Plex price hike proves my decision to switch to Jellyfin was right

The very concept of charging a subscription fee to access your own media rubs me the wrong way. This is anathema to the whole self-hosted ethos and an attempt to avoid the rising costs of music and video subscription services. If Netflix isn’t getting my money for original programming, I’m certainly not giving Plex cash to re-watch my old spaced DVDs.

Let me be clear: I’m all for paying for a service that provides fair value. If Plex were storing and serving your data – like Google One or a hosted VPS – that would be one thing. I’m also willing to admit that Plex Pass represents solid value for the features it’s accumulated over the years. But what does Plex’s Remote Watch Pass actually do? This allows you to easily watch content on any server, no matter where you are.

In that sense, it’s little more than a glorified relay gateway – even if that’s no longer necessary if you set up port forwarding. Granted, it handles authentication and basic routing, but everything else depends on your server, like available bandwidth and transcoding capabilities. It seems steep to pay $29.99 per year or $2.99 ​​per month, especially when you’re hosting the media yourself.

Here’s a nice caveat: You don’t need Remote Watch Pass if the server owner has Plex Pass. This also gives the owner additional features like transcoding, downloads, and Plex Dash, which they will undoubtedly find very useful if they are serving data to a large audience. However, priced at $69.99 for a full year or $249.99 for a lifetime, this again doesn’t represent great value for money for self-hosters who just want to take their own media outside of their home.

The Plex Pass feature can be useful for individuals who are sharing their media collections far and wide. However, I would highly encourage casual users who are looking to dial in their own media library to find at least two viable free ways that don’t require paying a dime to Plex. I use Telescale to securely access my NAS outside my home, and it’s also perfect for serving up your media on the go.

But if you’re in a rush to bypass Plex’s remote paywall, you might be better off asking yourself if it’s worth sticking with Plex. If you’re not tied to the UI and/or are becoming increasingly unhappy with the nickel-and-diming of seemingly simple but core features like external streaming, it may be time to abandon Plex for the open-source Jellyfin.

I’ll happily advocate for Jellyfin all day long, but I know the Plex faithful won’t want to convert without a good reason. Jellyfin is now in its seventh year of open-source development and has just released a major update that adds faster databases, HEVC support for Firefox, advanced dashboard metrics, and more. I’ve used it for five years with no problems, but it’s gotten better over that time.

Jellyfin has native clients for all major playback platforms covered: Android, iOS, laptops and PCs, Roku, Xbox, and, most recently, long-awaited support for Samsung Tizen TVs. Performance is also good. My library has over 500 movies, 8,500 episodes, and nearly 10,000 tracks, all of which stream flawlessly. Hardware transcoding is free – a big advantage over Plex – and includes support for HEVC, AV1, Dolby Vision tone-mapping, and more.

Although Jellyfin may not have every extra feature Plex has accumulated over the years, it is a full-fledged media library suite in its own right, free of the feature creep and noise that increasingly clutters Plex’s core mission. This is not a substitute for bare feet; It has everything you will need and possibly more. Check out my previous Plex vs Jellyfin comparison for a more in-depth feature breakdown. All you have to do is set up secure internet access, but Plex users are now facing the same problem unless they deposit cash.

Unfortunately, there’s no one-click migration button to leave Plex, but if you’re not bothered about viewing history and things like that, it’s as simple as pointing Jellyfin at your existing media folder structure. If you want to bring more of your Plex data with you, Tracky Sync is a good starting point. Advanced tools like jellyplex-seen, migrate-plex-to-jellyfinAnd plexifin If you’re comfortable with scripts, offer even deeper migration strategies.

In any case, your best option for migrating is to run both side by side for a while and see how they compare. If you want to avoid tolls, Jellyfin is easy to install and it’s no more difficult than Plex to get it exposed on the internet. Play the two together for a while – you may find that the Switch does more than just avoid Plex’s paywalls.