Emby Licensing vs Plex

[brunovon 1]

I was a Plex subscription user that switched to Emby almost 4 months ago. Here are my observations. If someone here can provide answers, I will pay the lifetime subscription and stay or will go back to Plex and buy their lifetime.

 

Here are my server specs - 48 GB Ram, 4 x 3 TB Raid 10 on Windows Server 2012 R2. 

 

First the good things I like about Emby:

 

1. Great UI - Looks like Netflix and is very easy to navigate. Plex is not bad, but not as good.

2. The movie cast details and ability to click and see the actor details. Plex is again lacking here.

 

 

Now for the issues

 

 

New Movie Update

 

This just sucks. It takes almost a day for Emby to add the movie. Not sure why there is no cron job that runs every 15 minutes or a monitoring service that watches for new movies. Plex is almost instant in this regard. This is a frustrating thing. Apparently is an issue for a long time with no resolution. Every where on this forum, folks complain about this.

 

Licensing

 

15 Device Limit - Really? In this day and age, the idea that a family of 5 has 3 devices each, makes me believe that either management does not realize how connected people are today or it is just a business decision to make more money. And that too for the paid version? I have this on 4 Roku devices and on Alexa TV Box (the new one) around the house. Have 3 familty members that do not live in the same house and they just cannot get it to work on any device except on a computer. So BAD. And there is never a sale. Plex has 100 device which is great, no getting nickel and dimed.

 

The Emby NAG - What a pain. This itself may make me go back to Plex. But I have learned to ignore it.

 

Display - Plex has a much better display and the sound seems better. Not sure how Emby encodes the files. I have all devices connected by ethernet and no wireless and HDMI thru an amplifier to a 4K TVs or directly connecting the Roku toi the TV in some rooms.

 

If anyone can offer any solutions it would be great and help me make a decision to stay with Emby and get the Lifetime subscription. And BTW, Plex is far ahead than Emby in terms of market share and usage. So baffles me what the management is thinking with their licensing model.

 

Thanks

Bruno

Edited July 28, 2018 by brunovon

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Hi

 

the new movie "issue" is easy to fix - turn on realtime monitoring for each library in its settings page - works fine on 2012r2

 

then your new media will show in 60 seconds or so

 

if you are getting a nag screen - then you have not got a premier licence - which is for the server

 

15 device limit is Active devices - or buy a different license option if you need more

 

Display issues you need to provide more info

[Popeye2468 31]

One thing ill say is plex is far more capable and advanced when it comes to music

 

Im Having a nightmare 

[legallink 187]

Just a quick couple of comments. 

 

1. The 15 device limit is for active premier devices, not devices in general. While you as a family of 5 think you might go over, most likely you won't.  That being said, you indicated that 3 family members don't live in your house.  That would imply that you are trying to serve a user group larger than the license is intended.

 

2. Emby NAG goes away if you've paid for premiere, but I get that it isn't pleasant.

 

3.  When you say display, do you mean picture quality?  I'm just not 100% sure I know exactly what you mean here.  I have heard similar on audio from friends of mine, but haven't experienced it myself.  Make sure you are not boosting the audio.  If you are talking picture quality, I would try and make sure that you have settings such that it is direct playing as much as possible and not transcoding.  That may mean converting media for your devices, although, as far as I'm aware, the Roku is pretty compatible with most file formats.  Also make sure that the bandwidth setting is set appropriately. I run an Apple  TV  through a receiver to an LG OLED 4k screen and haven't noticed any sound or display issues.

 

I think @@PenkethBoy answered your other questions.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

One thing ill say is plex is far more capable and advanced when it comes to music

 

Im Having a nightmare 

Not sure thats correct - i answered you issues in your other thread

[maegibbons 1267]

And you can extend the 15 users to 45 for a single one off $99 payment once you are on lifetime if you really do need more than 15.

 

Krs

 

Mark

[Luke 37247]

As far as the Cron job, have you explored the scheduled tasks in emby that allow you to control the library scan interval?

 

There is also the real-time monitor option that was also mentioned.

