Emby Licensing Questions [Moving from Plex]

[KolbyG 3]

Hey there, I posted this on the Emby subreddit a couple of days ago but the mods still haven't approved the post.

I'm evaluating Emby and Jellyfin as I try to move away from Plex's enshittification of the platform. Both are running great and I'm testing each of them with myself and another couple of users. Lack of watch together is my biggest complaint so far, but I'm seeing hints on the forums that it might be coming, so we'll see. I can't drop Plex until that happens, but I may run them both for a few months anyways, hopefully that feature will be released soon.

I like Emby a bit more than Jellyfin overall, but the licensing is extremely confusing, mostly because there seems to be no way to view/track currently used "devices", and unclear information on what is considered a "device".

I'm seeing that the standard package includes 30 devices, and I've read that they drop off after 7 days. Is that always 7 days (exactly 168 hours) after being used, or is there some randomness or other factors involved?

According to the feature matrix here: https://emby.media/support/articles/Premiere-Feature-Matrix.html I'm seeing that Roku, LG/Samsung, and Apple TV are all Free for full playback. Assuming I disable Live TV server-wide, does this mean these types of clients will never count against the device limit? What if they invoke hardware transcoding once in a week, skip intros, or login via LDAP? I see some features listed under Server/All Apps that are very clearly not "device" specific, like Backup and Restore, while others like hardware transcoding, client themes, or LDAP login definitely could be.

If hardware transcoding specifically counts, when does the device drop off? 7 days after the transcode takes place? Or 7 days after last stream in general?

According to Tautulli, I've got 91 unique devices that have used my Plex server in the past 30 days, with around 60 devices in the past 7 days. Most of these are the TV platforms (which seem to be free), and most streams are NOT transcodes. Doing some basic math, even if transcodes count, I'm looking at around 28 "devices" that I would need, since TV platforms that use direct play are excluded from the count. That's very close to the 30 device limit, however another 10 or so of those devices are phones/tablets, and thus could buy the in-app unlock. Would this then exclude them from the count? What if they start a transcode?

I see there are some extended options, but there are no yearly or lifetime versions of them (anymore, it seems I missed it by around a year ). I'll consider these, but if I have to go with one of them, that definitely makes the Jellyfin option more appealing...

I'd appreciate any insight for anyone who's used the platform for a while and understands how this works.

Edited October 19, 2025 by KolbyG
additional feature clarification

[Abobader 3464]

Hello KolbyG,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  Transcoding takes place on the server entirely and is not included in the device count.

Other features such as skip intro and Cinema Intros that have options in the app, will be counted.

[KolbyG 3]

Thanks for the reply.

Is there another matrix somewhere that describes which features do and do not make the player count as a "device"?

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  There is not.  Very few of our users have any issue with the device limit.  

[muzicman0 84]

I would say I am a casual user.  I have only 6 users, but probably 5 devices in my home under my account alone.  I have never once had a device count issue.  But like I said it's not like I have a ton of remote users.

[KolbyG 3]

Thinking about this a bit more. Hypothetically, should I reach the limit, would it be possible to purchase a 2nd (or even 3rd) premiere key, and use it on a second (or third) server?

The 30 device limit may end up matching closely with what I would want the max server load to be anyways, so I was thinking it could be an option to just split the users across multiple servers, should this become an issue. Just wanting to check if there are any licensing issues with owning multiple premiere keys. I'm aware of the technical implications in doing so, this is purely a licensing question.

 

Thanks,

[darkassassin07 652]

Yes. The premier key is tied to the server. There's nothing stopping you from running several instances of the server, each with their own key.

You could even run them on the same system using docker if you wanted.

[RanmaCanada 494]

6 hours ago, KolbyG said:

Thinking about this a bit more. Hypothetically, should I reach the limit, would it be possible to purchase a 2nd (or even 3rd) premiere key, and use it on a second (or third) server?

The 30 device limit may end up matching closely with what I would want the max server load to be anyways, so I was thinking it could be an option to just split the users across multiple servers, should this become an issue. Just wanting to check if there are any licensing issues with owning multiple premiere keys. I'm aware of the technical implications in doing so, this is purely a licensing question.

 

Thanks,

You can buy more devices, but you have to pay per month, last time I checked.

https://emby.media/premiere-ext.html

[ebr 16169]

20 hours ago, KolbyG said:

Thinking about this a bit more. Hypothetically, should I reach the limit, would it be possible to purchase a 2nd (or even 3rd) premiere key, and use it on a second (or third) server?

The 30 device limit may end up matching closely with what I would want the max server load to be anyways, so I was thinking it could be an option to just split the users across multiple servers, should this become an issue. Just wanting to check if there are any licensing issues with owning multiple premiere keys. I'm aware of the technical implications in doing so, this is purely a licensing question.

 

Thanks,

Hi.  You could do this but must use different email addresses for each key.

[KolbyG 3]

Well as I thought, a couple days after telling all my family/friends about the new server I've already hit the device limit, and there's a bunch of them who haven't moved over from Plex. Annoying. I'm going to spin up a 2nd Emby server eventually, but for now, how do I purchase app unlocks on the Android apps? The button seems to be hidden because the server is running a premiere key, but I'd like to purchase it anyways so that it doesn't consume a premiere slot.
I can trim probably 10 devices by purchasing the app unlocks so I'd like to do that for now. Any ideas?

Edited December 18, 2025 by KolbyG

[ebr 16169]

1 hour ago, KolbyG said:

Well as I thought, a couple days after telling all my family/friends about the new server I've already hit the device limit, and there's a bunch of them who haven't moved over from Plex. Annoying. I'm going to spin up a 2nd Emby server eventually, but for now, how do I purchase app unlocks on the Android apps? The button seems to be hidden because the server is running a premiere key, but I'd like to purchase it anyways so that it doesn't consume a premiere slot.
I can trim probably 10 devices by purchasing the app unlocks so I'd like to do that for now. Any ideas?

Hi.  There are no longer unlocks in the apps on TV devices.  There are extended device plans, however.

[KolbyG 3]

On 12/17/2025 at 8:35 PM, ebr said:

Hi.  There are no longer unlocks in the apps on TV devices.  There are extended device plans, however.

I was looking for the phone/tablet unlocks, not TV. Do those still exist? The Premiere matrix shows that app unlock is still valid.
While there are extended plans, they are all monthly, so not really interested in that. Lifetime I'd do, and I'd consider yearly, but not monthly.

Edited December 19, 2025 by KolbyG

[Luke 42077]

@ebrcan help answer these. Thanks.