Plex lays off 20% of its staff

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

make jellyfin apps that 1: exist and 2: don't suck and i'll switch

They do exist. Windows, GNU/Linux, MacOS, iOS, Android, Android TV, Roku, WebOS and tvOS. The ones missing are Playstation, Xbox and Tizen, which might suck for some but I feel like that's a pretty small group that doesn't have the other alternatives. If you're one of them, I guess paying for Plex is an alternative.

For the server portion, it seems like it is also widely supported. Even if it doesn't support some particular platform natively you can probably add it as a Docker container on your server.

 

Not sure what you mean by "don't suck" but I am fairly sure there the Jellyfin apps works just fine. I haven't heard many people complain about them.

[Arika]

On 6/30/2023 at 12:27 AM, AlTech said:

Lifetime plans are unsustainable and need to stop being sold or just made illegal if companies are unwilling to run sustainable businesses.

As long as the software doesn't rely on phoning home to the company's servers then lifetime should always be an option.

 

I see no reason for plex needing an Internet connection if all I wanted was a htpc running in my house for any local devices to connect to it.

[Erioch]

On 6/30/2023 at 4:08 AM, LAwLz said:

I don't really get why people use Plex.

Why not use Jellyfin which doesn't lock basic features like hardware-accelerated encoding behind paywalls? Or something like Kodi if you don't want transcoding at all (like me).

I paid for a lifetime membership longer ago than I can remember so it's free.  Plus it's fairly low - to - no maintence on my devices.  I pretty much just stream my own content and I don't really feel like changing to something else.  I've thought of messing with Jellyfin but never gotten around to it.  I used Kodi (and whatever it used to be called) many years ago and it was a horrible mess.  I'm sure it's matured by now, though.

[LAwLz]

2 minutes ago, Arika S said:

As long as the software doesn't rely on phoning home to the company's servers then lifetime should always be an option.

 

I see no reason for plex needing an Internet connection if all I wanted was a htpc running in my house for any local devices to connect to it.

That's the thing I don't like about Plex, it does rely on phoning home. These days it's more like a streaming service than a self-hosted service.

You can't even play files from your local server on for example an Android device without creating an account, signing in and paying for that feature to be unlocked.

It has to phone home because the primary feature they are pushing is online streaming, and if you want to use it locally they want to verify that you have paid.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Erioch said:

I paid for a lifetime membership longer ago than I can remember so it's free.  Plus it's fairly low - to - no maintence on my devices.  I pretty much just stream my own content and I don't really feel like changing to something else.  I've thought of messing with Jellyfin but never gotten around to it.  I used Kodi (and whatever it used to be called) many years ago and it was a horrible mess.  I'm sure it's matured by now, though.

If you've already paid then I can understand not switching, since they would provide more or less the same thing.

What I don't get are the new people who choose Plex, unless you're one of the few who doesn't have a device that supports Jellyfin.

 

Kodi is a different beast. I can see why it isn't appealing to a lot of people. I really like it. I like it far more than Plex and Jellyfin, but I can see why it can be intimidating for some users. I don't think I would recommend it to my mom, but on a technology forum, I expect that people can handle (and even want) tweaking things into pretty minute details. 

[Donut417]

33 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

They do exist. Windows, GNU/Linux, MacOS, iOS, Android, Android TV, Roku, WebOS and tvOS. The ones missing are Playstation, Xbox and Tizen, which might suck for some but I feel like that's a pretty small group that doesn't have the other alternatives. If you're one of them, I guess paying for Plex is an alternative.

For the server portion, it seems like it is also widely supported. Even if it doesn't support some particular platform natively you can probably add it as a Docker container on your server.

 

Not sure what you mean by "don't suck" but I am fairly sure there the Jellyfin apps works just fine. I haven't heard many people complain about them.

Jellyfin fails at Live TV. They dont provide guide data and dont really help users with getting guide data. From what I have read.  Plex grabs it automatically. So it really depends on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go I guess. 

[Erioch]

7 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What I don't get are the new people who choose Plex, unless you're one of the few who doesn't have a device that supports Jellyfin.

My guess is it's because Plex is something they've heard of.  I don't know of anyone who's heard of Jellyfin unless they're tech-savvy.

 

I did just install it on my Unraid server so I'll see if I like it.

[AlTech]

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

As long as the software doesn't rely on phoning home to the company's servers then lifetime should always be an option.

And the unsustainable free updates forever will inevitably bankrupt the company selling it or cause the developer to abandon the software

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

I see no reason for plex needing an Internet connection if all I wanted was a htpc running in my house for any local devices to connect to it.

That sounds like per version licensing rather than perpetual lifetime licensing.

