On another site Emby vs. Plex lively discussion.

[Luke 37022]

Hi, welcome @@Mark Norville and thanks for the feedback !

[hdd113 0]

Recently Plex seems to be focused on finding a new business model and are neglecting improvements on actual app. Recent update broke the music playback on Android, and sync stability issue hasn't been fixed for years now. Playlists are now handled in a much cluttered and useless way (seriously, do you really have to have photo, movie, TV shows and music playlists all on a single screen? Come on)

I purchased a lifetime pass for Plex, but today I've decided to jump to Emby. Actually I made the decision some time ago, but I was just a bit hesitant (music playback was the threshold for me). Once the media scan is complete for my 10K+ music tracks and Emby server handles it well, I will get a lifetime pass for Emby as well. If only Emby had more polished UI and had the pagination thing fixed...

Edited February 4, 2020 by hdd113

[Luke 37022]

 

 

had the pagination thing fixed

 

No more pagination in the next release !

[hdd113 0]

No more pagination in the next release !

I just jumped gun and got the license anyway! When is the next release coming?

[Happy2Play 8252]

No more pagination in the next release !

 

 

I just jumped gun and got the license anyway! When is the next release coming?

 

I guess there real question is which next release?  The current beta 4.4+ or the next beta cycle 4.5?

[mgworek 121]

Just saw on Firecores site that they have begun working on adding Emby/jellyfin to Infuse.

 

6.4 (in progress)

• Emby/Jellyfin
•  

[Dibbes 431]

 

Just saw on Firecores site that they have begun working on adding Emby/jellyfin to Infuse.

 

6.4 (in progress)

• Emby/Jellyfin
•  

 

 

Knowing their cycle a little, that will take another 3 to 4 months seeing 6.3 only came out yesterday... think that's great though!!!

[Silentalero 5]

I agree with Plex just ignoring their fanbase, I ran EMBY and Plex side by side for a while with different OS. Found a lot of differences and there is a reason i paid for the lifetime benefits of EMBY a few days ago....

 

To start: I dont run a massive server with alot of users accessing it anymore.. and only a 32TB database on a dedicated server with IPTV.

 

Luke, the biggest thing is that you are VERY involved in your community and care about your product, that in itself deserves the $119 many times over. You devote alot of time to this, Plex got to big and public and basically ditched that notion.

 

As far as transcoding, i had nothing but issues and errors of plex telling me my Server was not powerfull enough to convert certain movies. (What a joke considering its direct connections & a quad core processor, more than enough to play a 1080p movie locally). Emby never had this issue, on top of that...the big difference is IPTV. With EMBY I can use any source and any guide. Plex limits you to its sources they say (all the commercially acceptable). Which at that point, why even bother with IPTV.

However one thing I do like is the Plex interface on Roku, I wont lie (there is a thread about it). The lack of visual options on Roku (i miss the horizontal menu) make it very boring to scroll around.

 

Also where Plex comes out a bit ahead is the Suggestion menu, for somebody like me who has 2000+ movies and 1000+ documentaries, its nice when that suggestion menu tosses up a movie i havent watched in a long time and reminds me i have it. Ive watched some good classics with that.

Overall, EMBY hands down should be anybodies choice and knowing that (while he may not implement every suggestion) Luke hears everybodies suggestion and is constantly moving that needle better for us is enough of a reason to take EMBY over Plex any day of the week.

[cutamutta 0]

For any one that is still looking for a more recent comparison, here is an article compares Plex to Emby. The article also has info on Jellyfin and Kodi.

[Spaceboy 2493]

For any one that is still looking for a more recent comparison, here is an article compares Plex to Emby. The article also has info on Jellyfin and Kodi.

personally I find it hard to take too seriously any article that ranks jellyfin alongside emby or plex. The emby/plex comparison seemed fair though

[TeamB 2352]

I don't strongly disagree with anything in that article, it is well written and reasonably well researched with a mostly objective based approach.

[C.S. 60]

I used Plex for years, and I can say the one thing that almost stopped me from switching to Emby was the lack of a simple SSL solution. I mean simple as in one-click, not simple as in just follow this 15-step tutorial, buy a domain, learn cloudflare and/or nginx, etc... If I were just slightly less technically inclined, I would likely still be limping along with Plex. I'm sure there are quite a few unhappy Plex admins out there who would like to make the switch, but they are waiting for that one-click solution.

 

Personally, now that I'm comfortable with it, I like the fact that Emby feels a little more geared toward the techie crowd - it keeps out at least some of the riff raff, but the riff raff have money too, so it might not be great for business.

