Plex price gauging any users they have left
2026-06-19 07:26 UTC
Replies (30)
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@Ghoelian@piefed.social 2026-06-19 07:48
I tried Plex once, before I knew about jellyfin. I just wanted an open-source self-hostable media server with my own media. When I tried it, after installing Plex, I was presented with a login for a Plex hosted account. Iirc that was optional and I skipped it, after that came the nags for Plex pass. Piss off. That’s exactly the opposite of what I wanted out of something like jellyfin.
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@Rudee@lemmy.ml 2026-06-19 07:53
Was any justification provided for a nearly 10x price increase!? Glad I started with Jellyfin
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@mtpender@piefed.social 2026-06-19 08:10
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@makeshift0546@lemmy.today 2026-06-19 08:22
Imma use the lifetime pass forever lol. Shits wild.
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@dan@upvote.au 2026-06-19 08:25
I’m still using it because I already have a lifetime license. I’m just using it for music and local TV though (I use the DVR feature to record the local news and a few other shows). I think Jellyfin has some music apps, but last I checked they’re still not as good as Plexamp.
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@lena@gregtech.eu 2026-06-19 08:07
Isn’t jellyfin full of security vulnerabilities? (Not to defend Plex, just a thought. This is why I don’t have a video streaming server at all.)
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@k0e3@lemmy.ca 2026-06-19 08:59
Gouge?
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@D06M4@lemmy.zip 2026-06-19 09:11
Tried it once, it’s features and quality were so lacking I stuck with Jellyfin. I’d charge Plex $4999.99 monthly to let their software stay in my devices.
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@Chozo@fedia.io 2026-06-19 09:19
You know that even if you paid that ridiculous amount, it still wouldn't be the last time they try to get money out of you, either.
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@homes@piefed.world 2026-06-19 10:03
Monthly rates remain unchanged. The sales of lifetime passes at this point was pretty rare anyway. I see this as nothing more than an opportunity for those hate and don’t use plex to complain over something that doesn’t affect them. But I suppose there’s nothing strange here about people complaining about a valuable paid service when a far inferior alternative is free.
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@webkitten@piefed.social 2026-06-19 10:05
jellyfin: hey here i am you can have me for free. i even run on your own server.
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@Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2026-06-19 10:05
Been on jellyfin since day one. Works fine, UI is great and gets the job done. TV UI maybe not top notch, buy usable. Mobile UI just fine and usable. Also, exposed on the internet (reverse proxy, OIDC, https the works) for years now with zero issues whatsoever as well . There are a few users always throwing thrash on jellyfin, maybe pissed off users that paid for Plex, or Plex shills that like to denigrate jellyfin, I don’t know. Just ignore them. Jellyfin is perfectly usable, yes you need to setup port forward, VPN or whatever, but it’s exactly our target audience so move along and stop bitching, Plex shills. Stay with Plex, use jellyfin, whatever fit your bill. Anyway plex does not fit my concept of self hosting to be free from cloud lock ins.
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@CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-06-19 11:40
Lifetime single pay subscriptions don’t make financial sense at all for a company. As much as I hate subscriptions, it’s the only way to get long term support, which software needs.
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@Blazkowicz@hexbear.net 2026-06-19 10:22
If you don’t own something, eventually Capitalism will weaponise it against your soul. FOSS is owned in common, and self hosting is your own. Never understood why people liked plex.
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@Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-19 12:47
Emby has been working well for me
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@LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 2026-06-19 14:28
i just need a video player on my tv that pulls shit from my computer why do people think that’s worth SUBSCRIPTIONS
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@Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-06-19 14:42
Even now - at the peak point of the Memory/SSD price bubble - about 1/3 of that lifetime pass buys you enough hardware to do it yourself for at least the next decade, probably more.
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@BorgDrone@feddit.nl 2026-06-19 16:20
Plex works just fine without a subscription. What is the subscription even for?
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@Tabitha@hexbear.net 2026-06-19 16:21
I like jellyfin
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@whereitsat@lemmy.zip 2026-06-19 17:46
who is this for? those unicorn users who make 150k++ a year and pirate all their media and then wanna share it with their friends that they don’t have?
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@BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-06-19 18:07
I do wonder if this is a last ditch effort cash grab before they go under or a “we really thought we’d be acquired by now so now we have to plan ahead” move.
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@ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-19 18:27
Hahahahahahahha
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@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-19 22:31
Roon did this and it made me stop using Roon. Home assistant +music assistant is better now, and has fully replaced that for free. Goodbye, shit companies.
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@sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 2026-06-19 23:09
Wait what. $750? I think I paid like $100 years ago. Damn.
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@taygaloocat@leminal.space 2026-06-20 01:32
My friend showed me Plex once but I never really understood what it was for or how it worked. When I looked up something I wanted to watch it would just link to other streaming sites like Stan or Netflix
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@kieron115@startrek.website 2026-06-20 00:14
You'll retain your existing lifetime pass, fwiw. This is just price gouging new customers.
