Plex
Media server and client apps for streaming your personal video and music library.
Liked for letting non-technical family and friends reach a shared library on almost any device with little support,123 for polished, consistent apps,456 and for Plexamp as a music player.789 The most common complaint is the buggy redesigned client apps, especially on Apple TV,1011121314 alongside frustration with ads and other user-hostile changes that drove many to Jellyfin.15161718
Why people recommend it
Easy sharing · 3
Inviting family and friends is simple, and non-technical users can watch with almost no help.
“The most technologically useless people I know can operate Plex and can access my collection with basically no support necessary.”
“far more effort than saying, "Find Plex in your media sources."”
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“Plex has very lovely, polished clients, you can easily invite people, share your library with others”
Polished apps · 3
Clients look and work consistently across platforms and feel more polished than Jellyfin's.
“I use Plex because the whole experience looks and feels more polished than Jellyfin”
“I bought a lifetime pass a very long time ago, and their apps across all platforms look and work consistently.”
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“Plex just works without any setup in my experience”
Reliability · 3
Several users describe it as reliable and predictable, including at home and while travelling.
“Plex is my main app—reliable and predictable.”
“It works reliably with Plex too, I use it every time I travel or take the train”
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“I use the AppleTV app and it works well.”
Plexamp music · 3
Plex with Plexamp is praised as a strong self-hosted music setup that is hard to replace.
“Plex + Plexamp is really, really, really good for listening.”
“I moved to curate and self host my collection with Plex and Plexamp”
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“The thing I really like about plex was that 99% of the time, it would scan and match up my media”
Library handling · 3
Automatic media matching and default transcoding avoid problems users hit with alternatives.
“The thing I really like about plex was that 99% of the time, it would scan and match up my media”
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“I used to use Plex and was a yearly subscriber mostly for the ability to download media to my phone for offline playback.”
Caveats and dissent
Redesigned apps · 3
The new shared-codebase apps, especially on Apple TV, are called buggy with poor UX.
“I can't believe how bad the UI/UX is for the new Apple TV Plex app.”
“Honestly plex deserves to fail at this point. They’ve been doing stupid user hostile shit for years.”
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“There seems to be widespread disdain for it.”
User-hostile changes · 3
Ads on local content, a push toward streaming, and other unwanted features alienate users.
“I paid for Plex Pass and they still feel entitled to put advertisements in front of my local media content.”
“I ditched plex because of missing Dolby audio support and all the use hostile channels and “features” years ago”
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“With media servers being something studios surely don’t like, and Plex deprioritizing that aspect of the business, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they shut it down completely.”
Playback issues · 3
Users report buffering, crashes, and missing hardware decoding in the Apple TV app.
“I used to constantly struggle with Plex buffering and crashing on my local network with the Apple TV app.”
“The official Plex app hasn't been updated to take advantage of all the hardware decoding support available on the Apple TV.”
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“As for Plex I've had way too many issues to list.”
Dropped features · 2
An app rewrite removed Watch Together, and subtitles reset between episodes.
“I’m still salty that their last app platform rewrite dropped Watch Together as a supported feature.”
“it resets the subtitle track to `None` when the next episode in a series starts”
Lifetime price · 2
A lifetime pass price of around $750 is seen as far too high.
“Plex has slowly been going down the drain.”
“it resets the subtitle track to `None` when the next episode in a series starts”
Security, proprietary · 3
Users point to a past server breach and dislike that the software is proprietary.
“Their central servers were hacked 10 months ago and passwords were leaked.”
“I have a lifetime subscription, I use plex to share the media with the wife and kids on all of our devices, it does the job.”
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“Finally I moved over to Plex”
Often compared with
14 moved from Plex to Jellyfin
3 moved from Plex to InfusePlezy3 comments mention both
3 moved from Plex to Plezy
2 moved from Kodi to PlexEmby4 comments mention both
1 moved from Plex to Emby
1 moved from Spotify to Plex
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team 11 mentions
- Plex laid off the whole player team 7 mentions
- Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop a cryptominer 6 mentions
- Jellyfin 12.0 6 mentions
- The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin 4 mentions
- New Lifetime Plex Pass Pricing 4 mentions
Data: plex.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 42
“I paid for Plex Pass and they still feel entitled to put advertisements in front of my local media content.”
“I have been using it for about 2 weeks with Plex as the source”
“The thing I really like about plex was that 99% of the time, it would scan and match up my media”
“my parents use my Plex”
“I bought a lifetime pass a very long time ago, and their apps across all platforms look and work consistently.”
“I can't believe how bad the UI/UX is for the new Apple TV Plex app.”
“Honestly plex deserves to fail at this point. They’ve been doing stupid user hostile shit for years.”
“LittleSnitch, Jetbrains IDe, Plex, Final Cut Pro, etc”
“The Apple TV UI change drove me crazy.”
“Or I did back when I used it.”
“The new UI version never made it to the Xbox client so that's what I switched to using about 6 months ago.”
“There seems to be widespread disdain for it.”
“I have a lifetime subscription, I use plex to share the media with the wife and kids on all of our devices, it does the job.”
“The most technologically useless people I know can operate Plex and can access my collection with basically no support necessary.”
“They are served up by Plex”
“I used to constantly struggle with Plex buffering and crashing on my local network with the Apple TV app.”
“Plex's pretty terrible native players”
“Plex + Plexamp is really, really, really good for listening.”
“I never had any of these problems with plex.”
“As a long time plex user with a lifetime pass”
“I moved to curate and self host my collection with Plex and Plexamp”
“download YouTube videos my son is interested in to Plex, watch them on the tv (or iPad)”
“VPN to my home server so i can access Plex, Nextcloud etc via my domain name”
“accessing my home plex via tailscale”
“I still think it's a great deal and I hope that came across”
“I use my TV to watch YouTube, Twitch, my Plex instance”
“a much bigger alternative to Plex users on the fence”
“I moved from running XBMC then a bit of Kodi to Plex but was really stubborn about it.”
“Their central servers were hacked 10 months ago and passwords were leaked.”
“far more effort than saying, "Find Plex in your media sources."”
“I have been using Plex since 2014, paid for the lifetime pass back then.”
“It works reliably with Plex too, I use it every time I travel or take the train”
“It's already significantly better than Jellyfin, Plex, and Emby.”
“I use Plex because the whole experience looks and feels more polished than Jellyfin”
“I use the AppleTV app and it works well.”
“I ditched plex because of missing Dolby audio support and all the use hostile channels and “features” years ago”
“I used to use Plex and was a yearly subscriber mostly for the ability to download media to my phone for offline playback.”
“Plex has very lovely, polished clients, you can easily invite people, share your library with others”
“With media servers being something studios surely don’t like, and Plex deprioritizing that aspect of the business, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they shut it down completely.”
“watching anime on Plex”
“given Plex's shitty track record”
“several years ago I had enough of their bullshit, switched to Jellyfin”