[Spaceboy 2493]

I used Plex for years, and I can say the one thing that almost stopped me from switching to Emby was the lack of a simple SSL solution. I mean simple as in one-click, not simple as in just follow this 15-step tutorial, buy a domain, learn cloudflare and/or nginx, etc... If I were just slightly less technically inclined, I would likely still be limping along with Plex. I'm sure there are quite a few unhappy Plex admins out there who would like to make the switch, but they are waiting for that one-click solution.

 

Personally, now that I'm comfortable with it, I like the fact that Emby feels a little more geared toward the techie crowd - it keeps out at least some of the riff raff, but the riff raff have money too, so it might not be great for business.

i think the problem is that by its nature a one click security solution is going to require a compromise somewhere. A lot of people here would not be comfortable with the plex approach to security

[C.S. 60]

i think the problem is that by its nature a one click security solution is going to require a compromise somewhere. A lot of people here would not be comfortable with the plex approach to security

 

True, but those people would be free to continue with the Belt & Suspenders approach. The rest would be happy with a Good'nuff solution.

[darkassassin07 418]

While an easy one-click solution was something I wanted when I started in 2017,

I can definitely see why the emby team would be hesitant to add it.

 

In my case at least, port 80 can't be opened (blocked at isp level), so I have to depend on DNS01 verification. Not every dns provider allows you to set the required TXT records for that, especially the free providers. Then there's automating that process.

 

Point is there is an awfully large amount of reasons that process can fail to run that are outside of embys control, unless they move to a centralized system more on the lines of plexs public server authentication methods. Something that would get huge pushback from the community.

And when/if that cert renewal/acquisition fails, the Emby team gets blamed for it and has to figure out what about your particular setup is causing it. That adds alot of tech-support requests.

 

 

It's something that not all users need, and those of us that had no idea what we were doing got a great opportunity to dive into how the system actually works. Teaching yourself something new is alot easier with an end goal to work towards.

 

I've learned an awful lot since 2017 regarding ssl/tls, dns systems, reverse proxies, cloudflare. All things that I had no reason to look into until I needed a cert for emby (essentially the first web service I've run since srcds 10 years ago)

 

Got the initial cert setup and working with emby, but now I was interested so I continued to dig.

 

Today I host 5 http services secured through https thats handled by an nginx reverse proxy that automatically renews its own certs via DNS01 with lets encrypt and cloudflare.

Plus I frequently help others around the forums that are running into issues implementing their own setups.

[ebr 14904]

I used Plex for years, and I can say the one thing that almost stopped me from switching to Emby was the lack of a simple SSL solution. I mean simple as in one-click, not simple as in just follow this 15-step tutorial, buy a domain, learn cloudflare and/or nginx, etc... If I were just slightly less technically inclined, I would likely still be limping along with Plex. I'm sure there are quite a few unhappy Plex admins out there who would like to make the switch, but they are waiting for that one-click solution.

 

Personally, now that I'm comfortable with it, I like the fact that Emby feels a little more geared toward the techie crowd - it keeps out at least some of the riff raff, but the riff raff have money too, so it might not be great for business.

 

We do have plans to provide this but it is not an easy task because we do not work like the other guys.  We don't force you to go through our servers to get to yours.

[C.S. 60]

We do have plans to provide this but it is not an easy task because we do not work like the other guys.  We don't force you to go through our servers to get to yours.

 

And I salute you for that!

 

And if you did for whatever reason need to stand up a centralized auth system in order to implement one-click SSL, I and I believe all reasonable people would remain loyal, as long as it were an opt-in scenario.

 

Thank you for the work you all do!

[Riggs 300]

Plex is awesome! 

 

Yes, to play with your privacy, to use all your hardware resources and the same time to use the Microsoft karma "Embrace, extend, and extinguish", also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate" 

 

I can use Emby without internet, can you use Plex in the same way? No, you can't, you need be connected to Plex /trackers/telemetry servers to can use their software (not yours, doesn't matter you pay or not)

 

Do you want another monopoly?

 

Is not enough Facebook, Amazon and Google and some others?, Really? do you want to keep feeding the beast?

 

Emby is really good, but still need a lot of work for some functions and look. Working progress with some fails from the developers and their decisions (sometimes somewhat deaf to listen to the user, but not always), but we have hope.

 

Emby wins, no matter what. 

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

...

 

I can use Emby without internet, can you use Plex in the same way? No, you can't, you need be connected to Plex /trackers/telemetry servers to can use their software (not yours, doesn't matter you pay or not)

 

...

I keep reading people saying that and it is simply untrue. I can use Plex without internet with little problem. I dislike Plex for a multitude of other reasons but having problems without the internet being available is not one of the issues.

 

All you have to do to use Plex without internet is set it up to allow insecure connections on the local network. It is really not that hard.

 

Of course any of the Plex extensions that need internet will not work, like remote access or Plex provided content etc, will not work but I don't use those anyway.