[Arika]

6 minutes ago, AlTech said:

And the unsustainable free updates forever will inevitably bankrupt the company selling it of cause the developer to abandon the software

then give me a single version of the software.....like we used to do.

[Donut417]

26 minutes ago, AlTech said:

And the unsustainable free updates forever will inevitably bankrupt the company selling it of cause the developer to abandon the software

OR they can offer a standalone version that gets x amount of support for x number a years and offer a subscription that is just a rolling release. Sorta what Microsoft used to do with Office and Office 365. 

[AlTech]

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

OR they can offer a standalone version that gets x amount of support for x number a years and offer a subscription that is just a rolling release. Sorta what Microsoft used to do with Office and Office 365. 

Peolple would then complain the per version pricing:

• is too expensive
• That subscriptions are evil
• and offering both is coercive cos people would be inclined to go for subscription if they can't afford the per version price.

But you're not wrong, that solution would be the best of both worlds.

[Needfuldoer]

17 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Jellyfin fails at Live TV. They dont provide guide data and dont really help users with getting guide data. From what I have read.  Plex grabs it automatically. So it really depends on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go I guess. 

That's what pushed me to Plex over Jellyfin. I've got a couple HDHomerun Prime boxes on my cable connection.

 

You can pay for subscription guide data separately for Jellyfin, but it's overcomplicated and costs more than a lifetime Plex Pass in the long run. (You can also set something up to parse publicly-accessible guide data, but that's even more involved. Plex "just works".)

[immortal duffel]

On 7/1/2023 at 6:24 PM, LAwLz said:

Not sure what you mean by "don't suck" but I am fairly sure there the Jellyfin apps works just fine. I haven't heard many people complain about them.

Even if the clients exist, they lack feature parity with Plex clients. Intro / Outro skipping for TV shows is a big one. Also, with Plex, I can have friends make accounts and have them added to my server. As far as I know Jellyfin doesn't have that.

 

So, why do people use Plex over Jellyfin, you ask? Because Plex has features Jellyfin lacks. Also, there's probably a significant amount of Plex users who are on Plex because Plex was there first (myself included) and already bought in with a lifetime license a long time ago. If I was trying to build a media server from scratch today, I would probably start with Jellyfin for the reasons you've pointed out (the lack of a paywall for basic features).

[divito]

Plex needs to get their act together; really don't want to have to move fully to Jellyfin, at least not for awhile.
 

On 7/1/2023 at 6:59 PM, LAwLz said:

That's the thing I don't like about Plex, it does rely on phoning home. These days it's more like a streaming service than a self-hosted service.

You can't even play files from your local server on for example an Android device without creating an account, signing in and paying for that feature to be unlocked.

It has to phone home because the primary feature they are pushing is online streaming, and if you want to use it locally they want to verify that you have paid.

Offline playback works fine, even without being signed in. There are many guides or Youtube videos that show the like 10 second fix for this. I've never had an issue in any network outage, even if I happen to get signed out at some point.
 

1 hour ago, immortal duffel said:

So, why do people use Plex over Jellyfin, you ask? Because Plex has features Jellyfin lacks. Also, there's probably a significant amount of Plex users who are on Plex because Plex was there first (myself included) and already bought in with a lifetime license a long time ago. If I was trying to build a media server from scratch today, I would probably start with Jellyfin for the reasons you've pointed out (the lack of a paywall for basic features).

Pretty much this. Even despite having a lifetime Plex license, I've still tried Jellyfin (among other options over the years), because even if Plex becomes a sunk cost, or I run them together, I'll use whatever works the best. 

My main takeaways and reasons for not fully investing time into a full setup/switch to Jellyfin:

1. Lack of apps

I run an Android TV, and also have a PS4; my daughter's room has a Fire Stick. While no Playstation app isn't a huge dealbreaker for me personally, my other daughter has just a PS4 at her mom's house. Also, when I tried Jellyfin, I had a Samsung TV in the living room, and Jellyfin isn't on there. Yes, there are workarounds for platforms that Jellyfin doesn't officially support, but I'm not at a stage where I want to hack together solutions for me or other people who use my server or troubleshoot when things change or the codebase is updated in some way.

Plex's platform support makes it easy for me, my family, and any friends to easily have access.

2. Mobile App

In my trial of Jellyfin, I ran into several mobile app issues with my S21 Ultra at the time. Weird audio syncing issues that varied, odd stutters, black screens, all on shows or movies that had no issues on Plex or VLC. Perhaps the Android app has improved a bunch since then, but it was unpleasant, and also leads into the next point.

3. Remote Access 

Plex's remote access is almost turnkey; Jellyfin on the other hand, while maybe being simple in some aspects, lead to weird troubleshooting rabbit holes that still didn't resolve the issues I was having. If Plex didn't exist, and I was 10 years younger, I probably would have kept troubleshooting until I got it working. But, being a fairly adept IT person, it being so troublesome was a big turn off.