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@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-06-20 09:59
Jellyfin is fine if you’re an advanced user and you don’t care about streaming outside your network — and your software is made by an AI company (Microsoft) or an advertising company (Google). If it’s made by a computer company (Apple), you have a bit more work ahead of you. Mac users are a minority, so Jellyfin does not prioritise them. Even if you go all-in with ads and AI, you still don’t get remote streaming, which is kind of the point of Jellyfin. iPhones come in up to 2TB (for the Pro Max) now. I have 512GB on mine, and I have a dozen HD-4K movies (one is actually 1440p) and a few TV shows. I use an app called Outplayer. It’s like VLC but it has folders, you don’t have to have everything in one place like VLC does. (Though, I suppose you can put your files in the Files app and have them open with VLC. But I mean in the app itself you can have folders.) Android phones have similar sizes, though I’m not sure they go up to 1-2TB. I’m not sure though. Older ones can get there with SD cards, but the read/write on those things is so slow, I would hate to move big videos to and from them. Like start that transfer and then go to bed, hope it’s done in the morning without errors. Plex went from $120 to $250 a few years ago, and they warned people first. No one who had any sense waited for the price increase before buying. Like most others, I paid less. I think I paid $90? Anyway, at this point they’re just going after the whales. There were plenty of sub-$100 deals on Plex back in the day. Those who didn’t see any value in running your own Netflix chose not to pay, and of course they’re not gonna pay more. Plex was worth paying for at $120 or less. I could almost make the case for it at $250. At $750, if you’d told me 10-15 years ago when it was new how much value I’d get from it, I would have paid — and bought more hard drives. If you do use Apple stuff, you kinda have the best option, but it’s not free, and it absolutely does not work outside your network. It’s called Infuse. First, the price. It’s priced old school, so if you buy lifetime, it’s only lifetime of the current major version. 6 or 7, I think. So when the next one comes out, you can buy at a discount or you can go to monthly. Yearly is actually the best option, it’s $10 a year. That’s not bad. Ten years of it is $100, and paying monthly or yearly means you’re always on the latest version. Considering lifetime is like $60-80, I think it’s a great deal to go yearly. The thing is, Infuse only works with Apple tech, and it’s not a web server and I don’t think you can make it be one. What it does do is catalogue your media and let you easily download to your Apple devices. It’s got some quirks I don’t like. For example, the player will work with a Plex (or Jellyfin) library, but it won’t write back. What that means is, if you’re watching a series on Plex hosted by Plex, you know, it’s gonna update what episode you’re on. Infuse will read that data (say, it knows you’re on episode 6), but it won’t tell Plex what it’s playing, so if you watch 2 episodes on Infuse, Plex still thinks you’re on 6. Infuse clients only talk to Infuse hosts. (Infuse also doesn’t need a host. Just share the files on the Mac using macOS’s built in file sharing feature like any OS has, and Infuse will read straight from that. It’s very smart and robust, and it’s also considered one of the best media players in the Apple ecosystem, rivaling VLC, and that other one that is only on Apple stuff that people love to recommend. I think it’s ugly, but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool VLC diehard, so I got no room to talk about ugly software. I just like the one I’m used to. I don’t think Jellyfin is really good at much of anything but being free. It’s not Plex. It kind of acts like Plex, but it doesn’t do for its users what Plex users consider worth paying for. Infuse doesn’t, either, but Infuse takes a different approach. It’s one that Plex also takes (you download stuff to your device rather than streaming it remotely, which is based on you having an idea of what you want to watch when you’re not at home), but it’s not Plex’s priority and I don’t know about Jellyfin. That said, Jellyfin does let you edit certain things. For example, both Jellyfin and Plex use The TVDB for metadata, but The TVDB tends to prefer foreign language casts when multiple exist, so if you don’t speak the language, and you don’t listen to that dub, the metadata is kind of useless. The problem is that there’s no source as good as The TVDB that provides multiple dub casts, so the media server apps don’t have the ability to let you pick the cast based on your language preferences. However, Jellyfin will let you manually change the metadata, per show. It takes time, but you can do it. Plex doesn’t let you do it at all. I do feel for people who are looking at Plex’s $750 price tag, but it’s not like they weren’t warned. Plex users have been promoting the hell out of it for years. Those who thought “it’ll go down” and it more than doubled, and then thought, “oh it’ll go down for sure now” and now that it’s tripling… you kinda gotta lay in the bed you made. Or go build one from scratch. Or use a computer from a company that isn’t based around AI or advertising and find a different way. Also, I don’t think you can pirate Plex, if anyone’s asking. The server runs locally, but the Plex Pass features are server-based. What I’d suggest if you don’t like Plex or paying for media server tools is, work on Jellyfin or donate in some way or otherwise contribute to the project. Because at some point Jellyfin is probably going to start charging. So I would “get in on the ground floor” now. Be using it. Be advocating for it. Be contributing to it any way you can. Not just to avoid having to pay if and when they do start charging (I do not know that they will, it’s just my guess), but to make it something worth paying for before (if it does start charging), it starts charging more and you’re back at square one. Because none of us are getting any younger. If you missed the Plex boat, don’t miss the Jellyfin boat. Or get into the Apple ecosystem and pony up for Infuse. (Though, as an Apple guy/Mac guy/iPhone guy, I don’t use or pay for Infuse. I just copy the files over to OutPlayer and play them there. It’s not as pretty, but it works.
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@Enzy@feddit.nu 2026-06-20 20:36
I use Emby. Works great.
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@roserose56@lemmy.zip 2026-06-20 21:24
Φορ 479 usd you by a coffee machine or something else. I got off plex and went for jellyfin. I only watch from home.
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@matzler@lemmy.ml 2026-06-21 05:12
I mean, yeah that’s crazy, but jellyfin does have a proper audio player yet? Plexamp is just way too good and the main reason I’m not switching…