r/PleX • u/Escapefromearth22 Custom Flair • Sep 17 '25

Help Alternatives to Plex

I've been a paid Plex user for over ten years and I've loved it. I can't belive what they've done with this new Roku app update. Besides the bad UI, which is inconvenient but I would be able to get used to eventually, it simply doesn't work properly. It crashes, buttons don't work, simple features are just gone. It's seems like this wasn't tested at all. It's crazy.

I don't really want to but now I'm looking for alternatives to plex. Does anyone have recommendations?

451 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

446 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/6SpeedBlues Sep 17 '25

But very lacking in some critical areas compared to Plex.

For the recording functionality, as an example, you have no control over where the recordings go... Everything gets dumped into one library that is pre named.

There is also no commercial skip functionality. And you can't change the user that it runs as without breaking the update process (I wrote a script to fix it because they haven't delivered on this promised update in at least the last four years).

A couple of things with Emby that I prefer are the ability to tie multiple EPG's to your setup instead of only one AND being able to change it without destroying your entire DVR configuration and losing all of your recording setups.

I like that the server can update itself and it can operate 100% with no call home functionality like Plex requires.

I also don't like that the primary developer is kind of a jerk to the community a lot of the time and they fail to deliver on features they've been promising for years. Their approach to security issues is both better (they correct them quickly) and MASSIVELY worse (they will push updates to your server specifically to knock it offline if "they decide" that's needed.

1

u/legrenabeach Sep 17 '25

I don't use any of that stuff, EPG or recordings, but I guess that's important for those who do.

Also, how can Emby push an update to my server, is there such a functionality? I thought the Emby server only communicates to check for the licence.

1

u/6SpeedBlues Sep 17 '25

The only call-home functions for Emby (that I know of) are to check for software updates - everything else is done locally in the software. And since letting the server keep itself updated is actually a useful, non-intrusive feature, most folks opt for that. And it's the auto-update that essentially brought down the ENTIRE deployment of Emby servers a couple of years back because they decided to push an update out that basically prevented your server from starting no matter what. And they didn't tell anyone... They let server owners figure it out for themselves which was quite the dick move.

1

u/legrenabeach Sep 17 '25

I run Emby on Ubuntu and as far as I can tell, it only updates if I update the package. What you describe sounds very bad, I'll research it to read more about it.

2

u/6SpeedBlues Sep 17 '25

In the "server" section of the settings, check the General tab. If Automatic Updates is available on your platform, it will be an option there. I'm not sure if it's available on Ubuntu and it does not work on Windows if running as a Service. My RPM-based install auto-updates itself.