[ebr 14959]

I can tell you that almost no normal household users require more than our standard license.  However, there are other options if you actually find you do.

 

Have we addressed all of your questions?

[brunovon 1]

I can tell you that almost no normal household users require more than our standard license.  However, there are other options if you actually find you do.

 

Have we addressed all of your questions?

 

And you can extend the 15 users to 45 for a single one off $99 payment once you are on lifetime if you really do need more than 15.

 

Krs

 

Mark

As I said, nickel dime business model. Plex starts with 100.  

[brunovon 1]

As far as the Cron job, have you explored the scheduled tasks in emby that allow you to control the library scan interval?

 

There is also the real-time monitor option that was also mentioned.

Have all libraries on real time option and still takes a few hours. Just does not work.I also have Plex running on the same server and can watch a movie 5 minutes after it has completed the upload.

[darkassassin07 434]

Have all libraries on real time option and still takes a few hours.

That's not functioning properly then, I quite regularly add stuff to my media folders and its usually scanned into emby within a couple min. If I'm in a particular hurry, I'll jump into the dashboard and manually re-scan the library in question.

 

 

 

Also, while plex may give you 100 users for a plex pass; The plex pass itself is limited to one plex.tv account. You can add 'plex home' users to that account but you still have to give out your login deets.

Share one account and plex pass with 100 users? (giving them full access as you are immediately logged into the admin account when you log into the plex.tv account) I dont think so. To get 15 users on plex with their own accounts will cost you 750$/year (15 yearly passes) or 2400$ for 15 lifetime passes.

Or you can buy an emby premier license and have 15 users for 54$/year (120$ lifetime) all with their own login details.

 

Moving to 45 users:

Emby - 220$ once

Plex - 6750$ once.

 

 

 

/edit

With a little reading the plex pass allows you to add 15 plex home users. Ie max 16 people can use the apps and other premium features on a single pass (all still using the same login deets)

You can add as many as 99 'friends' to your plex server but that will still require each and every one to get their own pass for premium features.

Edited August 3, 2018 by darkassassin07

[heciruam 23]

With a little reading the plex pass allows you to add 15 plex home users. Ie max 16 people can use the apps and other premium features on a single pass (all still using the same login deets)

You can add as many as 99 'friends' to your plex server but that will still require each and every one to get their own pass for premium features.

 

Well to be fair you don't need to subscribe to the plex pass to use most of their apps. There is usually always the option to buy the app. It annoys me that Emby Theater(desktop) is only possible with the premiere. (I do have premiere but it still annoys that this eats up a license.) I know you can do all of that with kodi but thats a nightmare to cofigure over the phone even with techsavi people which simple haven't used kodi before.

Thats why I have my remote users still on the plexmediaplayer.

 

 

The selling point on Emby for me are the following:

- Still works when my internet goes down. I don't have to sign out of plex home just to watch my own media again. (had a bad connection in the past)

- Privacy Policy

- Easy manageable mixed libraries (I use this for Anime and Homevideos)

- Very good subtitle support. Plex transcoded everything as soon as I enabled subtitles. With the plugin it even downloads them as you add new media.

- Saves metadata right with the media (I know this is not that special, but you always have to jump through hoops to get more functionality out of plex)

- Background Art! I'm not sure why plex forces that blur background on people.

- FireTV apps actually work^^

- Apps usually do not use the "native player" for the plattform so there is more formats that can be direct played (I believe^^)

 

 

 

Downside Emby or advantage to PLEX (for me):

- no plexpy/tautully. There is a plugin for emby but it's no match.

- The apple clients seem to be not as mature. At least according to my roommate(Apple desciple). He has a lot of trouble with the music playback there.

- No SSL secure connection out of the box. (I still haven't figured it out how to do this, since I also made the switch to linux(and docker) as well)

- login is a little weird not as intuitive as I was used to from other software (not only plex)

- UI is a little slower

Edited August 3, 2018 by heciruam

[neik 838]

- No SSL secure connection out of the box. (I still haven't figured it out  how to do this since made the switch to linux as well)

 

For this you just need a domain (free ddns, e.g. no-ip does the work) and a certificate (e.g. Let's Encrypt).

