enough with the remaining attack surface that I’m not particularly worried, though obviously I’d like it to be better.
I’m not confident enough in my knowledge to ever open up my server externally, even after reading some methods that are allegedly safe (or relatively safe). I’d just rather not take the risk of me misunderstanding something or failing to keep current with vulnerabilities.
I suppose I see the appeal if Plex handles that without hassle, but man… not for $750. Lol
I saw this email and it just read as a desperate cash grab for a company that doesnt plan to be around in 3 more years. Pathetic.
And they’ll likely “forget” you are lifetime as often with them as they did with us early adopters who got it for cheap.
There’s a reason I use Jellyfin, now. Well, more than one.
Plex kept trying to charge me again, and every time I looked at it there was more clutter and spam being forced in front of my face by their “partners.”
Kodi on device, great interface especially when you are using touch, if I need remote access I swap to Jellyfin. There’s even plugins to sync between the two so your stats and history don;t get messed up by using both.
I thought the last couple moves were the nail in the coffin, but this might be it 🤣
Unless, like me, you got it for $49.
Still, jellyfin.
Exactly, got mine with an Nvidia shield purchase, still moved to Jellyfin like a year ago and never looked back
Was the conversion easy? Could you keep your watchlist and whatnot?
I have… a lot of data.
Um honestly I didn’t even try to port shit, I’ve only got about 12 TB of stuff anyways so it was easier to just start fresh
Lucky you. I’ve got almost 750Tb the transition might be rough.
Sign up for trakt.tv. It will sync your watched statuses. i am sure that plex supports it, and i know for a fact that jellyfin does.
750TB!!!??? Good lord, how much did your RAID array(s) cost?
Uhmmm so, yeah. It’s… a significant investment. Let’s say, I look for HDD sales constantly and I’m eating less these days to feed my habit.
For the curious, I run on Synology hardware. Most of the drives are 20-24TB each.
I have their 12 bay sever with two 12 expansions (36 total) and then another 8 bay server with two 5 expansions.
I started with the 8, and when I quickly hit 18 total drives with redundancy… I realized this was going to be a lot more than I had initially planned for.
These are also direct disc rips. No downloads. That’s actual discs in hand, ripping, saving, typing. It’s mostly from my amazing city library, the local video store, borrowing, and then the rest are purchases.
And I’ll answer the next question, dual income no kids… and my partner shares my interest (or at least benefits!). They always know what to get me for a present.
Holy smokes that’s a lot of data
Holy shit! That’s downright impressive!
He must’ve downloaded all of One Piece
Option 1: Sync to trakt, then backsync to jellyfin
Option 2: Use something like yamtrack to track it externally
Yamtrack can ingest plex and jellyfin. Just no backsync :/Thanks for the tip.
I thought the last couple moves were the nail in the coffin, but this might be it 🤣
I got it for 20 bucks! Good times!
37.5X price hike
Buy low, sell high. Follow me for more financial tips!
Sell pork bellies, buy gold
I think it is. A price hike this massive can only mean they‘re banking on panic buyers who think they can save hundreds of bucks if they buy it now. Meaning Plex probably knows it‘s over and they just want to make as much money as possible before filing bankruptcy or something. At least that‘s what it looks like to me.
My guess was almost this. They obviously want to cash in on the panic-buyers. But I don’t think it’s because they’re going under. I think the goal is to put the lifetime pass out of reach for most people, meaning they’ll default to the subscription instead. Because Plex wants people on subscriptions. They’re more reliable income, which the company can more accurately budget for. There’s a reason everything is moving towards SAAS, and Plex is doing the same. This is simply an attempt to push/lock everyone to the subscription model instead of the single purchase.
I have to agree with this, I think they bet on more people subscribing as a result of their external connection subscription requirement, didn’t and are panicing because they don’t want to downscale enough to be able to be maintained.
the plex lifetime pass is a solid “stop beating him he’s already dead” scenario for me because I lost any interest in it like 4 price ups ago now.
People still use plex?
Yes. I prefer Jellyfin, but I have three friends with media servers and Plex is the only way to easily connect to all of them at the same time.
I wish Jellyfin had a federation feature.
I do. It works well enough and my grandmother doesn’t have to configure Tailscale. Would I buy a lifetime pass today? Hell no. But I got in early, so why not?
Next step will be to turn every lifetime pass into a 20 year pass or smth.
Then I still have 10 years in mine, maybe Jellyfin can manage to catch up to Plex in that time
Yes millions
I did pay 120 or something 8 years ago, I didn’t mind the price at the time but this is not worth it for ppl who don’t don’t have it.
