In the beginning it was quite good. And innovative, but as aged, it went from a local app, like jellyfin, to a centralized one. Their api server crashed once and plex was absolutely useless. Later, they started feeling pressure from the big rights holders and started to pivot to a media hub, and away from pirated content.

I jumped ship shortly after the api server crash, if I couldn't use a local app to watch local content on my network, I didn't want anything to do with it.

I have a lifetime sub to plex and haven't spun it up in over 6 years.

I contracted at plex for 6 months. The employees really care. The developers were very concerned with making the absolute best media server possible. The QA team was doing crazy stuff to try to keep everything working.

Plex is still the most feature rich and easiest to set up, both for admins and users.

I do not want to expose Jellyfin ports to the internet, nor teach and troubleshoot an extra service like Tailscale for friends and family. I send a Plex invite, they download the app (available on pretty much every device) and we're done.

Projects like Kometa and some Tautulli integrations let you customize and organize your Plex media in ways just not possible in Jellyfin yet (to my knowledge). For example, I hate spoilers in TV shows, and I have all episode thumbnails automatically blurred and episode summaries censored. I don't like how Jellyfin handles collections, while Kometa is simply fantastic for letting me automate collection maintenance for any criteria I can think of.

I am currently running both, mostly to keep an eye on Jellyfin's progress, but it's hard to argue that Plex is a more polished and streamlined experience.

I have Plex pass and feel I've got more than my money's worth. I don't feel like anything has been "rug pulled" from under me and I've yet to see any features I paid for get removed. I am not a fan of the recent "trending with friends" fiasco and I wouldn't hesitate to use Jellyfin more if the features were there, but right now it's just not there yet.

Good question to start a circle jerk. 👍

has the term rug pull changed its meaning or something? I think Plex did a regular technology capitalism: build the product and get a user base, and then ruin it by trying to turn a profit with it later. good for them, I guess. I don't use it

Plex is still good, I've been running it for a decade. It was incredible when I started using it and they've added improvements I wanted in that time. I'm not too arsed about some of the recent additions, but I've never not been able to disable something that I didn't want

Jellyfin is good too, and I'd probably pick it if I was starting a new server today, but I've yet to actually experience anything negative from Plex, and still feel like I got value for money.

Possibly big caveat: I got a lifetime Plex pass ages ago, I've not paid attention to what they're charging in a long time.

Plex has been around for a while, long before "capitalism happened" as you put it. At the time it spawned a whole lot of different alternatives, it also triggered how we interact with our media libraries. I recall having to set-up my own server and client before I could start to import and manage my own media. That wasn't trivial, least of which caused by needing to rip DVD without the high speed access to internet acting as a source.

Plex was great in 2001 2004 when I had videos on my Macintosh and I wanted to play them using the PS2 PS3 hooked up to the television.

20 years is a long time for a rug pull. I think they just found themselves more excited about money after a while.

Ive had my gripes with them over the years but they've always had the most feature rich and mostly polished system. I did use Emby (what Jellyfin spawned from) for a few years when Plex was struggling with EAC3 audio and have lifetime passes for both but always come back to Plex.

I won't defend their recent restrictions on free accounts and additions of features nobody wants, but if you already have a lifetime pass its still the best option IMO.

You're describing the product life cycle of most Internet things.

Bought lifetime membership 11/12 years ago. Never had a problem. I need a VPN with dedicated IP to deal with the double NAT from my ISP, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Plex is still fine for me. I have Apple stuff (Mac, iPhone, Apple TV) so my options are basically Plex and Infuse, and Infuse is fine, but expensive to own. Or you pay $10 a year which is more than fair, I suppose. But Infuse can't be used outside your network, and it doesn't sync show progress with Plex. Used entirely on its own without Plex is how it's meant to be used (as a server and client as opposed to client to a Plex server, though that way works too, albeit with weird limitations). But Infuse still can't be streamed outside your network.

Jellyfin exists on Apple stuff but it's not very good. The server seems fine, but the client takes a lot more to set up and it's not as straightforward as Plex. And you have to jump through more hoops to use it outside your network.

I use Plex - but almost exclusively for music streaming through PlexAmp, very little in the way of TV/movies.

What's so bad about it? It works well for me, but if Jellyfin is much better I might investigate.

I was there. 3000 years ago.

I still love it and use it everyday. The Plexamp app is fantastic and solved my music issues with limited space on my phone. The apps work great.

I tried to setup jellyfin twice, but it's just too much work to get it to function, and Plex took me 5 minutes.

I think it is still pretty great, if you are a Plex lifetime pass user.

Idk man, Plex has A LOT of features that Jellyfin does not. I tried Jellyfin fin for a bit but for me plex really is perfect

I mean, it's good now.

I guess there's a question about good for what, but what it does it does pretty well.

I've used plex a lot. I prefer it to jellyfin in regards to media mgmt. But them paywalling a non paid feature really pissed me off and definitely felt like a rug pull. All the assholes with lifetime Plexpasses will gloat because they don't feel any of the changes. But yeah, feels pretty shitty. I only used plex for my own self hosted content. Never cared about any of the streaming they offered outside of that.

It is entirely unfair to call such an old, well developed and we'll supported piece of free software a rug pull. Many features remain free too...

I had never seen anyone seriously praising Plex as good until I came to Lemmy. There are so many better tools that are completely FOSS. Hell, the in-built filesharing in most OSs are all you really need. My whole media server just runs off SAMBA. I can access it anywhere from anything.

It was always going to be a rug pull, they basically took XBMC and ffmpeg, made a "cloud" based front end for it and started asking people for money.

At no point was it anything other then an attempt to cash in on pirates. At some point I guess they realized all those "lifetime" subscription purchases would dry up and they started Partnering with or buying up other streaming content so they could at least pretend to be offering something else but that can only get them so far financially.

It might have been short sighted rather then an intentional rug pull, but obviously running a service like Plex requires an constant stream of funding, and when your loyalist users are the ones who paid a relativly small lump sum early on, it gets harder and harder to keep revenue coming in from new users and monthly subscribers.

IDK I use Stremio instead. I love its simple, Netflix-like interface. And the fact that you can directly stream torrents from within the app. (did Plex ever get anything like that?) Just pick something and watch.

FYI:

We have recently experienced a security incident that may potentially involve your Plex account information. We believe the actual impact of this incident is limited; however, action is required from you to ensure your account remains secure.

Source: https://forums.plex.tv/t/important-notice-of-security-incident/930523

Plex used to be good. If you wanted an easy way to share content with folks who didn’t want to be weird and hook their computer up to their TV it was the only game in town.

Rug pull IMO. Just use kodi