 

I do not mind people bashing Plex, they very much deserve it, but I dislike seeing bashing of anything or anyone that simply is not true. It is like calling Trump stupid, he is not, he is just a sociopath with zero compassion and a belief that he is always right. I guess he IS always right in one sense of the word.(like Attila the Hun)

[darkassassin07 418]

All you have to do to use Plex without internet is set it up to allow insecure connections on the local network. It is really not that hard.

That must be somewhat new. When I was exploring plex last (before they had any 'sponsored content' or content you didn't self-host, around 2.5 years ago) your only option to login to your own server on lan was to connect to plexs public auth servers. That auth could be remembered for a very short period, but any new device or device that hasn't phoned home recently: no internet = no access to your own content.

 

Haven't actually looked at the software since I abandoned their 'ignore everyone on the forums' attitude.

Edited April 14, 2020 by darkassassin07

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

That must be somewhat new. When I was exploring plex last (before they had any 'sponsored content' or content you didn't self-host, around 2.5 years ago) your only option to login to your own server on lan was to connect to plexs public auth servers. That auth could be remembered for a very short period, but any new device or device that hasn't phoned home recently: no internet = no access to your own content.

 

Haven't actually looked at the software since I abandoned their 'ignore everyone on the forums' attitude.

Not only is it not new it has been available since Plex's inception. Once you authorize, you have to do that once to set up Plex, Plex remains accessible without internet with no problem.

 

I live in rural Tennessee and never once have I lost the ability to use Plex in at least the last eight years (I bought my Plex Pass in 2012 but I used it for some time before then) even though we frequently lose internet here although it has become better lately.

 

As I said Plex has many flaws but use without internet is not one of them.

 

As a disclaimer I should say that I NEVER turn on remote access of any form and I NEVER use any of the "special" Plex features. I turn everything off that I can except access to my local library. There could be something in those useless things that prevent Plex starting correctly if they are enabled and Plex loses internet. Also I use 192.168.xx.yyy to access my local Plex as clearly using Plex.tv would fail without internet.

 

The only clients I have that have problems without internet are my Fire TV devices. My computer, Rokus and Shield TVs work fine locally without internet.

[adrianwi 237]

Some of the Plex clients will not work at all unless they can 'phone home' so are completely useless without the internet.  Yes, you can change some server settings to allow some devices to access the server without a secure connection, but not all the apps have the ability to change this.  I wonder why?

[Riggs 300]

I keep reading people saying that and it is simply untrue. I can use Plex without internet with little problem. I dislike Plex for a multitude of other reasons but having problems without the internet being available is not one of the issues.

 

All you have to do to use Plex without internet is set it up to allow insecure connections on the local network. It is really not that hard.

 

Of course any of the Plex extensions that need internet will not work, like remote access or Plex provided content etc, will not work but I don't use those anyway.

 

I do not mind people bashing Plex, they very much deserve it, but I dislike seeing bashing of anything or anyone that simply is not true. It is like calling Trump stupid, he is not, he is just a sociopath with zero compassion and a belief that he is always right. I guess he IS always right in one sense of the word.(like Attila the Hun)

 

Sorry.

You need to play hard to can do that and "trick" your router... But if you like leave your door open, the thief's will gonna do a party on your LAN.

 

I saw that "solution" many years ago and wont work in a proper way. There's no magic in that with Plex. You need a live connection to Plex and you agreed open your legs to send your telemetry to Plex, and, in that way Plex can sold your data to any company or whatever. 

 

The information is documented on line just search a little.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

Sorry.

You need to play hard to can do that and "trick" your router... But if you like leave your door open, the thief's will gonna do a party on your LAN.

 

I saw that "solution" many years ago and wont work in a proper way. There's no magic in that with Plex. You need a live connection to Plex and you agreed open your legs to send your telemetry to Plex, and, in that way Plex can sold your data to any company or whatever. 

 

The information is documented on line just search a little.

And online sources are to be trusted,why? The fact that I CAN use Plex without internet I trust. I do not care if others believe me or not.

 

I have to perform no "tricks" on my router and I do nothing "special" at all. It just works. It is not perfect and some of my clients do not work correctly but most do.

 

Emby is easier to set up and use without internet but Plex does work for me.

 

You seem quite bitter about Plex and you may be justified but you should not so incoherently condemn others when they disagree with your premise.

 

BTW: If English is not your second or third language you need to be more coherent in your writing and if you are not a native English speaker you need to use a better translation program or post in your native language. Some of the people here actually read and write more than one language.

[cutamutta 0]

I agree with @@Gilgamesh_48. Plex can work offline (after the first setup) without internet. You can play on home network without issues. 

 

The problem is that most people do not know how to set this up properly or that it even exists. They try it once and give up thinking it does not work. There is nothing needed on the router. Just disable authentication for local network using IP/netmask format (IP/netmask.....no other format).