{"slug": "plexamp", "name": "Plexamp", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 6, "warners": 1, "score": 2.529, "rising": 3.0, "first": "2026-02-17", "latest": "2026-10-21", "why": "Plexamp is not perfect and not open source unfortunately, but it's a really good non-enshitified product.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Plexamp is not perfect and not open source unfortunately, but it's a really good non-enshitified product.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Plexamp", "PlexAmp"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 802995922, "item_id": 50187245, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50187245", "by": "kraquepype", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "kept plex in a limited capacity for music since I really like Plexamp", "excerpt": "I switched over to Emby a while back for video, but kept plex in a limited capacity for music since I really like Plexamp. The thing I really like about plex was that 99% of the time, it would scan and match up my media, even if file formats were inconsistent. That was a growing pain for Emby, so it was another reason I kept plex for music. Is there a good alternative to plex for music?", "context": "", "use_case": "music playback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plex laid off the whole player team"}, {"id": 793682225, "item_id": 49605139, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605139", "by": "c0nsumer", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Plex + Plexamp is really, really, really good for listening.", "excerpt": "Yes, this is the big one for me. Seemingly unlike a lot of folks, Plex is my main music server. Years ago I ripped all my CDs (1800+, IIRC) and Plex + Plexamp is really, really, really good for listening. I haven't yet found anything else that works as well. I use Plexamp on desktop/laptop computers and then the Android and iOS apps for on-the-go music. I tried Symfonium [1] because it seemed promising and would give", "context": "ripped 1800+ CDs", "use_case": "music playback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jellyfin 12.0"}, {"id": 792311201, "item_id": 49519450, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519450", "by": "yard2010", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Plexamp is not perfect and not open source unfortunately, but it's a really good non-enshitified product.", "excerpt": "While moving from spotify to youtube music a few years ago I bought a vinyl player to listen to full albums and fell for it. Then when I moved to curate and self host my collection with Plex and Plexamp I realized I'm not using the player anymore since I'm using Plexamp to listen to albums. Plexamp is not perfect and not open source unfortunately, but it's a really good non-enshitified product. I had to migrate away ", "context": "", "use_case": "listening to albums", "switched_from": "YouTube Music", "story": "Fastpotify"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 760058080, "item_id": 47503630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47503630", "by": "patchorang", "date": "2026-03-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don't like PlexAmp", "excerpt": "I've been vibe-coding a Plex music player app for MacOS and iOS. (I don't like PlexAmp) I've got to the point where they are the apps I use for listening to music. But they are really just in an alpha/beta state and I'm having a pretty hard time getting past that. The last few weeks have felt like I'm playing wack-a-mole with bugs and issues. It's definitely not at the point others will be willing to use it as their ", "context": "", "use_case": "music player", "switched_from": "Plexamp", "story": "So where are all the AI apps?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "c0nsumer", "context": "ripped 1800+ CDs", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605139", "date": "2026-09-08"}, {"by": "reprodev", "context": "Plex Pass user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49047664", "date": "2026-07-25"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["music playback", "music player", "listening to albums", "daily music player", "mobile music player"], "compared": [{"slug": "plex", "name": "Plex", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "symfonium", "name": "Symfonium", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "finamp", "name": "Finamp", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "navidrome", "name": "Navidrome", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "youtube-music", "name": "YouTube Music", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "spotify", "name": "Spotify", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49604861", "title": "Jellyfin 12.0", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50186318", "title": "Plex laid off the whole player team", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49517448", "title": "Fastpotify", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49030547", "title": "The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47503006", "title": "So where are all the AI apps?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47041973", "title": "Building for an audience of one: starting and finishing side projects with AI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"warn": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 802995922, "item_id": 50187245, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50187245", "by": "kraquepype", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "kept plex in a limited capacity for music since I really like Plexamp", "excerpt": "I switched over to Emby a while back for video, but kept plex in a limited capacity for music since I really like Plexamp. The thing I really like about plex was that 99% of the time, it would scan and match up my media, even if file formats were inconsistent. That was a growing pain for Emby, so it was another reason I kept plex for music. Is there a good alternative to plex for music?", "context": "", "use_case": "music playback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plex laid off the whole player team"}, {"id": 793690946, "item_id": 49605684, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605684", "by": "bigstrat2003", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Not quite as smooth as Plexamp was", "excerpt": "For music, I use Navidrome + Symfonium. Not quite as smooth as Plexamp was (and there's nothing on par with Symfonium on desktop), but I disliked having my music and video commingled so it's been worthwhile for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "music player", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jellyfin 12.0"}, {"id": 793682225, "item_id": 49605139, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605139", "by": "c0nsumer", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Plex + Plexamp is really, really, really good for listening.", "excerpt": "Yes, this is the big one for me. Seemingly unlike a lot of folks, Plex is my main music server. Years ago I ripped all my CDs (1800+, IIRC) and Plex + Plexamp is really, really, really good for listening. I haven't yet found anything else that works as well. I use Plexamp on desktop/laptop computers and then the Android and iOS apps for on-the-go music. I tried Symfonium [1] because it seemed promising and would give", "context": "ripped 1800+ CDs", "use_case": "music playback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jellyfin 12.0"}, {"id": 792311201, "item_id": 49519450, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519450", "by": "yard2010", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Plexamp is not perfect and not open source unfortunately, but it's a really good non-enshitified product.", "excerpt": "While moving from spotify to youtube music a few years ago I bought a vinyl player to listen to full albums and fell for it. Then when I moved to curate and self host my collection with Plex and Plexamp I realized I'm not using the player anymore since I'm using Plexamp to listen to albums. Plexamp is not perfect and not open source unfortunately, but it's a really good non-enshitified product. I had to migrate away ", "context": "", "use_case": "listening to albums", "switched_from": "YouTube Music", "story": "Fastpotify"}, {"id": 784762624, "item_id": 49047664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49047664", "by": "reprodev", "date": "2026-07-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using PlexAmp for about a year now as a daily music player", "excerpt": "Thanks for adding to this discussion especially around PlexAmp as there really isn't too much out there. I've been using PlexAmp for about a year now as a daily music player and someone else in tech who uses it all the time was telling me something similar about this whole lyrics situation which is why they just got Spotify to save the clicks. I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I", "context": "Plex Pass user", "use_case": "daily music player", "switched_from": "Amazon Music", "story": "The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin"}, {"id": 760058080, "item_id": 47503630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47503630", "by": "patchorang", "date": "2026-03-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don't like PlexAmp", "excerpt": "I've been vibe-coding a Plex music player app for MacOS and iOS. (I don't like PlexAmp) I've got to the point where they are the apps I use for listening to music. But they are really just in an alpha/beta state and I'm having a pretty hard time getting past that. The last few weeks have felt like I'm playing wack-a-mole with bugs and issues. It's definitely not at the point others will be willing to use it as their ", "context": "", "use_case": "music player", "switched_from": "Plexamp", "story": "So where are all the AI apps?"}, {"id": 752766402, "item_id": 47047900, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47047900", "by": "patchorang", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've stopped using PlexAmp and Spotify entirely", "excerpt": "This has been exactly my experience too. I switched from Spotify to Plex, but discovered there really isn't a music focused desktop player. So I vibe coded one, exactly how I want my music player to work (albums not playlists/tracks as the central item). I was so happy with my desktop app, I built a mobile version to use instead of PlexAmp. There are some bugs I'm ironing out, but they are both I've stopped using Ple", "context": "", "use_case": "mobile music player", "switched_from": "", "story": "Building for an audience of one: starting and finishing side projects with AI"}]}