 

Add onto that, that the mobile app and remote access are big use cases for me with my Plex setup, Jellyfin essentially would have been mostly untenable.

4. Matches

My short trial didn't have anything too abnormal when it came to matches, but I've seen a lot of issues and reports of metadata matching being far more hit or miss than with Plex. While my Plex libraries aren't large compared to some people (~2900 "titles," spanning anime, comedy, kid stuff, movies, music, audiobooks, TV), they were essentially built bit by bit as I ripped my collections, converted stuff, so fixing issues in the moment was simple. 

The aspect of adding those libraries to Jellyfin and then combing through ~45,000 items to ensure everything is fine after already having Plex just the way it should be, would be enormously tedious.

 

5. Open source
While people malign Plex for its slow activity in relation to features or fixes, open source software is almost the opposite. A fresh project with a lot of hands in the jar can push updates that end up breaking things. For instance, Jellyfin allows CSS customization which is pretty cool, but I've seen posts that updates have ended up breaking their hard work to make their library look as good as they wanted.

I will say that Jellyfin is certainly an awesome and capable option and bonus that it's free, especially if you have the time to tinker. I still enjoy tinkering, but between work and my daughters and my other hobbies, it doesn't afford me as much time as when I was younger. And sometimes I just want to sit and watch something or put something on for my kids without having to troubleshoot or tweak because an update was pushed, or there's a random bug for Android TV or something.
 

I'm also personally wary of being attached to open source projects in general; I've been around a long time and having something forked or deprecated is always a depressing hassle, especially when you love the software. Sure, Plex can become unprofitable and disappear too, but it's not exactly the same as an open source project.
 

And this is where Plex also has an advantage; yes, there is more commercial emphasis with Plex, and feature rollout is slower, and/or weighted against profitability, but Plex is coming up on 15 years. Given how many media center-type apps I've gone through in the 20 years since Windows Media Center came out, Plex has been around for 75% of that time and boasts 16 million active users of the 30 million registered users they have.

[SeriousDad69]

On 7/5/2023 at 5:44 PM, divito said:

.....my other daughter has just a PS4 at her mom's house.

Sorry to say, you're never getting a jellyfin app on Sony consoles, at least not from the official developers. The terms they force on developers are extremely restrictive, including forcing you to sign a ludicrous NDA and close source EVERYTHING related to the app. I believe Samsung TVs are in a similar situation.

Plex, being for profit, simply has the weight and lack of moral qualms to successfully develop for those platforms.

The (official) client situation is best on Roku, iOS, and tvOS I believe. There's actually multiple Android apps available from third parties, but it seems like the bulk of the official development effort is on iOS and Roku because that's what most of the users and developers are using. Something to think about next time you're purchasing a new streaming device.

[divito]

On 7/10/2023 at 10:03 PM, SeriousDad69 said:

Sorry to say, you're never getting a jellyfin app on Sony consoles, at least not from the official developers. The terms they force on developers are extremely restrictive, including forcing you to sign a ludicrous NDA and close source EVERYTHING related to the app. I believe Samsung TVs are in a similar situation.

Plex, being for profit, simply has the weight and lack of moral qualms to successfully develop for those platforms.

The (official) client situation is best on Roku, iOS, and tvOS I believe. There's actually multiple Android apps available from third parties, but it seems like the bulk of the official development effort is on iOS and Roku because that's what most of the users and developers are using. Something to think about next time you're purchasing a new streaming device.

All the more reason to hope Plex improves their situation; their app support is unmatched, and their mobile app is miles ahead. If Jellyfin only gets the best for iOS and Roku, platforms I don't use or enjoy, then Plex will always be the solution as long as they exist.

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, divito said:

All the more reason to hope Plex improves their situation;

I dont really think they can. Their business model isn't sustainable. You can't sell lifetime licenses for a low price, and $119 is a low price for what you get. I think I paid just north of $100 for a 4 tuner HD Homerun in 2019 on top of Plex, plus a NAS and 8TB hard drive. So lets say $500. I had a laptop at the time I was using for the server before it died. Then I used my old gaming PC. Hulu Live I think was $60 at the time and counted towards our data cap. So in a little over 8 months I paid off the expense of buying everything and not having to pay for Live TV. Plus Plex uses about a Gig a month in data. Dirt cheap if you ask me. The issue is most people are probably not going to subscribe to a monthly charge, im subscriptioned out at this point. But you can't indefinitely support the Lifetime license holders. Bear in mind that guide data is included in that lifetime license. Most other solutions you are paying a monthly or yearly fee.