 

After having these you just have (very simplified) to enter them into Emby and you are able to access via https/SSL. It has been working for months now over here. ;-)

[heciruam 23]

For this you just need a domain (free ddns, e.g. no-ip does the work) and a certificate (e.g. Let's Encrypt).

 

After having these you just have (very simplified) to enter them into Emby and you are able to access via https/SSL. It has been working for months now over here. ;-)

 

DynDns was no problem. I'm still fighting with Let's encrypt since I also want to use it for Nextcloud. I just haven't done enough reading yet on how to make that work.

[darkassassin07 434]

- no plexpy/tautully. There is a plugin for emby but it's no match.

There is an equivalent in the works by a third party just as Tautulli is. It's a very early beta if not alpha though:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/56640-developing-a-standalone-embystat-server/

[riothamus 51]

DynDns was no problem. I'm still fighting with Let's encrypt since I also want to use it for Nextcloud. I just haven't done enough reading yet on how to make that work.

 

I have Nextcloud, Emby, and Plex all running on the same server using SSL and Let's Encrypt.  I'm doing all of this behind an Apache server instance that is handling SSL for all of my connections inbound/outbound.  It's not too hard to do.  I've seen plenty of write-ups on using Nginx to do this, but I've always been an Apache guy.

 

And yeah, I'm running Plex too, but that is for my friends while I myself am quite content (minus smart playlists) with Emby.  I'm running the non-paid Plex, but I paid for the lifetime Emby license.  When a few more features come into Emby (all my wants lie with more playlist love), I'll be kicking Plex to the curb.

Edited August 3, 2018 by riothamus

[neik 838]

I have Nextcloud, Emby, and Plex all running on the same server using SSL and Let's Encrypt.  I'm doing all of this behind an Apache server instance that is handling SSL for all of my connections inbound/outbound.  It's not too hard to do.  I've seen plenty of write-ups on using Nginx to do this, but I've always been an Apache guy.

 

Are you using subdomains to access your different services or simply pointing different external ports to the different services?

[riothamus 51]

Are you using subdomains to access your different services or simply pointing different external ports to the different services?

 

Nope, same domain for the whole shebang, and everything is being proxied by different URL locations.  For example, I have:

 

https://example.com/emby

https://example.com/plex

https://example.com/nextcloud

 

I do not expose any ports except 80 and 443 to the internet, and even port 80 gets forced over to 443 to be handled by my SSL cert.

 

BTW, those links there won't work, as they are just there for an example.

Edited August 3, 2018 by riothamus

[adamstewiegreen 149]

The selling point on Emby for me are the following:

- Still works when my internet goes down. I don't have to sign out of plex home just to watch my own media again. (had a bad connection in the past)

- Privacy Policy

- Easy manageable mixed libraries (I use this for Anime and Homevideos)

- Very good subtitle support. Plex transcoded everything as soon as I enabled subtitles. With the plugin it even downloads them as you add new media.

- Saves metadata right with the media (I know this is not that special, but you always have to jump through hoops to get more functionality out of plex)

- Background Art! I'm not sure why plex forces that blur background on people.

- FireTV apps actually work^^

- Apps usually do not use the "native player" for the plattform so there is more formats that can be direct played (I believe^^)

 

 

This! (Plex's FireTV app - and their Amazon blaming - (partly) pushed me to Emby)

 

Plus I would add: 

 

Tech support on Emby is way better

 

Emby's official Kodi plug in is WAY better than Plex's official plugin (which hasn't been updated in ages).

 

 

One their respective apps, I've found video quality to be about the same (when transcoding), and Emby audio quality is unquestionably better on the Fire TV.  There is a video of a Plex-paid vlogger (bit my bytes?) pitting Plex's transcoding up against Emby's and Emby's clearly won.

 

[Luke 37247]

What do you mean about login being wierd?

[riothamus 51]

So here is a great use case for me to go with Emby. We just lost internet due regional flooding (posting fro my phone), and Plex can not sign in, leaving media access hostage. My Emby server let me login to play a movie just fine.

Edited August 3, 2018 by riothamus

[neik 838]

So here is a great use case for me to go with Emby. We just lost internet due regional flooding (posting fro my phone), and Plex can not sign in, leaving media access hostage. My Emby server let me login to play a movie just fine.

 

Didn't know that about Plex but that is an absolute no-go! I mean you have your media locally and still can't play them because your internet is down?

 

Sorry, but lol. What's the point taking their customer kind of hostage?

[ebr 14959]

What's the point taking their customer kind of hostage?

 

That is their business model.  Not good or bad, just the way it is.

 

You know that "News" feature?  Well, that exists because they have a captured audience.

[CBers 6788]

So here is a great use case for me to go with Emby. We just lost internet due regional flooding (posting fro my phone), and Plex can not sign in, leaving media access hostage. My Emby server let me login to play a movie just fine.

 

Didn't know that about Plex but that is an absolute no-go! I mean you have your media locally and still can't play them because your internet is down?

 

Sorry, but lol. What's the point taking their customer kind of hostage?

 

Admittedly you can use the Web Client, but if you're internet is down, some platforms that has an Emby app won't work, as the platform needs internet access to allow apps to run.

 

Old posts, but informational:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/10361-no-internet-limited-playback-options

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/22231-no-internet-no-emby-access-probably

[heciruam 23]

What do you mean about login being wierd?

 

With weird I meant not as intuitive. Maybe it's just because of the problems I've had as I pointed out here. I find it a little confusing. I'm now used to the way things are handled but everytime I introduce I new user they always have trouble loging in.

 

On the first page for example:

When people try to connect manually they try to click on "connect to server manually" instead of "skip". "skip" is not distinct enough for me personally. I would just replace the "skip" with "connect manually" (or something like that)

 

---------------------------------------------

 

Now lets say you logged-in via "emby connect" and get to the next page. My not so tech savy mother/family/user doesn't no what my server is called. They don't know that they want to connect to this and that they have to click on that to get the "connect" or "delete" button. I think the "connect" button needs to be always visible and needs to be the biggest one on the screen especially bigger than "add server". Most of my users think that the login with "emby connect" failed so they click on "sign in with emby connect" which is actually a "back" or "return" button and should be named that way in my opinion. The delete server button should be a little more hidden since I don't think people especially non admins will need that function very often if at all. The admins will find it even if it's hidden somewhere, maybe on the top right or something.

 

A lot of them also get confused why they have to type in their passwords twice. I know this has technical reasons it's just that is something they aren't / weren't used to from other softare solutions. It's just something I could see improvement by renaming of "buttons" and the size and visability of them. I know that there a people that have multible servers where this layout makes more sense for power users. I would still consider myself one of them with just only one server.

I'm not sure if I am the only one that percieves this as unintuitive or if my users are especially dumb in regards to the login. If I'm the only one than I can live with that or at least have to^^

 

Well I don't want to conquer this thread and lead this off topic (which already happend). I can write that up in a feature request if you want and even create very shitty picture mock ups if you are interested. But if you guys don't see any problems or other peopel don't want it changed anyways then I won't bother again and just accept it since it's functional.

 

Admittedly you can use the Web Client, but if you're internet is down, some platforms that has an Emby app won't work, as the platform needs internet access to allow apps to run.

 

Old posts, but informational:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/10361-no-internet-limited-playback-options

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/22231-no-internet-no-emby-access-probably

 

Two months ago I had one week without internet and I could use the FireTV just fine. Of course when you start up the FTV nags "Home is unavailable please check your connection" but if you go into Settings>Applications>manage installed applications>Emby>launch application

Then emby starts and works exactly how it's supposed to. Of course trailers, tunein and other features won't work that require a connection.

I did buy that app though before I had premiere, so there is the possibility that this won't work if you haven't paid for the app.

 

My Plex app wouldn't work as long as have plex home activated and want to connect via one of these users. So there is a difference how this can be handled.

 

cheers

Edited August 3, 2018 by heciruam